A roundup of today's big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.... Google’s Plan to Personalize Maps Could End Public Space as We Know It (Slate)... Square Is the Shape of Things to Come, Says Jack Dorsey (Telegraph)... Why Waze Is a Hot Takeover Target (CNN/Money)...

The hyperlocal news and community site has continued to chug along, with its user base growing and traffic spiking during the fall 2012 election season. We recently caught up with the company's CEO Chris Tolles to talk about how the hyperlocal ecosystem is shaking out, how the shift to mobile is affecting publishers' CPMs, and how Topix is engaging readers with a more moderated discussion...

Since we launched Street Fight in April of last year, one question has come up again and again that we don't have a very good answer for: "How many hyperlocal news sites are currently operating in the U.S. — and is that number growing? And if it's growing, how fast is it growing?"

Galant, who co-founded Baristanet, the New Jersey network of indie hyperlocals, is leaving management of the site to take a role at Montclair State University, where she'll join "an ambitious effort to nurture digital and hyperlocal journalism in New Jersey."

With the ascent of daily deals companies, there has also been a rise of scheduling services that seek to help out local merchants that run the deals and find themselves overwhelmed by the results. Setster, one such appointment-scheduling company, has announced the release of a new API which will give daily deal providers the ability to offer integrated scheduling as part of the marketing package that they give to merchants...

Tweet A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups. PayPal Targets Small Businesses With All-in-One Tool PayPal Payments (GigaOm) PayPal is organizing its payments products for small business into one larger service called PayPal Payments that is meant to provide an array of tools for online, in-person and mobile payments. [...]

"I did not want to be mayor of my dentist's office. Why did I even check in?" read a tweet posted last week by Digital First Media's Steve Buttry. Buttry was echoing a thought that I've had a lot lately about my own habit of checking in to Foursquare: I don't know exactly why I'm checking in, or what I get out of it — yet I do it anyway, usually several times per day.

A roundup of today's big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups... Google Closing the Loop With New 'Offer Rewards' Program (Marketing Land)... Groupon Is Hiring an Army of Engineers in Silicon Valley (Business Insider)... Behind the Slowdown in Local Advertising (Media Life)...

A roundup of today's big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups... Expansion of Groupon Reserve Continues (Time)... The Golden Allure of the Yellow Pages (BusinessWeek)... CityGrid Media Announces Jason Finger as New CEO (Local Onliner)...

A roundup of today's big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups... Why Highlight Wasn’t A Breakout Success At SXSW (TechCrunch)... Glassmap’s Founders Get Clear About Online Privacy (GigaOm)... Retailers Strike Back in Mobile Wars With ... People (Ad Age)...