EveryBlock, a pioneering Web site for hyperlocal data-driven journalism, was shut down by its owner, NBCNews.com, on Thursday, disappointing long time fans of the site.
Hundreds of its users posted comments bemoaning the closure and wondering why it happened without warning. NBC characterized it as a hard but necessary decision, reflective of the challenges the owners of other community Web sites have faced in recent years.
“We did not take this decision lightly,†Vivian Schiller, the chief digital officer for NBC News, said in an e-mail message. Asked whether NBC considered a merger or a sale of EveryBlock, she said, “We looked at various options, both internal and external, but none of them were viable. This is tough business to make work.â€
EveryBlock, which was founded in 2007 and initially funded with a $1.1 million grant from the Knight Foundation, attempted to pull together neighborhood-level information for users in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. It ws acquired by MSNBC.com, a joint venture of NBC and Microsoft, in 2009, nurtured by the owners and allowed to remain relatively independent. When NBC and Microsoft parted ways last year, NBC turned into the sole owner of EveryBlock.
“The premise of EveryBlock was to offer you a custom site devoted to news in your neighborhood,†wrote Adrian Holovaty, the site’s founder, in a “RIP†blog post on Thursday. “We showed you nearby public records (crimes, building permits, restaurant inspections), pointed you to automatically indexed articles (newspapers, blogs, forums) and provided a sort of ‘geo-forum’ that let you talk with people who lived near you.â€
The site, in fact, was one of the first to collect big sets of data from local governments and make the data accessible to citizens, something now known as the open-data movement.
But! the Web site’s losses were considerable, and NBC evidently saw no way to change that. Ms. Schiller said in a memorandum to NBC News Digital staff members that “we didn’t see a strategic fit for EveryBlock within the portfolio.†That portfolio includes NBCNews.com (formerly known as MSNBC.com), Today.com, The Grio, and BreakingNews.com. In the spring it will restart MSNBC.com as a standalone Web site for the MSNBC cable channel.
“We will continue to support and expand in strategic areas; whether it’s a flagship like NBCNews.com, a new venture like msnbc.com, a nimble startup like Breaking News, or other businesses with big ideas,†Ms. Schiller wrote. “As we move forward, I want us to be thoughtful about how we invest, taking a hard look at where we can and should win, and how we deploy the resources to make it happen.â€
Mr. Holovaty, who exited EveryBlock last year, said h learned of NBC’s decision like its users did, through a blog post on Thursday morning.
“We’re sorry to report that EveryBlock has closed its doors,†read the post, which replaced all the existing content on the site. “It’s no secret that the news industry is in the midst of a massive change. Within the world of neighborhood news there’s an exciting pace of innovation yet increasing challenges to building a profitable business. Though EveryBlock has been able to build an engaged community over the years, we’re faced with the decision to wrap things up.â€
Complaints piled up on the blog post, with one calling the sudden shut-down “unneighborly.†“This is going to leave a major void in my desire for local news and neighborhood happenings,†another wrote.
Implicit in many of the comments was a deeper anxiety about the ability of neighborhood news sites to prosper at a time when advertising trends are not in their favor. Some users suggested an alternative site,! NextDoor.com, and others posted links to Facebook pages for particular neighborhoods, hoping to reconvene in new corners of the Web.
