Comments on: EveryBlock redefines the local news

By: LocalHero

LocalHero — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 08:14:21 +0000

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/

By: mathewi

mathewi — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:15:02 +0000

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.

By: rod / techfold.com

rod / techfold.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:41:10 +0000

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.

By: LocalHero

LocalHero — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:38:16 +0000

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.

By: fredwilson

fredwilson — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:42:02 +0000

I will encourage the outside.in team to do that

fred