Anyone paying attention to this column knows I've dedicated plenty of thought to AOL's efforts in local, primarily via its Patch effort. Some at Patch/AOL were unhappy. Others mailed me with even more colorful complaints, or "can-you-believe-this" vignettes. So I wanted to turn the tables on myself a bit and challenge Patch to sell us on what is going right...

"We have had two conference calls in a row the last two weeks with the people at HQ excitedly talking about big ideas that are going to get us to profitability, but the ideas sound like bad ones, not to mention ones that they have already tried," said this editor, a mix of frustration and exasperation in his voice. "They are getting farther away from the hyperlocal vision and really pushing generic SEO content to try and get unique visitors..."

"I think 2013 is the year that people will begin understand that mobile advertising will soon be the premium channel for all digital advertising," says Verve Mobile's chief, Tom MacIsaac. "If you want to reach users when they are out and about, interacting with the real world, closer to the buying decision than ever before, mobile will be the preferred channel. Mobile will begin to do to online advertising what online did to print."

I recently caught up with Jeff White, the serial entrepreneur behind timeRAZOR's app. Among other things, Gravy asks users what kinds of events and experiences they are in the mood for — rather than presenting them with a menu of options...

"This whole company is hyperlocal," Kramer says when asked about Gannett's locally targeted news. "We've got 81 newspapers and 23 TV stations, all with local news operations." At the new multipurpose "breaking news" desk he is developing, editors from the flagship paper will work face to face with representatives from local papers and other Gannett media properties...

Carlos Gutierrez and and Erika Leal, founding editors of thecoolkidsguide.com, are building a city-guide-cum-entertainment-site for not only big metros but also for smaller, under-served towns (at least that's the plan). I asked Gutierrez the obvious question first: So many have come and gone; others are moving along (Patch, Yelp, Zvents, Foursquare); still others (LivingSocial, etc.) are morphing toward city guides. Why a city guide?

So what exactly is the CBS Local product for consumers, merchants and advertisers? "We are local media business that is focused on four areas: News, Sports, Music and Lifestyle content," said CBS Local Digital Media president Ezra Kucharz in an email interview. "We reach consumers online, mobile and over-the-air. Merchants and advertisers work with us to reach consumers whether on a national or local level."

Forget about the "last mile," this Cambridge, Mass.-based company plans to close the last meter, with light-based technology to target shoppers within a a few feet. Street Fight sat down with CEO Aaron Ganick after the dust had settled on their recent funding announcement to find out whether his product could change hyperlocal commerce — or if it was just technology searching for a problem...

For the past few years, social startups have been spiraling inward toward a smaller and smaller target: your neighborhood, your block. Now Patch is going all in by to leverage neighborhoods through communities of interest. But maybe neighborhoods are an artificial constructs, with borders that mean little even to those they bind. If that's the case, we need to rethink a lot more than design and tools and lessons of the past...

I think I'll forego predictions I would have made based on iterations that got us to this point in 2011. I'd rather take a broader view with some thoughts that are as much attached to the local past as to the future...