StreetAdvisor Blog

StreetView goes live on StreetAdvisor New Zealand

In June 2008 StreetAdvisor added Google's Streetview to our US street and city map views, making it easier and much more fun to browse your favorite places. In August 2008 StreetAdvisor was the first Australian site to add StreetView to its services.

Now Google has added StreetView for New Zealand, and once again StreetAdvisor has incorporated StreetView into its maps. Now you can browse the streets of New Zealand, find your home town or a loved holiday or vacation destination and write reviews and post forum topics about them. Seeing the streets on the screen is a great way to remind yourself of all the stories you could share about places you know.

To start with, look at Quay Street, Auckland (StreetScore 54.00) and browse the map to activate StreetView. We think you'll like what you see. Come and join us in StreetView at StreetAdvisor.co.nz today!

StreetAdvisor and Realestate.com.au rollout begins in South Australia

The partnership between StreetAdvisor and and Realestate.com.au to provide street and suburb reviews on Australia’s leading real estate site has begun its rollout in South Australia.

StreetAdvisor’s unique scorecards will be featured throughout realestate.com.au adding a touch of genuine local flavour to property listings.

So how will it look? Here's one example. This listing for Third Avenue Glenelg East features a scorecard that looks like this:

Users can click through to StreetAdvisor to write a review, read further reviews or explore streets with StreetView level mapping. With the initial launch being only for select properties in South Australia, a national rollout is planned for early 2009.

So if you have some local knowledge about real estate, you can now add it to StreetAdvisor knowing that your reviews will help thousands of Australian choose the best place to live.

Vote for StreetAdvisor in the 2008 Webware 100 Awards

StreetAdvisor.com has been selected as one of the finalists in the 2008 Webware 100 Awards in the Search & Reference category. The editors of CNET Webware.com selected 300 finalists from more than 4,600 qualifying Web 2.0 services nominated by Webware readers and company representatives.

Webware users decide which services win by voting. We’d like you to vote for us! User voting for the Webware 100 will be open from Monday, 25 February 2008 at 12pm (noon), Pacific time (UTC-8) until 9am on 31 March 2008. That’s from Tuesday 26 February 2008 at 7am Australian Eastern Summer time (UTC+11) until 1 April 2008 at 4am.

Click here to vote for StreetAdvisor in the 2008 Webware 100 Awards.

The Webware 100 allows users to cast up to three votes in each category. In last year's Webware 100 awards, users cast nearly 500,000 votes. The winners of the 2008 Webware 100 – the top 10 products in the 10 categories – will be announced on April 21.

StreetAdvisor is a 2008 Webware 100 Awards finalist

The StreetAdvisor.com team is excited to announce that it has been selected as a finalist in the 2008 Webware 100 Awards in the Search & Reference category. The main page for the awards program is www.webware.com/100.

The editors of CNET Webware.com selected 300 finalists from more than 4,600 qualifying Web 2.0 services nominated by Webware readers and company representatives. StreetAdvisor.com is one of the 300 finalists.

We need your help! Voting opens next week

Webware users decide which services win by voting. That means we’d like you to vote for us!

User voting for the Webware 100 will be open from Monday, 25 February 2008 at 12pm (noon), Pacific time (UTC-8) until 9am on 31 March 2008.

That’s from Tuesday 26 February 2008 at 7am Australian Eastern Summer time (UTC+11) until 1 April 2008 at 4am.

When voting goes live we’ll post a special link for you to use to vote for us

The Webware 100 allows users to cast up to three votes in each category. In last year's Webware 100 awards, users cast nearly 500,000 votes.

The winners of the 2008 Webware 100 – the top 10 products in the 10 categories – will be announced on April 21.

New York Local Expert Challenge winners announced

StreetAdvisor has announced the winners of its inaugural New York Local Expert Challenge, where StreetAdvisor members competed to earn the most points from writing reviews or posting photos of New York City streets.

Congratulations to the winner, rickyrade, who wrote an amazing number of great reviews. rickyrade earns $1000 for his fantastic contributions to StreetAdvisor.

The runners up are:

2nd - ariS - who wrote lots of reviews and also uploaded some good photos.

2 Gold St by AriS

3rd - peg4blues - her review of life as a kid on Stanley Avenue, Brooklyn is really nice. She writes:

"I have such fond memories of the project. Johnnie the iceman with his italian ices, mom throwing down dimes for me to get a cone."

4th - rudolpma - whose review of 35th Avenue, Astoria is tough but fair in our opinion. rudopma writes:

"I took an apartment in this area to be close to the subway and near my office in Long Island City. What a mistake! Street noise is noticeably bad for an area so bereft of commerce as the area is mostly a way point for Queens-Manhattan traffic."

Thanks to everyone who entered and congratulations to our winners.

StreetAdvisor gives people insight on what it's really like to live somewhere

StreetAdvisor.com asks home owners and renters -- does your street pass or fail?

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- (Marketwire - December 18, 2007) - StreetAdvisor.com is asking homeowners and renters, "Does your street pass or fail?" People want to know what the best streets to live on are and also what streets they should avoid. Now they have a resource.

What TripAdvisor.com is to travel, epinions.com is to products, and Yelp.com is to restaurant reviews, StreetAdvisor is to streets. It's a free, entirely new kind of online real estate community where people provide a real-life "insider" view, making StreetAdvisor the essential residential guidebook through user-generated summaries, stories, pictures, videos, and invaluable insight.

StreetAdvisor is an online community where homeowners, renters, and home buyers can share and learn about quality of life on specific streets, along with the neighborhood, local services and related details known only by those who have lived there.

Each person can rank the streets where they live, lived or visited, contributing to the overall StreetScore ranking displayed for each street. If a review doesn't yet exist for their street, they can be the first to add it in less than 30 seconds.

Consumers can share and discover vital details including noise levels, traffic, neighbors, entertainment, and public services, etc. in a way that wasn't previously available on the Web. It also allows for firsthand recommendations and negative experiences about local businesses, entertainment, services, lifestyle, and back road gems unbeknownst to outsiders.

In addition to street reviews, people can contribute and read content for cities, states, and countries. This extends the community for people to communicate with each other and encourages conversations specific at every level.

The community provides information for residents of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Just within the first day of the site being public, StreetAdvisor.com received over 60,000 streets visited. As the word spreads, the site continues to grow.

About StreetAdvisor.com

Founded in 2007 by Jason Spencer and Adam Spencer, StreetAdvisor.com helps people learn more about their communities while helping others make better decisions about where they choose to live. The site will evolve to include additional services to facilitate online conversations at the street level, while creating a forum where professionals and consumers can participate in bringing their street and neighborhoods online, in a public forum.

realestate.com.au helps more people find the right property in the right neighbourhood with StreetAdvisor.com

Australia’s No.1 real estate website, realestate.com.au has teamed up with StreetAdvisor.com to provide home buyers, owners, renters and real estate agents with the most essential guide to finding the right property, in the right neighbourhood.

The content sharing arrangement offers realestate.com.au visitors with the opportunity to learn and share vital details from a ‘locals only’ perspective about streets including noise levels, traffic, neighbours, entertainment and public services etc in a way that wasn’t previously available.

Adam Spencer, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of StreetAdvisor.com said, “Since the launch of StreetAdvisor.com six months ago we have been looking to partner with key players in the real estate industry that can help grow our brand. After talking with a number of other parties, we are extremely pleased to be working with the leader in the industry, realestate.com.au.”

“This deal represents a major shift in the consumer face of real estate in this country and it is with StreetAdvisor.com’s innovative user-driven content that our visitors can be confident they have made the right property choice before they move in,” said realestate.com.au’s General Manager, Shaun Di Gregorio.

“Historically, buyers and renters have been making real estate decisions based on a limited amount of information such as price and location.  Now people can get the whole picture when researching real estate, such as what life is actually like in the area they are looking to move to.

“It’s all about keeping buyers and renters more informed about one of the most important financial decisions they will ever make,” Mr Di Gregorio said.

Mr Spencer added, “Real estate agents will also be able to contribute street and suburb information to help their customers gain a greater understanding of the local area they are looking to buy or rent in.  It’s also a fantastic resource for agents to get a leg up, and gain the best local knowledge direct from the people living there, as well as share their own perspective.”

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About StreetAdvisor.com
Founded in 2007 by Jason Spencer and Adam Spencer, StreetAdvisor.com helps people learn more about their communities while helping others make better decisions about where they want to live. The site will evolve to include additional services to facilitate online conversations at the street level, while creating a forum where professionals and consumers can participate in bringing their street and neighbours online, in a public forum. To date StreetAdvisor.com has had over 1.5 million streets viewed, and over 30,000 individual contributions to the site.

About realestate.com.au
realestate.com.au has helped more people find a home in Australia than any other website every month since October 2000.* In both June and July, 2007, realestate.com.au had 100% more unique browsers than its closest competitor. It is one of 16 sites owned and operated by the REA Group (realestate.com.au Ltd, ASX:REA, and its subsidiary companies).

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:
Giselle Pethard, +61 3 9843 4242 / 0414 299 658 / gpethard@realestate.com.au

StreetAdvisor launches new services, gives people greater insight into other communities

SAN FRANCISCO -- July 31, 2007 -- StreetAdvisor.com today introduced a suite of new upgrades to its popular online community, giving homeowners, renters, and buyers a place to review, share, and learn exactly what it¹s like to live somewhere.

StreetAdvisor.com is an entirely new kind of online real estate community powered by crowd-sourced reviews, photos, and videos. The new StreetAdvisor provides a real-life ‘insider’ view making it the essential guidebook to finding the right street to call home, connecting with neighbors, and discovering new things, documented by the people who have lived there.

Consumers can learn and share vital details about where they live including noise levels, traffic, neighbors, entertainment, and public services, etc., much in the same way people share their experiences with products and travel at popular online shopping and travel sites. It also allows for firsthand recommendations and negative experiences about local businesses, entertainment, services, lifestyle, and back road gems.

Street, City, State, Country Level Contributions Now, in addition to street reviews, people can contribute and read content for cities, states, and countries. This extends the community for people to communicate with each other and encourages dialog specific at every level.
Each geographic level has its own home page providing a snapshot of reviews, conversations, pictures and videos for people to get a better idea of where to start. And, they can easily zoom up and down between each level for additional insight.

"After our initial launch, our members wanted to do more than just write and read street reviews,” said Jason Spencer, Co-Founder and CEO. “By aggregating street level contributions up to cities, you can now choose the level of detail you need to get an exact picture of what it’s like to live somewhere, share your experiences, while also discovering new people and local gems.”

Enhanced Guidebooks
The new StreetAdvisor features upgraded guidebooks that now include four broader categories with options to create additional topics to help channel content related to the quality of life at each level. The guidebooks also now feature full version history, similar to Wiki's, providing the ability to see changes and revert to any previous entries.

This specific detail and information gives people everything they need to make better decisions about where they live now or in the future, and how to enjoy it to the fullest.

'StreetCred' Point System
To recognize member contributions, each person earns points the more they participate, achieving a StreetCred rating from 1 to 5. For example, a street review banks 12 points, each video upload is worth 4 points, etc., all contributing to the overall StreetCred status. StreetCred is not only ideal for consumers, but also industry experts and professionals in the real estate, mortgage, city and local services, business and residential services, and entertainment. Active participants who earn a higher ranking can also earn cool prizes.

Local Expert Program
The person with the most amount of StreetCred per city will become the ‘Local Expert,’ which is a great opportunity for residents or service providers to share their expertise with others seeking inside information, shopping, entertainment recommendations, or help with buying and selling homes. Local experts are featured on all the pages within the city.

StreetAdvisor Billboards
StreetAdvisor now offers the ability to secure exclusive ‘run-of-street’ advertising opportunities on a per city basis. ‘Premium’ Billboards provide banner style sponsorships seeded down to all the streets within the city slot with first rights for renewal. ‘Base’ sponsorships are similar to Google Adsense, with two slots available per city. Ideal sponsors include real estate agents and mortgage brokers, local service providers, city/local bloggers and media looking to generate leads in a specific city.

The site is currently in public Beta and is initially focusing on the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.

# # #

About StreetAdvisor.com
Founded in 2007 by Jason Spencer and Adam Spencer, StreetAdvisor.com helps people learn more about their communities while helping others make better decisions about where they choose to live. The site will evolve to include additional services to facilitate online conversations at the street level, while creating a forum where professionals and consumers can participate in bringing their street and neighborhoods online, in a public forum.

The company has representatives in San Francisco and Australia. For more information, contact media@streetadvisor.com.

StreetAdvisor.com announces iPod® sweepstakes winners for neighborhood street reviews

World's first online community sharing real life street reviews reveals winners of its online street review sweepstakes.

SAN FRANCISCO – June 26, 2007 -- StreetAdvisor.com today announced the winners of its online street review sweepstakes.  StreetAdvisor is an online community where homeowners, renters, and buyers can share and learn about quality of life on specific streets, along with the nuances, services and details known only by those who have lived there.

For providing StreetAdvisor.com with personal opinions and perspectives on what it’s like to live on specific streets, the following group of people won one of 60 iPod® digital music players. To enter, residents only needed to log on to StreetAdvisor.com, review their street, and then enter the sweepstakes.  The following group of 60 people who entered in the sweepstakes were chosen at random to win an Apple iPod.

Ernest Alleva, John Altice, Doug Bishop, Mary Bishop, Berry Blanton, Raylene Brown, Janice Budd, Reine Bullard, Gil Burgess, Molly Capel, Joni Chadwell, Rob Chamberlain, Kimberly Colville, Eva Daniell, Roberta DiMaggio, Tim Edgren, Sam Eskenazi, Crystal Faulkner, Joe Fernandez, Bobbye Fussell, Julian Gonzalez, Christina Gould, Nancy Govero, Robert Harris, Sara Hauser, Dayna Helfgott, Michael Horn, Gail Hotchkiss, Karen Hurst, Tracy Iglesias, Eric ilasenko, Julie Johnson, Sonny Klamerus, Tiffany Lane, Brendan Lecuyer, Valerie Mabrey, Stacey Maniaci, DaLinda Mefford, Addrienne Mertens, Patricia Moneta, Michele Pineda, Ashok Pramanik, Kyle Raine, Zack Rhoades, Sylvia Rozwadowska, Arlene Saake, Thomas Schmitt, Brad Short, David Siegel, Susan Smith, Laurie Steiner, Lisa Titus, Julie Tomlinson, Lee Travis-Scaglia, T Tucker, Alice Vierth, Tangerine Washington, Debra Wexler, Brittney Wilson, Chad Woodford, Adam Younker.

“This sweepstakes was a great way to entice users to focus on creating honest and insightful reviews of their street and their neighborhoods,” said Jason Spencer, CEO of StreetAdvisor.com. “We will continue to provide our users with fun, exciting incentives, as our traffic and product expands.”

Unlike other sites, it is the easiest way to find out what people really think about where they live and where others might be looking to live.  It is an entirely new kind of online real estate community, providing a real-life 'insider' view. StreetAdvisor is the essential guidebook to finding the right street, written by the people who have lived there.

Consumers can learn and share vital details including noise levels, traffic, neighbors, entertainment and public services, etc. in a way that wasn't previously available. It also allows for firsthand recommendations and negative experiences about local businesses, entertainment, services, lifestyle, and back road gems unbeknownst to outsiders.

Each person can rank the streets where they live,lived or visited. This contributes to the overall StreetScore city ranking, which is displayed for each street. In addition, the 'StreetBoard' provides a place where residents can communicate with their neighbors. StreetAdvisor is also integrating video for people to post videos taken on their street, from house parties, local parks, to a lovely walk on a Sunday afternoon.

About StreetAdvisor.com

Founded in 2007 by Jason Spencer and Adam Spencer, StreetAdvisor.com helps people learn more about their communities while helping others make better decisions about where they choose to live. The site will evolve to include additional services to facilitate online conversations at the street level, while creating a forum where professionals and consumers can participate in bringing their street and neighborhoods online, in a public forum.

The company has representatives in San Francisco and Australia. For more information, contact media@streetadvisor.com.

Sweepstakes Note

Apple is not a participant or sponsor of this promotion.  iPod® is a registered trademark of Apple Inc. All rights reserved.

Contact

Adriana Gascoigne
FutureWorks
adriana@future-works.com
415 216 6024

StreetAdvisor.com announces iPod® sweepstakes for neighborhood street reviews

World’s first online community for real life reviews at the street level puts call out to homeowners, renters and realtors to review their street.

SAN FRANCISCO – May 4, 2007 – StreetAdvisor.com today announced a new sweepstakes to draw the compelling, insightful, and real street reviews online. StreetAdvisor is an online community where homeowners, renters, and buyers can share and learn about quality of life on specific streets, along with the nuances, services and details known only by those who have lived there.

No matter where people live, they have an opinion and perspective on what it’s like to live there. Not only can they help share this information with neighbors and those considering a move into the neighborhood, they now have a shot at winning one of 60 iPod® digital music players.

StreetAdvisor is giving away an iPod® (30GB 7,500 songs) as the grand prize, as well as 60 iPod shuffles.  Residents only need to logon to StreetAdvisor.com, review their street, and they’re automatically entered into the sweepstakes.

“This is all about honesty and participation,” said Jason Spencer, CEO of StreetAdvisor.com. “We’re hoping for the best, most comprehensive and clever reviews – along with those extra details that help paint a better picture of life in their area.”

Unlike other sites, it is the easiest way to find out what people really think about where they live and where others might be looking to live.  It is an entirely new kind of online real estate community, providing a real-life “insider” view. StreetAdvisor is the essential guidebook to finding the right street, written by the people who have lived there.

Consumers can learn and share vital details including noise levels, traffic, neighbors, entertainment, and public services, etc. in a way that wasn’t previously available. It also allows for firsthand recommendations and negative experiences about local businesses, entertainment, services, lifestyle, and back road gems unbeknownst to outsiders.

Each person can rank the streets where they live, lived or visited. This contributes to the overall StreetScore city ranking, which is displayed for each street. Categories include:

–  StreetVIBE - Neighborly spirit, dining, nightlife, shopping, fitness
    facilities
–  StreetWIRED - Cell reception, Internet access, pay TV access
–  StreetHEALTH - Peace and quiet, traffic, safety, cleanliness , pests
–  StreetVALUE - Cost of living, resale/rental value
–  StreetESSENTIALS - Public transportation, medical, schools, child care,
    government, utilities, parks

In addition, the 'StreetBoard' provides a place where residents can communicate with their neighbors.

StreetAdvisor is also integrating video for people to post videos taken on their street, from house parties, local parks, to a lovely walk on a Sunday afternoon.

The site is currently in public Beta and is initially focusing on the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Just within the first day of the site being public, StreetAdvisor.com received over 60,000 streets visited. As the word spreads, the site continues to grow. Enter the sweepstakes to join this vibrant community and get a chance to win a prize. The sweepstakes will end at 11:59 PM EST on May 16, 2007.

About StreetAdvisor.com

Founded in 2007 by Jason Spencer and Adam Spencer, StreetAdvisor.com helps people learn more about their communities while helping others make better decisions about where they choose to live. The site will evolve to include additional services to facilitate online conversations at the street level, while creating a forum where professionals and consumers can participate in bringing their street and neighborhoods online, in a public forum.

The company has representatives in San Francisco and Australia. For more information, contact media@streetadvisor.com.

Sweepstakes Note

Apple is not a participant or sponsor of this promotion.  iPod® is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc. All rights reserved.

Contact

Adriana Gascoigne
FutureWorks
adriana@future-works.com
415-621-6024