The EveryBlock team, led by Adrian Holovaty, wrote about their hyperlocal news site, its features and its source code release.
HN commenters link it around the shutdown by NBC, noting its 2009 sale to MSNBC, a recent ad launch and the earlier release of its source code.
What a shame. Six months ago when Adrian Holovaty left, he told The Verge that he saw EveryBlock living for a "long, long time" and that MSNBC.com were "taking the long view on it":
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/16/3245325/5-minutes-on-the-verge-with-adrian-holovaty-founder-of-everyblock
And there was little reason to doubt him...I didn't use EB very much but it was an incredibly well executed site, in terms of its mapping and data-aggregation...it obviously lacked a strong editorial focus, but that was ostensibly something that MSNBC would've brought to it.
Another thing to note: it's relatively routine to bash online startups who give less than two months warning that they're closing shop and taking all their data with them (either through a buyout or failure)...EveryBlock's owners, apparently, didn't think a day's notice was needed. Was there really no middle ground between immediate shutdown and keeping the site in low-maintenance mode? It's not like those maps and geodata go out of date quickly.
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Edit: Just one month ago, EveryBlock had developed a new form of advertising targeted at the neighborhood level:
http://blog.everyblock.com/2013/jan/07/neighbor-ads/
I understand that a new ad service isn't just free money, per se (you need a sales staff, or at least a tech person to manage the system)...but shouldn't they wait more than 30 days to see if that is a promising, maintainable form of revenue?
For all those complaining that Everyblock should have given more notice, this obviously came as a surprise to the team.
Just look at their blog history.
Exactly 1 month ago (Jan 7th), they announced [1] a new Neighborhood Ad service for Business.
People don't announce new paying services and then completely shut the doors 4 weeks later unless someone way up the NBC management chain axed this unexpectedly.
[1] http://blog.everyblock.com/2013/jan/07/neighbor-ads/
Update: Fixed typo
I've seen the video, and I am a programmer.
I understand the power of EB comes from the code that allows it to aggregate, sift and categorize data.
My point is that what makes that data useful is the interface with which people interact with the data.
Look at the interface differences between day one and day 365 - http://blog.everyblock.com/2009/jan/23/oneyear/. UI/UX design is not easy, and it's a challenge for most developers.
> Startups, please don't do this.
EveryBlock was acquired by MSNBC in 2009, and NBCUniversal took full control of MSNBC in 2012. NBC which has now decided to shut EB down effective immediately and little to no warning even to everyblock itself (they launched a new service exactly a month ago: http://blog.everyblock.com/2013/jan/07/neighbor-ads/).
Not exactly a startup, or a startup problem.
EveryBlock already sold to MSNBC. Based on Adrian's note about trying to keep the site alive (http://blog.everyblock.com/2009/aug/17/acquisition/), I have to assume it was a buy/hire.
Good catch. Here it is now, as I'm sure you've noticed:
http://blog.everyblock.com/2009/jun/30/source/
=>
http://www.everyblock.com/code/