Capitol Hill in Yo' Pocket
Last Friday, neighborhood blog capitolhillseattle.com announced the launch of their new iPhone app. Rejoice! The Capitol Hill version of our many hyperlocal neighborhood blogs is one of our favorites, and certainly one of the most prolific. As one of the pioneers of breaking neighborhood news, from business openings to minor crimes, bringing the organization's stellar reporting to a mobile environment was a logical next step. Powered by Purple Robots, the new app serves up all of their content and throws in some handy features to boot.
Probably most useful, especially when on the go, is the incident map. Using your current location as a starting point you can browse all reported incidents nearby. This is kind of huge. We all know our attention spans are now minuscule...no matter how many times you think you're going to remember to later investigate the bizarre/boggling/scary/smelly thing you spy while walking down the street...you won't remember. Even if you're at a computer 5 minutes later, your mind will have long moved on to candy and kittens. So the ability to check if there's info around the second you think of it is invaluable.
You also get just a straight feed of their latest blog posts and twitter activity, which is nice. Especially since simply following them on twitter can be overwhelming; we prefer selective browsing.
Also noteworthy is the 'YouReport' feature. This gives you the ability to post text and images, along with your current location. See something strange in the neighborhood and there isn't any existing info on it? Send it in yourself, lazy pants. Or send in a photo and ask questions. We woke up this morning with this feature top of mind - couldn't wait to send in a line wondering if anyone else saw Darth Vader floating nonchalantly outside their window, and more specifically, why he kept pulling up his ominous black cape to reveal a red tule skirt underneath. Then we realized it was a dream. However, if it weren't...how useful?
