The Los Angeles Times…the Miami Herald…My Ballard? The local site covering a neighborhood in Seattle beat out much better-known competition to take home the first-ever Online Journalism Award for community collaboration.

My Ballard is one of five neighborhood news sites in a hyperlocal network in Seattle called Next Door Media, which was founded by Kate Bergman and Cory Bergman, "two longtime local television news executives who are striving to create a new sustainable model of local news," the company said.

The judges said:

My Ballard is exactly what newspapers are trying to do with hyperlocal content. And these guys do it. There was no site that fulfills the sense of community collaboration better. It's the literal definition of the category.