Citizen-generated media site NowPublic has been purchased by Examiner.com, a unit of Clarity Digital Group.

Four-year-old NowPublic enables users to read and share news, all the way down to their neighborhood blocks. The deal was valued at about $25 million; NowPublic will remain an independent entity.

Internet consultant/NowPublic investor Merrill Brown called the deal one of the "indications of the inevitable restructuring of news and information."

Brown added that the web's influence has changed the shape of a number of categories, "and now it's doing it to local news."