fitzroyalty

Rathdowne St Carlton, found while walking home from seeing the totally hilarious The men who stare at goats at the Nova cinema.

I’m speaking on Sunday at the Australian food and drink bloggers’ conference about the importance of place in social media, about how being social is hyperlocal. I have not spoken at a big event for some time and am excited about the opportunity and the chance to meet some interesting new colleagues and to catch up with the Melbourne food mafia.

This is the synopsis of my talk. Being social means, in part, collaborating with other social media creators. One of the obvious things food bloggers have in common is place – we review the same restaurants and go to the same markets and events in our home cities. Developing content based on places is highly relevant to audiences and good location metadata is crucial to content being easily identifiable as being about a place.

I will discuss how using comprehensive geotagging and location metadata can improve the contextual relevance of social media content and help publishers reach audiences. I will outline how the hyperlocal concept can be used as the basis for individual sites or communal aggregation sites that syndicate content about places. I will also outline some of the present and future implications for location based content, particularly for consumption via mobile devices.

Norsiah’s Kitchen on Swanston St in Carlton is evidently the most popular cheap lunch venue in the area surrounding the University of Melbourne campus judging by the queues and the impossibility of getting a seat. I chose instead to get takeaway and to sit in the park opposite enjoying my so very tender lamb, delicious chicken, rice and vegetables in garlic. So good for $6.50. Also reviewed by Melbourne gastronome, D0ublecooked and eternity4me, Norsiah’s has the potential to become a regular indulgence.

I must have missed this Ghostpatrol piece when it was first installed just off Moor St – maybe it was done while I was away. Very cute.