Every Block And What Every Site Needs

I was visiting Every Block today. If you haven’t checked their site out, definitely find some time. Every Block represents the future of the web…well at least it does for me. I’ll spend more time in a future post talking about Every Block, similar sites, and why they are the future of the web.

For now, I just want to cover something very specific. Check out this screen shot from Every Block. It’s the footer of their site. How cool is that? The footer’s role, in my opinion, is to make sure you never end up at a dead end. It’s a method for driving people to other sections of the site or to illicit a response. Well, Every Block, really gets it. Feedback from consumers is critical. Active feedback is even better. By having a call to action for consumer feedback on every page they’re clearly demonstrating a willingness to listen to feedback.

With all the talk about Web 2.0 footers like the White House’s site, it surprising we haven’t seen this treatment more. I’d like to see every site offer this type of a feature. Sure, most sites offer a contact us page, but this is “Contact Us” on steroids because it isn’t relegated to just one section of the site.

This is so encouraging and I hope we see more of it.

hapticdata

Sure, the footer is nice. Its great to see they care about their users. In terms of how a person experiences the service, EveryBlock is still lacking. The problem, is that I have to request the information and I don't know when something important has happened. The new iphone app, RSS feed and email alerts are steps in the right direction, but none of them bring the information to me. EveryBlock should consider using their pages as live-feeds and developing a push notification system to alert people of any current suspect behavior in a neighborhood. Furthermore, they should partner with each city's government to find ways to externalize the information. By releasing a public API, communities could start to develop digital billboards, kiosks or other environments and displays where the information is available to the public, keeping them informed and further perpetuating the feedback loop and community involvement.

Right now EveryBlock is real good at hosting hyperlocal content and displaying it on a page. They need to think beyond a website, as a live news source, and complete the loop, get communities involved.

@hapticdata
hapticdata

Sure, the footer is nice. Its great to see they care about their users. In terms of how a person experiences the service, EveryBlock is still lacking. The problem, is that I have to request the information and I don't know when something important has happened. The new iphone app, RSS feed and email alerts are steps in the right direction, but none of them bring the information to me. EveryBlock should consider using their pages as live-feeds and developing a push notification system to alert people of any current suspect behavior in a neighborhood. Furthermore, they should partner with each city's government to find ways to externalize the information. By releasing a public API, communities could start to develop digital billboards, kiosks or other environments and displays where the information is available to the public, keeping them informed and further perpetuating the feedback loop and community involvement.

Right now EveryBlock is real good at hosting hyperlocal content and displaying it on a page. They need to think beyond a website, as a live news source, and complete the loop, get communities involved.

@hapticdata