StreetAdvisor will today launch a range of new upgrades that will give homeowners, renters, and buyers a more complete picture of where they could live.
The new StreetAdvisor provides a real-life “insider” view that provides users the ability to learn and share vital details about where they live, including noise levels, traffic, neighbors, entertainment, and public services in a similar way to travel review sites. Recommendations and negative experiences about local businesses, entertainment and services will also be supported.
StreetAdvisor’s street based reviews have been expanded to include cities, states, and countries.
Upgraded guidebooks now include four broad categories with the ability to create additional topics in a similar fashion to a Wiki.
Other new features include a member recognition system, “local expert program” and StreetAdvisor Billboards, a service that offers the ability to secure exclusive “run-of-street” advertising opportunities on a per city basis.
The site is currently in public beta and offers coverage for the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
Previous TechCrunch coverage here.
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so essentially a google maps and a rating system mashup?
snore
Nice work. Especially for college students trying to find a place to rent in another city (San Diego yesss!)
@ jj: snore? as if!
I remember reading about this site when they first opened (via the link above which ducan provided) and thought that this place has the potential to either go no where or do really well.
I’ve only had a quick look but i love the new sections they’ve opened up. As a student and just about to get married, the info on this place will be valuable when the content all comes in.
Yet another site with a chicken and egg problem of needing a lot of contributing users to be actually useful… Looking at their Compete and Quantcast numbers, their last TechCrunch coverage didn’t help them much. How are they planning to get that traction if there are already hugely active sites with local information, such as city-data.com/forum/ or Yahoo! Local for business reviews?
So this is essentially Yelp but for housing/neighborhood market????
@Jason: it’s not aimed at local business reviews (ie. your Yahoo! Local comment). Other sites do that. This is aimed at the street home/community level. the business stuff is a very minor part that helps define the area .. but it’s not targetted at business reviews (ie. Y3lp etc). Different target market.
I agree though -> chick and egg. Then again, EVERY website has that .. unless you’re lame (like F4t d00r) and purchase your content OR pay per content … which is bad form imo. If a site gets traction after time, then they have prooved their business model.
Classic case -> YouTube. They were tiny for so long before the traction picked up. Typical success story for a website IMO.
@ Coling C: Yeah … it’s like that a bit.
Simon - I think you picked the wrong example with YouTube - they grew explosively almost right from the start. I’m not sure where you got the info that they were tiny for long… Also, there weren’t any big established user-video sharing sites when YouTube started. City-data.com and several other sites have had very large user communities and a lot of local information for years in StreetAdvisor’s market, so any new entrants have a huge hill to climb. If I was to place a bet, I’d say deadpool by the end of the year.
I want 2 say that this is simply a bad Test.
*Ahem* I think Denmark is featured as well. Courtesy of yours truly
The Compete figures for Streetadvisor can be seen here:
http://frostfirebuzz.com/stree.....ny-traffic
They need to spend the money to reach critical mass or sell the site to a real estate company.
They can’s go on like they are with little data and few users.
Chris @ frostfirebuzz.com
This is great product that will enhance the experience of purchasing a home.
Buyers want all the statistics and local details and this product give it to them.
I want to see this used for more of a favorites shopping-spree device on a global scale. I can see something like this being the catalyst for people who want to shop all over the world from a map and then have these places saved as favorites. I see this really being the tool to bring the e-commerce sites to the brick and mortar retail shops.
I got crazy ideas for this baby!!
BeingParents, you’re a really sucky spammer.
“$subject is the best thing ever! (Visit my website!)”
Thanks for adding this same insight to so many topics. Spamming is wrong. Won’t you think of the children?
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This is good for the real estate business. The next step could be the implementation of community features.
Hi guys,
At StreetAdvisor our long term goal is provide people with information about what it is like to live in a particular street. With these new features, we extend beyond that to provide people with the information about what it is like to live ANYWHERE, whether that be the street level, city level, state level etc.
The chicken and egg problem is something that all websites must go through. Rest assured though we understand that it’s going to take a while to reach our ultimate goal. Fortunately for everyone, StreetAdvisor isn’t going to disappear anytime soon
In regards to your comments:
jj: I urge you to use the site and discover some of the new features on the site. Our new local expert program rewards you for your expert knowledge with exposure, and very soon…PRIZES!!
Simon: You’re spot on! Being able to find a suitable street\area to live in is exactly what StreetAdvisor is all about. CONGRATS on getting married soon as well, best of luck!
Jason: Generating content is king for us, but as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. All sites take time, and StreetAdvisor is definitely here for the LONG TERM. We do have a number of partnership in the works at the moment, and we have a large number of sponsorships for conferences planned over the next 12-24 months. For consumers, our local expert program offers incentive in itself, and as I have previously said, we are going to offer up some pretty special prizes surrounding the program. Stay tuned!!
FrostFireBuzz: Interesting you mention real estate, we are in fact sponsoring and demoing at the Real Estate Connect SF 2007 conference here in San Francisco. If you are in town, come check us out!
Richard: Absolutely, this release has some pretty nice features for the Real Estate crowd. We understand real estate agents have a lot of local untapped knowledge, and with these new features, we are hoping to provide incentives to help build even further the StreetAdvisor community.
Keep the comments coming guys!!
Adam Spencer
Co-Founder & Co-CEO
StreetAdvisor
hi Adam, how about liability if I want to say how god-awful my neighbors are to live next to??? that’s pretty street level
Interesting… any partnerships with like minded web 2.0 companies (trulia, yelp, etc…) ?
Can’t help but to ask about your plans for monetization.
This could be quite useful. I gave it a quick test, but I suppose my test address was in a “bad neighborhood”, so it did not find it:
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC
Hi guys,
Amy: we encourage conversation on StreetAdvisor as it is a 100% user generated content site. Ultimately people are responsible for their contributions, and we do have a strict terms of use policy surrounding abuse of the system. StreetAdvisor is bringing people’s opinions to the forefront about where they live, and we think that is a great thing.
Juessica: Partnerships are in the works…Stay tuned
And we also just launched our StreetAdvisor Billboards program which is our custom built advertising platform.
Zoli: Ultimately if you can’t find a street (on very rare occasions), you can click on it on the map interface and it will take you to your street’s page. We have reverse Geo-coding built into the site! But thanks for the user feedback, ill get the dev guys to check it out
Here is the link:
http://www.streetadvisor.com/s.....fault.aspx
ENJOY!!
I would have loved to use something like this when buying - if I’d known my neighbor was a total gearhead working on cars all day and setting off alarms in the middle of the night, I would have thought thrice.
Renee: this is exactly the kind of information we are trying to unlock! Some of the reviews and conversations to date have been very exciting for us as people are using StreetAdvisor as a tool to research were to live. We do encourage people to contribute to the site and review their street…after it is 100% free, and helps everyone!!
So this will either lead to lying about how great your neighborhood is, or lowering your property value?
Hi Chris,
We believe it will lead to people being able to make better informed decisions about where they would like to live. Remember a lot of the content on StreetAdvisor is information…not negative….not positive. It is just information, and people have different preferences and look at the information in different ways. eg some people like really active and busy streets, others don’t.
Adam.
I think I like Zillow better.
@Zoli Erdos: the white house search worked for me. did u spell Pennsylvania wrong?
edit: doh! adam beat me to it with a link.
This is the first startup in the real estate industry that makes any sense, and that makes good use of applied map technology. It is unfortunate for StreetAdvisor that their interface designs seems to have been inspired by the useless other real estate startups, but, other than that, a fantastic site. I think StreetAdvisor is also the first site in the real estate sector to successfully plug into Web 2.0.
Nick
Have you ever seen http://www.zillow.com, this site is pretty cool as it benchmarks values of homes and offers a home “zestimate.” I just bought and sold a place and they 100% accurate. I think zillow plus the enhanced features of street advisor has something very compelling and fresh for the real estate industry.