14 DAY TRIAL // MSNBC.com, a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal, is ready to take the news down to city blocks, following the acquisition of EveryBlock. Barely one and a half years old, EveryBlock is a web destination designed to offer users news feeds for every city block in no less than 15 cities across the US. Put together with financial resources from a two-year grant (July 2007 - July 2009) from The Knight Foundation, EveryBlock was about to join the rest of the online journalistic organizations with funding problems. In this regard, the MSNBC.com acquisition came as a breath of fresh air for the website, which now has the resources to carry on.
"EveryBlock's talented team has a track record of innovation in the industry and we're excited to add them to the msnbc.com brand family," explained Charlie Tillinghast, president of msnbc.com. "They've broken new ground with their unique approach to collecting, organizing and presenting news down to the block level. Their impact and importance in the community space is extremely valuable and carries promise for journalism and new business models."
At this point in time, EveryBlock covers news specifically tailored to residents of the following cities: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Washington, D.C. The best microlocal news website will not be swallowed into MSNBC.com, but will continue to operate independently with content available from the same online domain. At the same time, MSNBC.com has hired the entire existing team that was running EveryBlock, which will continue to be responsible for the website’s strategy and implementation.
"Joining with msnbc.com gives us the resources to turn EveryBlock from a cool, useful service into something much bigger," added Adrian Holovaty, founder of EveryBlock. "Just wait until you see what we're cooking up."