EveryBlock Chicago is hyperlocal website that had closed
down 2 years ago and has just relaunched on January 23, 2014. The have a blog,
as well as, Facebook and Twitter presence.
The term hyperlocal is online news or content services pertaining to a to a very small, geographically
defined community.
Their goal is to
provide a platform for specific neighborhoods and the people who live there to
share news specific to their neighborhood and to communicate with each other.
It can also be used to promote events in your neighborhood. They also provide
almost real-time information from local government such as crime reports, fire
reports, restaurant inspections, road work, sanitation, any news, basically
anything that the city government is doing to or for that particular
neighborhood.
Users can create
an account and follow their neighborhood and can also follow as many other
neighborhoods that they have interest in. Users can contribute by listing an
event or just giving a heads-up on something they think their neighbors should
know about.
EveryBlock is a combination of
many different types of local information — from public records to neighbor discussions, to photos people have taken in your
neighborhood. It also you send out messages every time your neighborhood is
mentioned in the media, whether its from the news or blogs. It also utilizes
Flickr, Yelp and Craigslist to alert to things that are relevant to that
neighborhood.
I can see this
for promoting very targeted audiences if you have a company that has an event
in a particular neighborhood. It is about relevance to where people are and its
new information which adds to the relevance.
Everyblock can be
found at: http://www.everyblock.com/
Sounds like a great site - I'll have to check it out. It sounds like technology's answer to the 'block club,' which seem to be disappearing. Thanks for the information.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn
This is great. I think it could help in so many ways. Neighbors could connect and sell, trade, help each other, etc. In addition, business and restaurants could grow by using this as well. A friend of mine in my neighborhood started a facebook group for our neighbors. I had recently just joined the town and she added me to the group. I was able to connect to so many neighbors through this. I see people asking for babysitting recommendations, lawn care services, etc. It's great to be able to connect with people so close and you rely on these people because they are your neighbors.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds interesting - kind of like a neighborhood newsletter. How did you hear about it?
ReplyDeleteI heard about it from NPR (WBEZ). They did a segment on it about their relaunch.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a nice idea. I'm in and out a lot - but rarely see any of my neighbors out - except when I have large gardening projects out front and then folks walking their dogs stop to let them socialize with Giselle. We're all so busy now, it only seems to make sense to move the neighbor community online where so many of us also spend a lot of social time! Then if something happens in the neighborhood (like neighborhood watch type of tasks) it's very easy to share information.
ReplyDelete-w
Sounds pretty neat. I never knew the term hyperlocal but I love the concept. Currently we get mailers at home for things going on the neighborhood but it is not much with the family areas in the burbs. I bet for the city it is awesome.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.