Congrats to the team at Walk Score for releasing a new iPhone app and did a major update to their site.

Features in the iPhone app include:

  • Share neighborhood gems including the local businesses, public art, architecture and green spaces you love, and comment on others’ pictures and reviews.
  • Identify and report walkability problem spots such as dangerous intersections and high-crime areas that you’d like fixed and share lists of these places to help drive local change.
  • View crowd-sourced neighborhood tours including maps, pictures and comments about nearby dining, coffee, groceries, schools, parks and more.
  • Discover new places and experiences by browsing recently added places by neighborhood or by individual contributor.

As a result – they are getting content like this, which is not content you’ll find anywhere else yet exactly the hidden gems consumers are interested in.

It’s just been awhile since I’ve visited the site — but I absolutely love what Walk Score has been up to regarding highlighting what makes neighborhoods, hyper neighborhoods, (and houses) unique. They have my demographic – no car, willing to pay anything to live in the right area, want to be within walking distance to bars, grocery stores, and friends -absolutely nailed. Options like this are exactly what I will want when I go down the path of renting a place (once I figure out where I want to live):

I happen to know of a few other cool features in the works that cater toward those who want to drive less (since I no longer have a car, I’m in that camp) – so certainly looking forward to seeing those launch later this year.

It seems Block Avenue (just launched) and Walk Score are going to be competing in this hyper hyper local space for the foreseeable future. I’m friends with both Tony at Block Avenue and Matt and Josh at Walk Score — so I won’t take sides on this one 🙂