14 DAY TRIAL // If it's not real time it's local content. Hot trends drive the Internet more than anything else and one area that has seen increased attention from most big players especially in the acquisition front is local content. The latest move in the local content market has Msnbc.com acquiring EveryBlock, a Chicago-based hyper-local news feeds site. The financial details of the deal weren't disclosed but the sum is believed to be around several million dollars.
“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,” Charlie Tillinghast, Msnbc.com president, said. “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.”
“Joining with msnbc.com gives us the resources to turn EveryBlock from a cool, useful service into something much bigger,” Adrian Holovaty, founder of EveryBlock, said.
EveryBlock is a hyper-local news aggregator bringing in very localized feeds from several sources like blogs in the area, Flickr, Yelp, Craigslist but also other publicly available data like crime records or restaurant inspections. Users enter their ZIP code or address and the site provides them with feeds specific to that location. It is currently available for 15 US cities like New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles and, of course, Chicago where the site is based.
EveryBlock was funded by a $1.1 million grant from the Knight Foundation, which ended in June. The team will continue to work at its current location but they will be Msnbc employees. The site will continue to operate independently but some of the features will be integrated into Msnbc.com opening up the service to a potentially huge audience. Msnbc is a joint venture between the General Electric media division NBC Universal and Microsoft. Earlier this year AOL made a similar acquisition with Patch, a localized news and content site.