I am super bummed about this. :-(<p>I wrote some thoughts on my blog: <a href="http://www.holovaty.com/writing/rip-everyblock/" rel="nofollow">http://www.holovaty.com/writing/rip-everyblock/</a><p>Adrian (EveryBlock founder)
For anyone interested, the Knight Foundation helped fund EveryBlock with a grant that required them to open source their code. <a href="http://code.google.com/p/ebcode/" rel="nofollow">http://code.google.com/p/ebcode/</a><p>The grant required that they open source it at the end of the grant period so I wouldn't be surprised if the source code was not current but for anyone who would like to keep it alive, this would give you a major head start.<p>Also, it appears someone already did something with the source @ <a href="http://openblockproject.org/" rel="nofollow">http://openblockproject.org/</a>
Startups, please don't do this.<p>Users can become surprisingly dependent on your site, give a week warning before closing out if you can. It's not too much to ask and gives users time to prepare, move data, swap contact details, backup and such.
For all those complaining that Everyblock should have given more notice, this obviously came as a surprise to the team.<p>Just look at their blog history.<p>Exactly 1 month ago (Jan 7th), they announced [1] a new Neighborhood Ad service for Business.<p>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.<p>[1] <a href="http://blog.everyblock.com/2013/jan/07/neighbor-ads/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.everyblock.com/2013/jan/07/neighbor-ads/</a><p>Update: Fixed typo
User comment from the linked blog post found this article that gives more insight. NBC recently took full control of msnbc.com which was the parent of everyblock. I was aware of this but hadn't made the connection in this context.<p><a href="http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/203437/nbc-closes-hyperlocal-pioneer-everyblock/" rel="nofollow">http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/203437/nbc-clos...</a>
This seems like a great opportunity for someone to acquire basic contact information from those former EB power users posting on this blog entry, each of whom will likely be able to rally hundreds of former EB users to help you populate an EveryBlock clone you swiftly roll out. Your site could easily take off now that the niche is completely empty again.<p>Stop whining, start coding.
I'm really stunned by this news - I've always been inspired by what Paul and Adrian created - but I think a news organization was a misaligned parent-company for this kind of site. My "side project" has been working on something in a similar space, so I hope somebody publishes a post-mortem.<p>Truly sorry to see everyblock go.
The whole free/not-free/kinda-free issue is raised in a couple of ways in this thread. NBC mentioned the challenge of creating a business model (caveat recent advertising efforts)<p>The question I have been following (and Dan Gillmor as well) is this, "Is there a 'self supporting' model for local journalism?"<p>For that to work the revenues generated have to cover the cost of running the site. And my experience is that this has to mean both keeping the cost of running the site as low as possible as well as finding revenue. We can see by example that without such a model these sites disappear.<p>Three possible models come to mind, although I'm sure there must be more;<p>1) Visitors to the site pay for access. Historically this is challenging, but with the experience of 'free' sites vanishing due to money problems perhaps there is a core set of consumers who could create a viable market for this.<p>2) Advertisers on the site share the costs of operating it amongst themselves. This is the current model for free 'weeklys' where advertising funds are the largest revenue model. The 'value' of net advertising however is much lower than paper advertising thanks in part to Google and others. So this is made harder by that and people more easily avoiding the advertisements.<p>3) A civic fund, basically spending some of the community's tax dollars on funding a local news portal/site.<p>Given the way that everyblock got created perhaps a migration where its tax funded at first, then advertising funded later? Sort of a private/public partnership. Clearly every city has communication issues with their citizens so they could use this sort of channel to reach out to folks who don't keep flyers around (Sunnyvale for example has a flyer which says which days of the year are free for bringing in hazardous waste to the dump)<p>I certainly agree with the general sentiment that this is a useful service.
I doubt this repo is current, but the code for everyblock is open source: <a href="https://code.google.com/p/ebcode/" rel="nofollow">https://code.google.com/p/ebcode/</a><p>Also, a fork: <a href="https://github.com/openplans/openblock" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/openplans/openblock</a>
This is really too bad, this was a great site and there doesn't really seem to be anything else like it out there. I'm surprised they couldn't come up with a way to make this profitable - and the closure is pretty sudden, wonder what the back story is there.<p>My neighorhood in Chicago used this pretty extensively and it really helped keep people connected and aware of what was going on. Sad to see that go.
This is amazingly(!) ham-fisted on the part of NBC. everyblock.com was pretty vibrant from what I could tell. And being forced to shutter overnight is about as unprofessional as it gets (again, I understand this as, without a doubt, some NBC exec throwing a temper tantrum and not realizing the value of their own assets when hitting the nuke button).<p>I saw a lot of connecting going on there, in a way that is much more valuable than other social websites in that people could use it as a way to promote and share local/in the flesh resources and information and it brought a lot of value to the people who used it. That there was no warning, no way for people to reach out to others they'd like to stay in touch with after the shutdown is reckless decision making. Just a full-on, ridiculous implosion. Social capital is a real thing, and it's too bad that NBC does not consider that in their ledger.
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":<p><a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/16/3245325/5-minutes-on-the-verge-with-adrian-holovaty-founder-of-everyblock" rel="nofollow">http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/16/3245325/5-minutes-on-the-v...</a><p>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.<p>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.<p>----<p>Edit: Just one month ago, EveryBlock had developed a new form of advertising targeted at the neighborhood level:
<a href="http://blog.everyblock.com/2013/jan/07/neighbor-ads/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.everyblock.com/2013/jan/07/neighbor-ads/</a><p>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?
Everyblock was a great way to find out about what was going on in my neighborhood. I wish they had given a little more warning; I would have gone back and read some things before they closed their doors. Then again, hard to complain about such an excellent free service.<p>They lost their founder only a few months ago. I have no inside information, but I can't imagine that this is unrelated.<p>I wish the whole team the best of luck! They did a great job with Everyblock. I hope they do something else amazing soon.
Founder's been gone since August of 2012. I wish they'd given more of an explanation behind closing. As of this blogpost: <a href="http://www.holovaty.com/writing/goodbye-everyblock/" rel="nofollow">http://www.holovaty.com/writing/goodbye-everyblock/</a> it seems they were optimistic. Sad to see his writing about acquisitions within today's context.
This is disappointing news. When I found out everyblock, it was exciting. I really liked the idea and in fact, had a few ideas in my own head for something similar.<p>I really really think we need a good way to connect better with neighbors and our neighborhoods. Would love to know more details why Everyblock failed.
Does anyone have any idea what the ASCII art in the HTML of their homepage (<a href="http://everyblock.com" rel="nofollow">http://everyblock.com</a>) is meant to represent?