This week saw the launch of EveryBlock, a site that aims to answer the simple question: “What’s happening in my neighborhood?” When we first heard of EveryBlock, it reminded us a lot of Outside.in, a site we featured back in October. EveryBlock gives users local information in all its virtual forms: stories from major newspapers and community weeklies (and blogs), updates on local ordinances and zoning news, relevant Craigslist postings, crime reports, Yelp reviews, and even geotagged Flickr photos. The site is currently available for residents in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York, with information searchable by municipality, neighborhood, zip, or block.
The biggest difference we can see between Outside.in and EveryBlock is the newer site’s ability to better convey its breadth of information, thanks largely to its intuitive, Craigslist-nouveau layout (which is a bit easier to navigate than Outside.in’s).
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Both sites look like the familiar model of past dot com failures in which you end up with a whole lot of pigeon holes and no pigeons. I thought the lesson had been learned, but apparently not.
January 25th, 2008 at 8:53 pm