Ever wanted to buy a house, but weren’t sure about the vibe of the street it was on?
Streetadvisor.com—based in Melbourne, Australia—just launched a site that lets people comment on, and find information about, streets in their neighborhood. If you’re buying or renting a home, Streetadvisor may become a place worth checking out. The site is young, however, and the sparse amount of data input inhibits its usefulness.
People can explore streets based on criteria such as vibe (including things like nightlife, dining, neighborly spirit, etc), cell phone reception, health (including traffic, safety) and value (housing, rental prices). There are 22 criteria. See screenshot below of an example of James Ave, in Redwood City, Ca. Users can upload everything from reviews to videos, and communicate with neighbors on the aptly-named StreetBoard (see example). Google Maps allow users to visually explore surrounding neighborhoods.
We had a chance to play around with the site. The simple user interface makes the site fun to use. If StreetAdvisor.com can achieve a critical mass of users, this is a compelling offering to both consumers and marketers. In four to six weeks, the company plans to let advertisers target local streets throughout the site.
Leading real estate sites like Zillow, Trulia and Yahoo don’t have this street commenting feature. But it adds to other sites, such as FundRace, that let you see whether your neighbors donated to Republican or Democrat politicians.
Streetadvisor hopes to spur viral marketing, but also plans to invest in direct mail and local newspaper advertising • in order to attract the masses of input it needs to succeed..
Streetadvisor.com was founded by brothers Adam and Jason Spencer. The company is backed by an undisclosed amount of seed funding and is currently concentrating on serving the US, UK, Canada and Australia markets.
Michael Foroobar is a VentureBeat contributing author
Tags: co:streetadvisor5 Comments
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Tom said:
I searched for a half dozen streets and while the interface was nice, I got no info. How many users are going to give up on this site before it ever gets off the ground? It would have been better for them to focus on one city and seed that with information so users could get something out of it.
Another big mistake is focusing on the street level - seems to me you’re never going to get enough data for each street to have a good user experience. And they are focusing on the entire US, UK, Canada and Australia at the same time? They are spreading themselves too thin.
A good idea, but not a good implementation!
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greendrake said:
Good points Tom. If they can keep their run-rate low “enough”, they certainly built the system to contain lots of data. What’s to stop them from picking 4 large cities in each of their target regions and focusing on them? There is still not a site for this kind of info that is any good. Craigslist is still the best site for localized services.
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Adam Spencer said:
Hi guys, thanks for all the great feedback on StreetAdvisor.
Tom, you make some excellent points. We understand it is going to take a while to get traction with StreetAdvisor…but the good thing is, we are here for the long haul.
A few people have mentioned the limited content on StreetAdvisor, but that’s the whole point of coming out into the world now. Being in private beta (for the past 2 months) was all about getting the site up to scratch to make the site work, be user friendly and fun, and we seem to have succeeded on that front.
NOW it’s up to you to write about the street you live in. We like to think that everyone is an expert on where they live, have lived or visited. The great thing about StreetAdvisor is that we know every person is an authority in where they live. Yes, Tom YOU are an expert on where you live, and that information is invaluable to others out there. I’d like to think if I was an expert on something, I’d like to tell the world about it…and so far, from the number of reviews we have gotten in the past 24 hours, others seem to agree with me. We want StreetAdvisor to be driven by the people, by those who love or don’t love their streets. In the end, everyone wins, because next time you are looking for somewhere to live, wouldn’t you want to know what the street is like?
In regards to being too granular, we think this is one of our biggest strengths. We know its going to be a challenge drilling down on the street to find this information, but wouldn’t it be great to know how the noise levels, neighborly spirit and cell phone reception is…not at the neighborhood level, but at the street level? This kind of information is simply not out there, and we really want to capture it, so that everyone can benefit.
Thanks again guys, keep the comments coming!
Adam Spencer
StreetAdvisor CEO. -
Ruth La said:
StrretAdvisor seems like a great concept! Thanks for the information.
Ruth in Baltimore
