EveryBlock was a network of

hyperlocal Hyperlocal (also reckoned Hyper-local) is an adjective used to describe something as being "limited to a very small geographical area", and in particular, to anything " tremely or excessively local", in particular with regard to media (commu ...

news websites that was originally founded in 2007 with a $1.1 million grant from the

Knight Foundation The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, also known as the Knight Foundation, is an American non-profit foundation that provides grants for journalism, communities, and the arts. The organization was founded as the Knight Memorial Education ...

as part of the Knight News Challenge. The founders included

Adrian Holovaty Adrian Holovaty (born 1981) is an American web developer, musician and entrepreneur from Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, living in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is co-creator of the Django (web framework), Django web framework and an advocate of "jou ...

, a well-known programmer.

History

The site launched in January 2008 in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

and was acquired by

MSNBC MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...

in 2009.

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

then acquired MSNBC in 2012 and shut down EveryBlock in 2013.

Comcast Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...

then relaunched EveryBlock in 2014. In 2018, EveryBlock was acquired by

social networking service A social networking service (SNS), or social networking site, is a type of online social media platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interest ...

Nextdoor Nextdoor Holdings, Inc. is an American company that operates a hyperlocal social networking service for neighborhoods. The company was founded in 2008 and is based in San Francisco, California. Nextdoor launched in the United States in October ...

and shut down, though Nextdoor kept the trademark. EveryBlock maps plotted a mix of commercial, government and nonprofit feeds that were

geotagged Geotagging, or GeoTagging, is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RgSSfeeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data ...

by location. Users could experience a blend of

Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...

photos, recent crime reports,

3-1-1 311 is a special telephone number supported in many communities in Canada and the United States. The number provides access to non-emergency municipal services. The number format follows the N11 code for a group of short, special-purpose local n ...

calls, permit filings, local news stories and home

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has Default (finance), stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the Collateral (finance), coll ...

s that could be viewed as a map, list or

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many ...

feed. The site eventually grew to provide local news for 19 cities, including

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

and

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

Legacy

While EveryBlock did not last as a standalone business, it was considered influential for its impact on the

open data Open data are data that are openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shareable by anyone for any purpose. Open data are generally licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-so ...

movement in local governments, and custom maps on top of

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...

. As a condition of the Knight grant, the EveryBlock

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

was made

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

. Holovaty has written that

Kevin Systrom Kevin Systrom (born December 30, 1983) is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He co-founded Instagram, along with Mike Krieger. Systrom was included on the list of America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 2016. Under Systrom as CE ...

, the CEO of

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

, had emailed him to say that he learned a lot about the Django web framework, also co-created by Holovaty, from reading the EveryBlock source code.

References

{{reflist Hyperlocal media American news websites Community websites Defunct American websites Internet properties established in 2007 Internet properties disestablished in 2018