I'll be part of a panel on hyperlocal news blogging at Saturday's Digital Journalism Camp Portland.

Hyper-local news: What works and what doesn’t

• Cornelius Swart, editor, Portland Sentinel

• Ken Aaron, NeighborhoodNotes.com

• Justin Carder, Neighborlogs

• Moderator: Michelle V. Rafter, journalist

You can follow the conference action on this feed page. If you are coming to this post after hearing what I had to say in the session, the links below are background that shape my opinions. If you are coming to this page before the session, see you on Saturday!

What works and what doesn't

1. Be part of a local ad network even if it's a partnership between only two sites.
2. Create a respected news and information site in your community and reach out to advertisers who want to associate their message with this resource.
3. Learn from respected, brilliant, handsome pioneers :)
4. Start a site in Portland.
5. Find solutions so you can do these 7 things a hyperlocal skeptic says you can't:
   o Limit your geographic area
   o Be a journalist or self educate quickly
   o Work extremely long hours seven days a week.
   o Master multiple tasks such as writing, photography, video, sales, and promotion.
   o Sustain this effort for several years without making a profit
   o Rally the community around your site to garner public support, cooperation and more importantly, contribution
   o Maintain your health since everything rests on you
6. Experiment with wacky things like a print edition.
7. Don't be like Google. Encourage your advertisers to think of themselves as supporters of the site and to care more about brand and awareness than click-thru.
8. Make sure your site has these 10 things. If it doesn't register for the Neighborlogs beta.
9. Don't worry about getting low value traffic from the local big media.
10. Don't think you have to be the NYT to have a great hyperlocal platform.
11. Do go up against giants and don't be afraid to build things that are 'already done.'
12. Have self-serve advertising.
13. Tweet about your news and information and cover your community in Tweets as well as on your site.
14. Use Twitter as your news scanner.
15. Prepare yourself for how little a 'hood blogger makes when getting started. And in year two. And three...
16. Don't put these 4 posts on your site.
17. Figure out how to take a vacation and keep your site useful and alive.
18. Make friends with great videographers.
19. Do a good job at noon on Tuesdays.
20. Don't be afraid of the big guys.