StreetAdvisor Blog

Exploring the San Francisco Bay area

There's more to the Bay area in California than San Francisco itself. While landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge capture the hearts of tourists, for current and potential California residents the issue of finding an affordable and enjoyable place to live is probably more important.

Despite its fame as a city, San Francisco itself does not score very highly as a city (San Francisco, California, City Rank in California #60, Overall Score 65.14).

San Francisco is ranked similarly to smaller cities in the Bay area like Sunnyvale, California (Overall Score 65.45) and Redwood City, California (City Rank in California #61, Overall Score 63.41).

Scores and ranks for the neighborhoods in these areas are starting to fill out. For example, the third best neighborhood in Redwood City is Oakwood, Redwood City, California Neighborhood Rank in Redwood City #3, Overall Score 63.28).

Scores are lower in the area immediately south of San Francisco, such as San Mateo, California (City Rank in California #77, Overall Score 49.19), Daly City, California City Rank in California #81, Overall Score 45.34) and South San Francisco, California (City Rank in California #83, Overall Score 41.27).

In the east the scores are mixed. San Leandro, California (City Rank in California #79, Overall Score 47.55) is at the low end and Oakland, California (City Rank in California #78, Overall Score 54.78) is not much better. The high end is dominated by Alameda, California (City Rank in California #4, Overall Score 84.07).

Scores are generally higher in southern part of the Bay area, also known as Silicon Valley. Mountain View, California (City Rank in California #30, Overall Score 74.52) scores the highest, followed by Santa Clara, California (City Rank in California #49, Overall Score 68.66) and Palo Alto, California (City Rank in California #51, Overall Score 67.40).

What do you think of these scores and ranks? How does your neighborhood or city rank? Contribute your own reviews, comments, forum topics and lists to StreetAdvisor today and influence the scores and ranks of these places.

StreetAdvisor adds private messaging

You may have noticed a new feature in your StreetAdvisor user account. We have added an email function to allow private messaging between users, and for users to send emails to people outside StreetAdvisor.

As well as using the 'Share This' feature let people know about your favorite StreetAdvisor content, including your own reviews, you can now email people to let them know about anything on StreetAdvisor (or anything at all).

We're making it easier for you to share information with your neighbors and friends. Now you can message or email, write reviews and comment on them, write forum topics and reply to them, and share anything with neighbors in StreetAdvisor or in the real world.

So log in to StreetAdvisor today and share some great local content with your real or virtual neighbors and friends.

StreetAdvisor adds Local Lists to user profiles

StreetAdvisor has today released a fantastic new feature in its user profiles. Now community members can create, edit and share Local Lists of anything they want. You can make a list of your favorite restaurants or stores, places you visit regularly, or the special places you go to on vacation.

StreetAdvisor Local Lists have two special features. First, when you make a list it is automatically added as a forum topic for the city or state you locate it in, which makes it easy for you to share your list with friends and neighbors.

Second, you can map the places in your list and build you own map of favorite places! To create your own list, start in your user profile. Click the 'Local Lists' tab then click the 'Create a New List' button.

To map items in your list, first add some text describing the list item to an item box. A 'Map this item' link will appear below the item box. Click this link and it will open a floating map window.

In the search field type the street address of the place you want to map. When you're happy that the pin appears on the map in the correct place, click 'Save'. Alternatively you can simply drag the cushion to the exact location you are after.

Once you've finished mapping items, you can view the finished complete with map ready to share with your friends.

Below is a Local List I made of cafes in the hipster neighborhood of Fitzroy in Melbourne Australia.

And this is how a Local List appears in the Victorian forum page.

 

What's important to you in your neighborhood? Start using StreetAdvisor's great new Local Lists to collect and share your favourite things today.

StreetAdvisor updates user profiles

StreetAdvisor's user profiles have received an upgrade. We've added some new features that make managing and updating your profile easier and more visually appealing. Below is an example of the new profile page (using my profile as an example).

With the new Photos tab in your user profile, you can now select any of the images you have uploaded to use as your profile image, and you can change your profile image whenever you want.

Here's an example of a new profile from a user who has just completed a neighborhood review of Astoria | Long Island City, Queens, New York (Neighborhood Rank in Queens #23, Overall Score 55.87).

This is the first step in a series of forthcoming developments that will make user profiles far more interactive and useful in connecting with your online neighbors. Log in to StreetAdvisor.com today to find out the news about your neighborhood.

The StreetAdvisor community is your community

StreetAdvisor has introduced some impressive new content and features in 2009. To start with, we have added information on over 12,000 neighborhoods to the site - thousands more neighborhoods than featured in other sites.

Over 2000 of these neighborhoods already feature street or neighborhood reviews, so you can see exactly how your neighbors regard the area. From the scores of these reviews we calculate rankings, which rank streets, neighborhoods and cities near you.

You don't have to live in a big city to view or share information about your street, neighborhood and city - everyone is invited and people from all around the country are participating (except Montana and Wyoming - why don't you call?).

To demonstrate how the thousands of user generated reviews published on StreetAdvisor reflect the US population, consider how similar these two maps are. The one above displays a blue dot for every city with a score in the US. The one below shows population density in the US - the darker the blue the more dense the population.

Source: 2000 US Census data from Search Marketing Communications

Comparing the maps shows that the areas of high population density reflect a high density of StreetAdvisor reviews. This means that the StreetAdvisor community is broadly representative of the whole community.

What does this mean for you? Well it means that if you live in a big city StreetAdvisor will most likely already have a score and rank for your neighborhood and street.

If you live outside a big city, we may have a score (if not a rank) for that city and we'll have reviews of streets in the surrounding area to recommend to you.

We've also included demographic data for every state and about 500 of the biggest cities and towns across the US.

There's something for everyone on StreetAdvisor - the place to talk about places. Find your place today and write a review, post a forum topic and find out more about your local area.

StreetAdvisor ranks the best and worst cities and suburbs in Australia

The number of reviews of Australian streets and cities posted at StreetAdvisor.com.au continues to grow. We now have scores for over 1,000 suburbs and cities based on thousands of individual street and city reviews. It's been a while since we published a best and worst comparison so it's time to reveal the hottest and not so hot locations around Australia.

This time, however, we're going to use StreetAdvisor's new ranking feature. A city gets a rank when its score is calculated from three or more reviews. This provides a more accurate and reliable score for a city than the result of a single review. Of the places that have multiple reviews to allow us to calculate a ranking, these are the best and worst places to live in Australia.

Each blue dot is a city that has been reviewed in StreetAdvisor

Western Australia

Hot

Broome, Western Australia, Australia (City Rank in Western Australia #1, Overall Score 90.00)

Perth, Western Australia, Australia (City Rank in Western Australia #2, Overall Score 88.58)

Dalkeith, Western Australia, Australia (City Rank in Western Australia #3, Overall Score 82.81)

Not so hot

Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia, Australia (City Rank in Western Australia #27, Overall Score 36.90)

Ardross, Western Australia, Australia (City Rank in Western Australia #25, Overall Score 54.00)

Leeming, Western Australia, Australia (City Rank in Western Australia #24, Overall Score 56.58)

South Australia

Hot

Hallett Cove, South Australia, Australia (City Rank in South Australia #1, Overall Score 90.07)

Morphett Vale, South Australia, Australia (City Rank in South Australia #2, Overall Score 75.12)

Fairview Park, South Australia, Australia (City Rank in South Australia #3, Overall Score 67.94)

Not so hot

Prospect, South Australia, Australia (City Rank in South Australia #4, Overall Score 59.12)

Adelaide, South Australia, Australia (City Rank in South Australia #5, Overall Score 54.51)

Salisbury, South Australia, Australia (City Rank in South Australia #6, Overall Score 52.09)

Victoria

Hot

Somerville, Victoria, Australia (City Rank in Victoria #1, Overall Score 87.97)

Bundoora, Victoria, Australia (City Rank in Victoria #2, Overall Score 87.35)

Warrandyte, Victoria, Australia (City Rank in Victoria #3, Overall Score 86.79)

Not so hot

Epping, Victoria, Australia (City Rank in Victoria #138, Overall Score 52.86)

Brunswick West, Victoria, Australia (City Rank in Victoria #139, Overall Score 48.76)

Broadmeadows, Victoria, Australia (City Rank in Victoria #140, Overall Score 30.99)

Queensland

Hot

Noosa Heads, Queensland, Australia (City Rank in Queensland #1, Overall Score 95.00)

Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia (City Rank in Queensland #2, Overall Score 94.51)

Milton, Queensland, Australia (City Rank in Queensland #3,Overall Score 88.20)

Not so hot

Ascot, Queensland, Australia (City Rank in Queensland #26, Overall Score 58.83)

Kearneys Spring, Queensland, Australia (City Rank in Queensland #27, Overall Score 58.55)

Harristown, Queensland, Australia (City Rank in Queensland #28, Overall Score 54.00)

New South Wales

Hot

Balmain, New South Wales, Australia (City Rank in New South Wales #1, Overall Score 89.38)

Manly, New South Wales, Australia (City Rank in New South Wales #2, Overall Score 88.27)

Como, New South Wales, Australia (City Rank in New South Wales #3, Overall Score 84.34)

Not so hot

Smithtown, New South Wales, Australia (City Rank in New South Wales #42, Overall Score 36.60)

Ryde, New South Wales, Australia (City Rank in New South Wales #43, Overall Score 20.26)

Kinchela, New South Wales, Australia (City Rank in New South Wales #44, Overall Score 18.90)

Tasmania

Best and worst

Hobart, Tasmania, Australia (City Rank in Tasmania #1, Overall Score 88.20)

Launceston, Tasmania, Australia (City Rank in Tasmania #2, Overall Score 61.75)

Ravenswood, Tasmania, Australia (City Rank in Tasmania #4, Overall Score 43.80)

Northern Territory

Best and worst

Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia (City Rank in Northern Territory #1, Overall Score 78.00)

Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia (City Rank in Northern Territory #2, Overall Score 71.10)

Jabiru, Northern Territory, Australia (City Rank in Northern Territory #4, Overall Score 53.40)

Have your say

These scores and ranking will change over time as new reviews are submitted to StreetAdvisor.com.au. How does your suburb rank? Do you agree or disagree with these scores and ranks? Visit StreetAdvisor.com.au today and have your say!

StreetAdvisor has all the statistics on your town

StreetAdvisor has been working hard to develop cool new features, such as mashing in Flickr and Panoramio photos to our street, neighborhood and city pages. We have also been developing some great new content, such as including over 12,000 neighborhoods throughout the US into the site. We have used all scores generated by street and city reviews in the site to generate rankings, so you can see how your street and neighborhood rate against other places.

The latest content set we have added is demographic data for every state and about 500 of the biggest cities and towns across the US. We've got an amazing amount of data! It comes from 2000 and 2007 Census Bureau data, 2005 and 2007 FBI crime data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and various local government websites.

For example, look at Dallas, Texas (City Rank in Texas #12, Overall Score 63.78). Click on the new Demographics tab for Dallas, Texas and you will find a page of data all about Dallas. The population is 1,240,499, 74.2% were born in their state of residence and 69.9% of people have a high school education.

Compare this information to that for the much smaller town of Tyler, Texas, where the Demographics tab shows that the population is 96,451 and 83.5% of people have a high school education.

In Tyler, Texas 12% of residents are foreign born, whereas in Mobile, Alabama only 3.3% of the population is foreign born. There's a lot of information to explore and consider. We think this information may make a big difference in your decision-making about where to live. The next time your lease is up and you decide to shift neighborhoods, or you get an amazing job in a new city and have to move somewhere you don't know, you'll find this demographic data incredibly helpful.

StreetAdvisor ranks your street, neighborhood and city

When StreetAdvisor recently added over 12,000 neighborhoods in the US, we also added a new feature world-wide: rankings. Rankings are now included at every level in StreetAdvisor's extensive local content. 

Users will discover that their street is ranked against other streets in their neighborhood (US only) and / or their city. Neighborhoods are ranked against each other in cities, and cities are ranked against each other in states.

Street rank

A good example of street rank is Jessie Street, Austin, Texas (Street Rank in Austin #4, Overall Score, 90.00). The rank number is above the score in the scorecard at the top of every page.

Neighborhood rank

Jessie St is in the neighborhood of Zilker (Neighborhood Rank in Austin #1, Overall Score 92.50), which is the top ranked neighborhood in Austin, Texas (City Rank in Texas #4, Overall Score 71.06).

Neighborhood and city pages display a box on the right hand side containing (up to) the top 5 neighborhoods in the city (subject to availability).

City rank

Two examples from Australia show how rankings work on city (suburb) pages. City scores are calculated from the scores of all the streets and neighborhoods (US only) within them.

Albert Park, Victoria (City Rank in Victoria #92, Overall Score 70.46). The top 5 cities in the state of Victoria are ranked in the state page.

Chippendale, New South Wales (City Rank in New South Wales #30, Overall Score 50.32). The top 5 cities in the state of New South Wales are ranked in the state page.

Rankings provide a quick and easy way to show exactly how good your street is, and how it ranks against the competition. How does your street rank? Visit StreetAdvisor.com today to find out! Once you're there, log in and write a review of your street, your neighborhood or your city. 

StreetAdvisor puts your neighborhood on the map

StreetAdvisor knows that streets are important to people, and we feature thousands of pages of street reviews. We also have pages for cities and states. But cities are sometimes too big for many people to care about so much. People care about their neighborhoods far more than they do their cities.

People are often familiar with many of the streets in their neighborhood, and they identify with their neighborhood. Streets may have flavor, but neighborhoods have personality. StreetAdvisor is pleased to announce that it now features over 12,000 neighborhoods across the US.

Features

• Over 12,000 neighborhoods everywhere from big cities to smaller towns
• Green map pins display neighborhoods
• Green shaded outlines show the area covered by each neighborhood
• Ability to write neighborhood reviews (as well as street and city reviews)
• Neighborhood rankings - how does your neighborhood rank in your city?
• View the best streets in your neighborhood

Overview

At the  top of each neighborhood overview page is the same scorecard you see on  StreetAdvisor street or city pages. But there is one major difference. The  neighborhood is displayed as a green shaded outline in the scorecard,  so you can see exactly where it is.

Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco, California

Also in  the scorecard is a ranking number, showing how your neighborhood compares to  other neighborhoods in the city. On the right hand side of the page is a box  displaying (up to) the top 5 neighborhoods in each city (depending on  availability). Is your neighborhood in the top 5?

The best  streets box will display the top ranked streets (in descending order) from  within the neighborhood, and if there are less than 5 it will include streets  from the surrounding area.

When you  click to 'Browse Map', you will see that StreetView is enabled on neighborhood  pages (subject to availability). You can browse around by clicking on the  green neighborhood pins to view the names and scores of different  neighborhoods. The neighborhood area is shown as a green shaded outline.

Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, New York

Central Boston, Boston, Massachusetts

Start  exploring your neighborhood today at StreetAdvisor.com. Write a neighborhood or street review, post a neighborhood forum topic and start participating in  your local community online.

StreetAdvisor adds photos from Flickr and Panoramio to your street

One of the principles of the online world is to focus on what you do best and link to the rest. At StreetAdvisor, we focus on reviews of streets and cities written by the people who live, work and relax in those areas.

New Farm, Queensland, Australia

We have an existing photo upload function where community members can add photos to streets, and StreetAdvisor.com already features thousands of photos, but we're not the expert in online photos - sites like Flickr and Panoramio are. So we've mashed their extensive photo archives into StreetAdvisor maps on every street and city page.

Phoenix, Arizona, USA

On every street and city page you'll now find separate Photos and Videos tabs. In the Photos tab you'll find an interactive map you can scroll, zoom and click on. When you click on an image thumbnail in the map the page loads the image in the main window, complete with a link to the original source.

Covent Garden, London, UK

StreetAdvisor is all about helping you to discover news and information about places near you or important to you. We have many more exciting developments to release in 2009, but the inclusion of thousands of photos is a great place to start.

So now you have more choices about how to share your photos in StreetAdvisor. You can continue to upload them to your favorite streets, or you can upload them to your favorite photo site knowing they will appear on StreetAdvisor maps for you to browse.

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

New and returning visitors and community members will find a lot of new photos and reviews at StreetAdvisor.com, so take a look at what the site offers today, write a review or ask a question of your neighbors via a forum topic post, and learn more about the streets around you.