Outside.in

So about a week ago, I noticed a URL in my site stats from outside.in. Now, you Portland people know that there's a homeless youth shelter in Portland called Outside In, which is waht I initially assumed this link was. After noticing more hits from this URl yesterday, I decided to click through and find out what the deal was. The URL in question is http://outside.in/97219. Turns out it's a Google Mashup blog aggregator based in Brooklyn, NY. I got the following info in my email later in the day.

I'm writing to let you know about a web site called outside.in that launched about an hour ago. It's a site that's aiming to capture and organize all the neighborhood-centric information on the web, drawing, in part, on the amazing work being done by local bloggers like yourself.

Our vision for the site is this: You sit at a computer and type in a street address, or a neighborhood name, or a zip code -- perhaps for your own home area, perhaps for a place you're visiting or interested in -- and within seconds the screen gives you a glimpse of all the textured, real-world issues and conversations and news unfolding in the location you've entered. Up to now, only the most connected local experts in any neighborhood could keep up with all these evolving  conversations. outside.in is designed to let you see it all in seconds.

Today I see some links from another blog called The Future of Real Estatee Marketing that apparently is run by someone in or near the Village, which provides quite a nice writeup about outside.in, so go read it over there.

I have very mixed feelings about blog aggregators that place ads and make money off of other people's (mine) content, and this blog is certainly not a calculated part of the "Future of Real Estate Marketing", but it is a resource for future homebuyers who Google the Village, or so I'd like to think.

Turns out I'm part of hte "hyper-local blogger movement". Who knew?