Comments on: Streetadvisor, offering user-generated street reputations

By: Ruth La

Ruth La — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:05:15 +0000

StrretAdvisor seems like a great concept! Thanks for the information.

Ruth in Baltimore

By: Adam Spencer

Adam Spencer — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 04:13:23 +0000

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 StreetAdvisorâ€¦but the good thing is, we are here for the long haul.

A few people have mentioned the limited content on StreetAdvisor, but thatâ€™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 itâ€™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. Iâ€™d like to think if I was an expert on something, Iâ€™d like to tell the world about itâ€¦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 donâ€™t love their streets. In the end, everyone wins, because next time you are looking for somewhere to live, wouldnâ€™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 wouldnâ€™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.

By: greendrake

greendrake — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 23:39:29 +0000

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.

By: Samir

Samir — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 18:12:59 +0000

I think Fatdoor is trying to do the same thing.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 16:52:59 +0000

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!