This is where another HN front page item (neighbourly.google.com)[1] might help soon, nextdoor.com might help right now, and facebook with some local contacts probably would have sufficed.
I can't stand Facebook, but it was better than nothing during the Northern California wildfires this last year, so I logged in and used it. The groups created by residents to track info were wonderful at first, but quickly descended into somewhat low utility after a day or tow as people regurgitated old information and misinformation every few hours, each time one level removed from the source and thus a bit harder for people to confirm or deny.
My wide uses nextdoor.com, and I've long thought I should take a look, but never gotten around to it. It would be interesting to see if Google can leverage their brand name to get enough people to sign up such that you could easily switch between multiple levels of locality, and also allow local news to leverage that in a way that preserves local reporting. If I could easily toggle between neighborhood, school district, city, state and region to find relevant information, and discussions, I would be pleasantly surprised.
I can't stand Facebook, but it was better than nothing during the Northern California wildfires this last year, so I logged in and used it. The groups created by residents to track info were wonderful at first, but quickly descended into somewhat low utility after a day or tow as people regurgitated old information and misinformation every few hours, each time one level removed from the source and thus a bit harder for people to confirm or deny.
My wide uses nextdoor.com, and I've long thought I should take a look, but never gotten around to it. It would be interesting to see if Google can leverage their brand name to get enough people to sign up such that you could easily switch between multiple levels of locality, and also allow local news to leverage that in a way that preserves local reporting. If I could easily toggle between neighborhood, school district, city, state and region to find relevant information, and discussions, I would be pleasantly surprised.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17209127