I am super bummed about this. :-(
I wrote some thoughts on my blog: http://www.holovaty.com/writing/rip-everyblock/
Adrian (EveryBlock founder)
Farewell, neighbors
21–30 of 101 posts
Re: Farewell, neighbors
#22Startups, please don't do this. 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.
Users, please don't become highly dependent on "free" sites with no obvious or proven business model.
Why should a user know about a sites business model? To an average joe you letting me sign up and do stuff is all I know. While "giving a week" isn't a rule, it sure sounds like it might be the nicer thing to do.
You spout your answer like its the obvious and "derrr" response, but in all reality its not the users responsibility to provide longevity.
And lets face it, we (startups) would be totally f'd if users didn't become entirely dependent on our services early doors, perhaps even pre-biz model.
Re: Farewell, neighbors
#23Startups, please don't do this. 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.
Users, please don't become highly dependent on "free" sites with no obvious or proven business model.
Are we to assume that things that you pay for will offer lifetime support or sites that do charge can't shut down ?
Even if you are paying for something and the number of people paying don't cover the costs of the company its likely it won't make it.
Re: Farewell, neighbors
#24I'm curious how many of the people reading this thread have ever actually used Everyblock (and if so how often)?
I think the last time I checked it was six months ago, when Adrian left and I was curious to how the site actually looked. To my surprise, the site seemed to have thrived in appearance...the navigation had been cleaned up, more data sources had been added, and users were participating in discussions.
I signed up as a user but didn't stay around...I think the site failed to become a "sticky" place. There was not enough of the psychological reward in returning to the site/refreshing the hoomepage...the site seemed content with just delivering a raw stream of datapoints rather than filtering out key stories and weighting their importance (which is another argument for how successful Facebook has been with their Top Stories feed, even though people think they just want items in chronological order).
EveryBlock seemed very lackluster in its promotion. If I wasn't in the online news business and had been aware of the Knight News challenge, Adrian's early journalism work, or of Django, I don't think I would've ever heard of EveryBlock.
Their Twitter account had fewer than 4,000 followers, which seems incomprehensibly low for an online community news site 5-years-old. Reddit has a thriving community of city-based subreddits...there's no reason why EveryBlock's rich information shouldn't have been a staple on them, but it was hardly ever linked to:
http://www.reddit.com/domain/everyblock.com/
I wish I could offer some link examples of the things I thought EveryBlock did well, but apparently its owners see no value in its long tail archival traffic and have effectively blanked out the site.
Re: Farewell, neighbors
#25Startups, please don't do this. 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.
I totally agree. I think loose "startups" for "service", though.
Us as service creators and owners do to a certain degree have a level of responsibility to the users, I get the value exchange of users time/use us maintaining the service is enough to make some people think that the responsibility check is "balanced" but we're talking 7 days. These users invested THEIR time, confidence and love into your service, they might have (whether directly or indirectly) paid your salary.
When you can, give them some time.
Re: Farewell, neighbors
#26This 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. 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.
Where I live (northern NJ) everyone knows about and uses Patch. Even non-techy people. I'm really impressed by how quickly they've become the go-to source for local news.
Re: Farewell, neighbors
#27This concept sounds awesome, I'm saddened that I only heard about it once it was closed.
Re: Farewell, neighbors
#28Was this a Patch competitor?
Re: Farewell, neighbors
#29I'm curious how many of the people reading this thread have ever actually used Everyblock (and if so how often)?
I used it frequently--it was my main source of news about my neighborhood. Everyblock created a great forum for neighbors to come together and discuss issues pertinent to their part of the city.
Re: Farewell, neighbors
#30I am super bummed about this. :-( I wrote some thoughts on my blog: http://www.holovaty.com/writing/rip-everyblock/ Adrian (EveryBlock founder)
So where to from here Adrian?
Do you know whether the current team is staying on at NBC or are they looking for new gigs?
And it'd be interesting to hear what you and the other founders have been working on as well.