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The Internet goes local
Google's stated mission is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible," and by most measures it has been hugely successful.
Indeed, Google already has moved beyond the world and gone on missions to the Moon (moon.google.com/) and Mars (www.google.com/mars/). But what about our own backyard? While the Internet has made it easy to explore far-off lands, local community information—in-depth information about the neighborhoods, towns and cities in which we live, work and play—has been slower to move online. Recently, however, the Internet has been going local and there's been an increase in the number of Web sites that make information about local communities accessible online.
A key resource for finding local information online is the local search engine. All of the major search companies now have locally focused offerings: Google Maps (local.google.com/), Yahoo! Local (local.yahoo.com/), MSN's Live Local (maps.live.com/) and AskCity (city.ask.com/city). At their core, local search engines are like those trusty old doorstops and child booster seats commonly called phone books—simply online yellow pages that enable you to find businesses in specific locations. For example, type "books buffalo ny" into Google Maps and you'll get a list of bookstores in and around Buffalo. Local search engines are enhancing local information with the addition of maps, driving directions, links to related Web sites, customer reviews and more.
One of the splashier, though perhaps less practical, elements of local search engines are satellite images. Check out these images of the UB Stadium from the four major local search engines: MSN (digbig.com/4rngp), Google (http://digbig.com/4rnps), Ask.com (http://digbig.com/4rnpw) and Yahoo (digbig.com/4rngs). Of the four, MSN has the best images—check out Niagara Falls here: http://digbig.com/4rngt. Flash Earth (www.flashearth.com/) enables you to compare satellite images from the major providers in one browser.
For local news, Topix.net is a free site that aggregates local news from hundreds of different sources—check out their Buffalo page at http://www.topix.net/city/buffalo-ny. Bizjournals (http://www.bizjournals.com/) provides access to about 45 local business newspapers and provides the best access to Business First of Buffalo. For local real estate information, there's Zillow (www.zillow.com/)—type in an address and you'll get a map of the neighborhood with recent sale prices listed next to each address.
If you like blogs, placeblogger is a directory of locally focused "place-blogs." Buffalo-focused blogs can be found at www.placeblogger.com/location/directory/us/NY/Buffalo. Outside.in is a new site where you can type in your address, neighborhood or city and get "a glimpse of all the textured, real-world issues and conversations and news unfolding in the location you've entered." Check out the Buffalo page at outside.in/buffalo.
For local government and demographic data, check out the U.S. Census' State and County QuickFacts (quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html) or the New York State Data Center (www.empire.state.ny.us/nysdc/). Other sites that organize local demographic data in interesting ways are Neighboroo (www.neighboroo.com/) and TerraFly (www.terrafly.com/). And UB's Regional Institute (www.regional-institute.buffalo.edu/) provides a useful database of demographic data focused solely on the Buffalo-Niagara region called the Regional Knowledge Network (rkn.buffalo.edu/).
—Charles Lyons, University Libraries