EveryBlock is going away!

Bye-Bye

This is such a surprise, EveryBlock has been something utilized on this blog over the years. We were even an EveryBlock publisher and traffic from there has been responsible for some of our pageviews over the years. And now its going bye-bye essentially encouraging users to sign up for Nextdoor. The site will go dark on July 19th!

Perhaps Worlee knows this better than I do, Comcast is an investor in Nextdoor. It owns EveryBlock and shut it down once to bring it back and now it's going bye-bye again! And just think Comcast is another major corporation that not only provides a cable TV service, they do internet, phone and now cable and broadcast networks as well as a film studio. Just like many corporations do these days they just readjust and sometimes this means that somewhat familiar brands are going by the way side.

What had been popular with a number of local blogs was utilizing a widget provided by EveryBlock which we operated on our "Blotter" page since the widget - at least the original one - was first created in 2010-2011. We used to communicate with someone from EveryBlock looking for feedback on the widget and other things company related and of course this was before the takeover by Comcast.

So it looks like we won't have a "Blotter" page anymore. I would wonder if any EveryBlock features will carry over to Nextdoor. Nextdoor I could treat as similar to those old fashioned internet forums that now with the advent of social media just aren't as popular as they used to be. This means perhaps the features that I liked about EveryBlock probably won't carry over and that's a bummer!

RIP EveryBlock!

BGA live chat with Rahm Emanuel

According to an e-mail from the GCA you should submit your questions to Mayor Emanuel by Wednesday morning at 9:30 AM and with the added instruction that you note the neighborhood where you reside if you choose to ask a question. Here's some more info in addition to the flyer up top:

In two days -- Wednesday, Aug. 17th, 12:15 p.m. CST -- I'm sitting down for a live, good-gov chat with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Here's how you can participate:

• Watch LIVE online at www.bettergov.org (sorry, no studio audience this time)
• Send me questions via email, Facebook, Twitter
• Use the hashtag #BGAlive during the livestream to talk over Twitter

>> Find out more and submit your questions here: http://www.bettergov.org/newsblogsvideo/bga_live.aspx

Do you plan to participate?

EveryBlock officially introduces their new widget

Our "Blotter" page featuring a widget courtesy of EveryBlock has been public since July 21st. It was unveiled through our Facebook page. Today that widget is available to everyone with three Chicago-centric blogs utilizing this feature on their respective websites. Check out this EveryBlock blog post to learn more!

EveryBlock: Notify your neighbors

EveryBlock has announced a new feature that allows users to post neighborhood announcements:

You'll now find a link to "Notify your neighbors" near the top of each place page on our site (example). Click that, and you'll get a simple form that lets you post a message to the neighborhood. Once you've posted it, we'll publish it to each nearby neighborhood, ZIP and block page so other EveryBlock users can see it. It will also go out in our e-mail alerts and RSS feeds for the appropriate geographic areas. (It'll be labeled an "announcement.") Note that you'll need a free EveryBlock account to post.

What might you use this for? It's intentionally open-ended. We've been making the feature available experimentally over the last few weeks, and people have used it for a variety of things: asking the neighborhood a question, reporting lost pets, warning neighbors of nearby crime incidents, renting out garages, pointing out upcoming rezoning projects, selling candy machines, chatting about missing mailboxes, alerting people to some water main flooding and announcing community events. One person in Chicago is using it to post things he hears on the police scanner. A councilmember in San Jose is using it for community outreach.

Use it for classifieds, use it to report local news, use it to ask questions or otherwise pass information to your neighbors...Use it for things we haven't thought of! You can think of it as a 21st century community message board.

(Eventually we might add categorization, so that you'd be able to browse classifieds vs. news reports vs. neighborhood questions, but we wanted to keep it as simple as possible to start.)

I hope we'll see these notifications in the 6th Ward's EveryBlock feed!

 If you take advantage of this, what might you use this for?

Web page with details on what Chatham offers...

i was surfing the net and came across Dreamtown.com's Chatham page.

It's very detailed, with all kinds of stats and history.

Some samples of what's on the page:

It's hard to fathom that the area of Chatham was once a place so swampy that it was referred to as "Mud Lake," but such was the case. The land was mostly used for hunting and some farming was done to the west, but all in all, Chatham's beginnings were rather boggy and uninviting to residents for many years.

Things started to take a turn for the better in the 1860s and '70s when railroad tracks were laid nearby.

This info also includes some write-ups on stores i have seen, but not actually been inside:

New Boutique Africa (213 E 75th St, 773-488-9755) and Raggs (7943 S King Dr, 773-783-8303) are places we suggest scoping out that sell decorative arts and unique home furnishings

Please check it our and give YOUR opinion!