After years of updating, the ArborUpdate crew is taking a break. It may be temporary, it may be permanent, but for now the ArborUpdate sign is flipped to “closed.”

At the moment hyper-local sites tend to be filled with discussions of town fetes and the next music night at the village pub. It may be, says Roland Bryan of Associated, that this is the equivalent of small talk at a cocktail party, and that people will eventually get down to local politics. Or they may not. As local newspapers fail, we may learn that their real value was less as a check on politicians than simply as a forum for casual conversation—a place where a town can talk to itself.

Vic is awesome.

Area fishwrap interviews all four of its loyal readers.

"The absolute lack of specifics from Dearing as to what content goals the site will pursue makes me very, very nervous. If users will be able to get the same exact content on MLive, which they're already conditioned to go to, why would they go to AnnArbor.com? When asked that question, Dearing offered up a vague non-answer about better use of video. It should have been an easy question to answer."

"I cringed at quoting Jeff Jarvis in the AnnArbor.com story. Jarvis' opinion completely biased because he consulted on the new project (and was properly identified as doing so). He also used to run Internet strategy for Advance/Newhouse, which was pointedly not noted in the story. Put simply, Jarvis was a key part of the centralized approach to the Internet that discarded decades-old brands like the Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Newark Star-Ledger for Cleveland.com and NJ.com. He's part of the philosophy and hierarchy behind a system that always kept the Internet folks away from the newspaper folks. If you're going to quote Jeff Jarvis at all, you have to ask this: Why should you be involved in any project like this, given the struggles of Newhouse newspapers on the web?"

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

"Like Star Magazine, only the people in it aren't rich, they aren't beautiful, they certainly aren't popular, and the most interesting thing they've done in the last 48 hours is add the True or False application."

About friggin time! The UI for selecting categories is kind of broken, and the feeds omit the actual resource link(s).

"Both MSNBC and Fox News devoted more coverage to Anna Nicole Smith -- three weeks after her death on Feb. 8 -- than they did to the multiple developments involving the neglect and deplorable conditions at Walter Reed military hospital."

I do not drink... wine

Your BBC World News headlines atwitter.

Daylife topic page for Mary Sue Coleman (U-M president).

Daylife topic page for Michigan.

Daylife topic page for Ypsilanti.

Daylife topic page for Ann Arbor.

"...is a social community aimed at news junkies and politically interested surfers." Threaded discussions alongside news stories, some interesting concepts at work, but not a tool for me.

"WEEKLY UPDATES ON RESEARCH-BASED EDUCATION AND OUTREACH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SCHOOL OF INFORMATION AND COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING." Yes, they are shouting.

Read "The Hotline" via University Libraries -- awesome.

PEP implemented in 2.5.

PEP implemented in 2.5.

PEP implemented in 2.5.

Arborblogger / Daily online editor Eston Bond gets to soapbox about their recent (and very nice!) cleanup.

"The creature has been at least partially revealed in all his slime-covered yet oddly majestic glory, allowing us to learn much more about the mysteries of his existence."

Pretty cool, but not going to beat Alterslash in a fight.