DISQUS

Mathew's comments: EveryBlock redefines the local news

  • fredwilson · 1 year ago
    matthew - getting outside.in to canda is a priority for us
  • mathewi · 1 year ago
    I'm glad to hear that, Fred. I'd appreciate it if you could keep me in
    the loop about those plans.
  • fredwilson · 1 year ago
    I will encourage the outside.in team to do that

    fred
  • LocalHero · 1 year ago
    Personally I don't think either approach is very user friendly (everyblock or outside.in), and I am surpised for the cash outlays how much they suck

    At my project: http://localhero.biz/

    we are doing this in a much better way open way. Time will tell if the backend will scale, but as its not coisting me a cent it will only grow.
  • rod / techfold.com · 1 year ago
    Dear LocalHero: you'll find *not* slagging your competitors to be much more effective at spreading the word about your service.

    Mathew: thanks for mentioning my thoughts. One example of such a phenomenon was the EveryBlock tribeca page, which had some articles about a museum being threatened or some such thing. I'd say that the interest group for such a news item draws from a much larger catchment area than tribeca, and that given its niche nature probably has few people in any given district of the city, but a reasonably sized population overall. Point being: hyper-localization has yet to prove itself.

    You know what would be a worthy experiment? How about nyc.digg.com or sf.digg.com? You'd need the built in population of a popular social news site like digg to kickstart it, but then rock & roll.
  • mathewi · 1 year ago
    I agree, Rod. I think local Diggs (or Reddits) would be a great idea -- and
    Reddit is apparently rolling out the ability to build your own sub-Reddit.
    If I were a newspaper I would jump on that idea.
  • LocalHero · 1 year ago
    Your right Rod I should not slag my competitors or anybody.

    Although I think given their money and the free publicity from bloggers on the payroll (not you Rod), I don't think they need any pats on the back.

    Re local Digg the user base in any locality is very small so I am not sure it would reach critical mass. I am looking to add some sort of user content filtering to my site though shortly.
    http://localhero.biz/