A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

Google is collaborating with discount luxury network Gilt City as it looks to expand its Google Offers deals service. The partnership comes as the search giant has been adding a number of new coupon features and retailers to its mobile payments product, Google Wallet. (PaidContent)

The Guardian is testing a new hyperlocal service called “n0tice,” which is an attempt to create a publishing platform based on location — and it uses the metaphor of a community noticeboard to get there. (GigaOm)

“The future doesn’t belong to the insta-chains. It belongs to the independents,” writes The Batavian’s Howard Owens. “They are building real businesses, forging alliances in their communities, defining the future of journalism, serving their communities and building the foundation of long-term profitable businesses.” (HowardOwens.com)

One of the biggest complaints users have had about Groupon is that the deals can be of low quality. Yesterday, they launched a high-end service called Groupon Reserve that should address some of those critics. (Yipit Blog)

When it comes to leveraging deals out of the $150 billion market that is the U.S. local advertising industry, Moms and Pops want to work on a person-to-person basis, writes Rick Waghorn. “And that’s as much true of the whole over-blown daily deals market as it is of the local display ad market; people buy off people, not a machine.” (Out With a Bang)

TBD has evaluated all 51 Patch sites in the Washington D.C. metro area on a scale of 1-10 in five areas — quality of writing, breaking news, usefulness to residents, frequency of posts, and the editors’ Klout scores — and combined them using a complex, proprietary equation that resulted in a “Patch Awesomeness Score.” (TBD)

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