News From the Street Where You Live

Last week, during my fussing about the lack of hyperlocal fire coverage for evacuees, I envisioned a solution to the problem many of us were having during our unplanned vacation. We wanted to be able to get fire news about our neighborhood online without searching for it.

Then I thought of an idea: What if you could click on one of these interactive fire maps and have that link take you directly to forums, blogs and news about your neighborhood?

As it turns out, someone else had already been thinking of that idea. On Nov. 1, Your Street was launched by a group of techies in - where else - San Francisco. It has amazing potential - if it catches on and residents actually contribute to the site.

But if nothing else, it serves as a great hyperlocal news aggregator. I clicked on my neighborhood and  found out about a changed bus route. The scariest part - it linked me directly to my metro area before I even entered the information. Guess I'd better clean up those cookies!