An online news start-up is going where Google (GOOG) and other giants haven’t: sharing revenue with the people who write the news.

Fwix, a one-year-old start-up backed by BlueRun Ventures, is one of a growing number of portals for “hyperlocal” news, a buzzword that refers to sites about schools, culture, gossip and other information on a neighborhood level. Other hyperlocal aggregators include Outside.In and EveryBlock. Some, like Patch, have their own staff, while others, like Fwix, mostly organize news written by bloggers and community members.

Now Fwix is launching a new advertising product, AdWire, and agreeing to split revenue with the people who write the local information, laying down the gauntlet against big news aggregators from Google on down.

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Hey, guys, news flash: Twitter is good for something.

This morning, I crawled out of bed and headed to the kitchen to make coffee, but upon turning on the faucet, I noticed that the water flowing out of it was a sketchy brown shade. Not good–especially since New York is one of those cities that prides itself on having a water purification infrastructure so advanced that you can drink right out of the tap.

My roommates weren’t around. My landlord had no idea what was up. And an hour later, the water wasn’t back to normal. So in an attempt to find an answer to my most important question (”When can I take a shower?”), I turned to the Web.

All things “hyperlocal” were irritating the heck out of me. I found nothing on Outside.in or its neighborhood aggregator ilk, or on city blogs like Gothamist. Consequently, I posted a Twitter message saying I thought there was rust in my tap water.

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