Sites like outside.in and EveryBlock are archives of information about particular areas. However, the quality of the information is important not just the amount or diversity of information. When focusing on hyperlocal content, the relevance of the information becomes paramount in order to avoid what Steven Johnson calls the “pothole paradox.” The idea is that the pothole in front of your home or apartment is a big deal to you, but your friends a few blocks over couldn’t care less. Relevance depends on the scope of a user’s collective identity. For example, a user might be interested in multiple geographic locations because she identifies with or sees herself as a member of more than one community. Her collective identity, her sense of belonging includes multiple groups within multiple geophysical places. EveryBlock provides levels of locality: neighborhood, place, and street, to work from the outside in, allowing users to zoom in and out, depending on the nature of the information and their proximity to it.

Relevance has both a geographic and an emotional dimension. Steven Johnson points out that crimes, politics, real estate development, for example, affect a larger population, reverberating more widely than news about pothole repair. Definitions of what is local and what is important or near to me will differ from my neighbors and from my peers. For example, as a member of the gay community I am interested in political actions in the state of Illinois where I reside as well as on the national level. I am also interested in news out of London that Alan Duncan, a Member of Parliament, recently entered into a civil union with his partner and the debate over gay characters not kissing on a soap opera. Although I have varying geographic distance from each of these “news items,” these issues share emotional proximity. Additionally, though I currently live in Champaign-Urbana I am still interested in Mobile, Alabama, where family members still reside. All of these locations and communities, while not always a part of my daily interactions, are part of my collective identity. Location is only part of what makes information relevant to users of sites like outside.in.

In previous incarnations of outside.in, participation was encouraged through a featured thread known as “outside inquiry” on discussion boards each week. These threads included questions such as, “What is the most over-hyped and overpriced neighborhood in (insert town or city name here)?” and “What (insert town or city name here) building to you most like to tear down?” A small header at the top of each outside.in page listed the outside.inquiry question of the week and invited users to join in the discussion.

Outside inquiry discussion forms which no longer exist. Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.

The outside.in forums attempted to extend the shelf life of information on the site. These threads as well as the discussion forums as a whole have since disappeared from the site. In its current form, outside.in appears to be more of a news aggregator of hyperlocal content as it has evolved by teaming with publishing companies including The Miami Herald, New York Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and properties of the Tribune Company, such as Chicago Tribune, and the Baltimore Sun as well as bloggers, who use the site to distribute content and drive readership to their blogs.

Newspapers and blogs are typically organized around time and privilege the most recent news. As it says on EveryBlock’s FAQ section, “We’re interested in local data that has a date and a specific location.” Neighborhood information stays news for longer periods of time, however, than a typical news story which loses its relevance fairly quickly. For example, a post mentioning gay-friendly businesses in a particular area would be useful weeks after the post was written as would information about the location of Chicago Transit fare machines that accept credit cards. EveryBlock, however, makes it clear that In order for information to sustain its relevance, it must go beyond the headline buzz and instead offer users ways to track the conversations, debates and discussions related to what matters to them as part of their collective identity. This, in part, is what outside.in is attempting.