Say Hello to the New Everyblock

By Chuck Sudo in News on Mar 22, 2011 7:40PM

Everyblock, the website that takes hyperlocal news to its block-by-block conclusion, launched a full-on redesign. Founder Adrian Holovaty explains the methods to his madness in a blog post.

Holovaty and his crew have shifted the focus of Everyblock to more active community participation, as opposed to just being a website to go to occasionally to find out why gunshots were fired in your neighborhood or look up pending business and liquor licenses. They've also adapted some social media trends into the redesign. You can "follow" specific places, rate the usefulness of additions of user contributions and receive e-mail notices from other users when they've responded to something you've left, like a contribution of your own or a comment.

If it seems as though Holovaty and company have adapted some elements of Facebook to the Everyblock redesign, you wouldn't be wrong. But, as Holovaty notes, they aren't playing follow the leader here. "If you want to follow your neighbor's personal life, friend her on Facebook," he writes. "If you want to talk about neighborhood issues, use EveryBlock."