Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are now an established part of daily life for many people and increasingly are being viewed by politicians, local authorities and public agencies as a way to reach people who aren’t actively involved in local democracy and decision making. Facebook and its counterparts were utilised by councils, residents and the third sector during the Mayor of London’s recent Help a London Park campaign. Over 20 Facebook pages were set up, some with over 1,000 members, to canvass votes for local parks to be awarded one of 10 £400,000 improvement grants.

Through our work on neighbourhoods and community empowerment, the role of online social networking and other 'web 2.0' applications at the very local level has emerged as an area that needs more exploration. Supported by CLG’s Empowerment Fund, the Young Foundation is embarking on Local 2.0, a new programme of practical work on hyper-local or 'neighbourhood media' – meaning internet and mobile services that connect users with the people and neighbourhoods they live and work in.

We are working with Kirklees Council, King's Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea on this project.

This programme aims to strengthen the role of communities and local organisations in neighbourhood-based web media, by:

• developing easily useable and sustainable web templates and platforms for community organisations to use and adapt to local needs
• working intensively with communities in two areas to pilot new ways to combine services and engagement by using online tools
• spreading awareness of existing and emerging platforms, tools and good practice among councils, public agencies and community organisations
• linking pioneering projects together through real and virtual networks, to share learning and enable them to support each other, potentially through the creation of a federation of community web projects.

In collaboration with the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) and the Local Government Association (LGA), the Young Foundation have published the paper, Joining the Conversation: an introduction to neighbourhood media, which provides an overview of hyper-local uses of the internet and how they can be useful to local government. The paper can be download here.

The CLG Empowerment Fund is also funding Uprising.