The future potential of hyperlocal media was demonstrated in a Lancashire village this weekend. Twicket was a project conceived by social media consultant John Popham (@johnpopham) to raise awareness of the issue of fast rural broadband.

The premise was simple: live stream a village cricket match on Bank Holiday Monday. That wouldn’t be possible in most rural locations but it is in Popham’s village, Wray, where the University of Lancashire has supplied a 30Mbps symmetrical (upload and download) internet connection.

Compare that with my Internet connection in rural Northumberland at 3Mbps download and 250kbps upload. I struggle to maintain a decent video Skype connection.

In a video on his personal web site Popham said:

“[We aimed to make the point] about the need for rural broadband and fast upload connection so that we can all create content and leave the age of passive consumption. We can all create media, but we need good connections and fast uploads.”

There’s no question that he achieved his objective. Twicket became a media event in its own right with pick-up in social and mainstream media in the UK and US, and backing from organisations including the Country Land Owners & Business Association.

Twicket, which saw a team from Wray play a rest of the world team, was streamed online on Bambuser and reached a peak audience of more than 2,700 people. Radio Youthology also broadcast live audio from the event.

Fittingly Wray won.

Popham said that he was inspired to create the project following tweets from from Dan Slee (@danslee) expressing his hopes for keeping up with a local village cricket team via twitter, and Chris Conder (@cyberdoyle) as she tested the village’s new high speed internet connection.

The typical format of hyperlocal media is a text and image based web site serving a local community. Video if used is almost always pre-recorded but Popham and his team in Wray has shown the potential to incorporate live  streams with good production techniques - providing you have a robust high speed internet connection.