YourStreet

Do you like reading the local news for your city or locality? Or perhaps you want to know what is going on "back home?" The Google mashup called YourStreet allows you to read news, blogs, articles, and conversations based on the map location you've chosen! The service instantly indexes news sites & blogs, and plots them onto your map. Go to: http://www.yourstreet.com

The advanced algorithm indexes thousands of articles daily, analyzes them to find out specific locations in the body of the text, and then uses a service called MetaCarta to help with location identification. For example, the next time a news article appears reporting a house burning at a specific address, YourStreet will plot it onto its map.

And just like a Google map, you can zoom in and out to see articles from different parts of the city. You can also specific time ranges, including today, last 7 days, last 30 days, or last 90 days.

Once you type in the address, 3 colored balloon buttons will appear on the map: News, Conversations and Neighbors. Just click on them to get more details! You can also read the news in a list format directly below the map which provides a short synopsis of the article.

YourStreet also has a customization and social networking aspect. You can create a profile and as others join the service, they will show up as neighbors if they live close to the selected area.