I love a good Google Maps mashup. I have previously talked about a Sex Offender mashup, Flights mashup, etc.
I can spot a good one when I see it and YourStreet is one of them. The concept is simple and that is what makes them attractive to me.
You can get your local news in a lot of different ways. YourStreet gives them to you as markers in a Google Map. You can just type in your city name or zip code and you will see markers popping up on Google Maps with news articles. When you click on a marker, you will see a list of relevant headlines for that location even down to the street level if there are conversations going on.
YourStreet does this by indexing local newspapers and blogs. This is an interesting visualization of local news. It also has a personalization and social aspect to it. You can sign up for an account and start a ‘conversation’. You could also add new stories to the mix.
YourStreet is a very nice concept and would love to see it grow as the service will become more relevant to smaller places with a large userbase. Also, it would be nice to see some way to narrow down the results like Sports, Politics, Entertainment, Restaurant reviews, etc.
Seeing the news articles by location in a Google Maps is cool but I am going to wait until it gains more friction to start using it regularly. I can see it being a big part of my local social life if it pans out to be what I imagine.
What do you think about YourStreet?
[via DownloadSquad]
Wow, that’s a pretty cool service, even though it couldn’t find anything interesting in my particular neighborhood 🙂
Troy.. there is no dearth of innovative ideas in this market. But, a lot services just disappear after a while because of lack of traction. It’s a catch 22 in most cases with people waiting to sign up until it gets popular.