Inspired by a few year-end wrap-up posts on Facebook, as well as some year-end photo galleries, I figured I’d join in the fun. Here, my recap of 2009, in 20 words or less:

Introducing http://stripedbull.com

GMTI trip

Furlough(s) = Vacation(s)

Last weekend I spoke at WordCamp NYC about what we’re building out on InJersey. WordPress is the software that makes InJersey possible, and my talk focused on how we use it here, as well as how we employ BuddyPress to help build up and communicate with our network of community bloggers.

It was a great session — despite being held at 5pm, very near to the end of the day, when I imagine most attendants were more interested in getting their drink on than in learning about hyperlocal journalism. Still, I’m still flattered that we had such great attendance and such engaging questions. Thanks to everyone who turned out, and please, don’t be shy about shooting me any and all questions about how we use WordPress.

Here are the slides from my talk:

One of the things that Day 1 of WordCamp has inspired me to do is upgrade BuddyPress to the latest version. Please excuse any wonky behavior while I set out to do this in the next day.

Lately I’ve been taking on a few side projects for fun. Alright, maybe “fun” is pushing it — “challenging” is probably more apt.

The latest of these is a video I created for a site called SeeClickFix. I’ve been working with these guys a lot lately, getting up a variety of widgets and embedded maps onto the InJersey blogs (Cherry Hill, Collingswood, Flemington, Freehold, Madison, Vineland, and Somerset Hills). The maps allow you to submit reports on potholes, graffiti, and other things in your neighborhood that need fixing. What I did was create a short video for them that explains how users can also create “Watch Areas” — which in turn allow them to be notified every time somebody submits an issue in their area. This is how, say, the Public Works Dept in a town can get notified about each and every new pothole.

Just my way of saying thanks to the developers there for all the hard work they’ve been doing to get their snazzy new widgets fully compatible with InJersey and the Gannett NJ newspaper sites.

via InJersey — Blog

This last Tuesday I appeared on WordPress Weekly, an internet-based radio show, to talk about what we’re trying to do here on InJersey.com — and in general about the whole hyperlocal news trend.

It was a fun show, and I’m grateful to the host Jeff Chandler for featuring us (even if he did keep referring to me, erroneously, as Todd). Here’s a replay:

You can download the show as a podcast on iTunes here.

November is shaping up to have a slew of big hyperlocal events. After launching InJersey and attempting to pilot Gannett NJ’s efforts in this arena, I’m going to try to make to all of these. Of course, given that it seems there’s a new event every few days, it’ll be challenging. At some point next month, I’m going to have to actually try to work.

Anyway, here are the biggies on my list:

• Nov. 9 – New Media Women Entrepreneurs, Washington D.C.: A day-long gathering of blockbuster speakers, all of them women, and almost all of them working on hyperlocal news sites. Although I may not be able to make it to D.C. for the event, I’d particularly love to hear Debbie Galant, of Baristanet.com, and Lisa Williams, of Placeblogger.com.

• Nov. 11 – Hypercamp, NYC: This is one I absolutely won’t miss. I’ve been working with Jeff Jarvis and his team at CUNY (“New Business Models for News”) to set up a day-long event devoted to how to improve the quality of hyperlocal news sites, and also how to monetize them once they’re built. Should be an amazing lineup of speakers, including Jarvis himself.

• Nov. 14-15 – WordCamp NYC: While not technically hyperlocal, since InJersey is all built on WordPress MU and BuddyPress, as are most of the blog-based hyperlocal sites out there, this is going to be a very important event for me. It’s arguably the biggest and best WordCamp event outside of the San Fran one.

• Nov. 18 – Citizen Journalism Conference, Monmouth U, West Long Branch, NJ: I’m scheduled to speak at this free half-day event being put on by the Citizens Campaign, a non-profit aiming to help promote citizen journalism and civic engagement. My panel’s discussion: “The New Media Climate: How the internet is transforming journalism and its impact on local government & politics.”

Should be a wild couple weeks. If you’re planning to go to any of these as well, drop me an email and let me know.