Meeting Adrian Holovaty, the Brains Behind EveryBlock

Likely seen in your neck of the woods this week, even if it wasn't very helpful to you wherever you are, was the launch of EveryBlock, a website designed to gather stories and generate all kinds of data on particular areas of your city, down to the very block you live on. Created by Adrian Holovaty, who also built the incredible ChicagoCrime.org site, it's a pretty remarkable project. If you haven't seen it already, go check it out. You'll wind up spending a lot of time with it, particularly if you live in Chicago, New York or San Francisco, the first three cities it launched in. Found by way of Torrez, Poynter Online thinks it's "the beginning of something big" and got a chance to talk to Holovaty about the project in this interview. Here's a bit: Tompkins: You have said that you didn't consider EveryBlock to be a competitor to traditional media. Why do you say that when everybody is competing for eyeballs and time? Holovaty:Well, under that definition, YouTube, MySpace and, heck, all Web sites, are competitors to traditional media. I don't consider EveryBlock a competitor to traditional news outlets because we only include news that has to do with specific, granular locations -- not citywide, statewide or nationwide news. On EveryBlock, you'll find out when your local pizza place is inspected, but you won't find an analysis of the mayoral budget or Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics (unless they plan to build a stadium near your house). With this in mind, I see EveryBlock as being quite complementary to traditional news organizations.

Fishbowl

Meeting Adrian Holovaty, the Brains Behind EveryBlock

Steve Delahoyde

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