BlockAvenue launched to the world today. Their goal is build a comprehensive database of reviews for every city block in the country (and maybe world?). A pretty ambitious goal — but nothing worth doing is easy. At launch, most of their data is focused around Boston, NYC, and Washington DC (which happen to be the three cities I’m visiting on my East Coast trip from Oct 2 – Oct 23). I have never lived in those cities (but thinking about relocating to the Big Apple), but I do know a little something about a few places in Seattle. I went ahead and gave the site a spin by adding a review for the location where I used to live on Queen Anne — 21 West Lee St. Very intuitive review system, and one feature I particularly like is the “Do you agree?” call to action as a light way method of getting user input. Plus, on any local amenity you find on the map, you can answer the question of “does this make the block better or worse”. Again, another light weight way to build valuable user content (that locals will want to consume) that will help improve their overall rankings.

Getting down to the block level rather than just the high level neighborhoods is a smart point of differentiation — but of course harder to reach scale for any given block.

I’ve known about the site for quite awhile since Tony Longo (who you may know from CondoDomain) and I keep in touch regularly. BlockAvenue is part of the DogPatch Labs program in Boston right now — and I’m stoked to spend some time with the team while I’m in Boston in a couple weeks. Congrats to the entire team for getting their MVP (minimal viable product) out there!

So, go ahead and give the site a spin. I know they would love to hear your comments…