Every week the New York Times seems to run an article about Foursquare, the redhot mobile game. Most has been technology press, but one NY/Region piece stood out as especially interesting. Beyond Twitter: An App That Lets You Truly See City is written by a non-technology columnist and describes how the ‘tips’ feature of foursquare opened the writer’s eyes to the world around her:

…staring at my iPhone, the city right outside the window suddenly had voice, personality, opinion. Notes started pouring in, bite-size songs of praise about people and places…”

Minh Uong/The New York Times

I love it! What a perfect description of that magical moment many of us have experienced — when you suddenly ‘get’ hyperlocal and realize that these nerdy webpages and mobile apps can literally change the way you interact with your own neighborhood, transforming the cement jungle into a friendly playground ripe for exploration.  The author elaborates on the feeling:

“…crack doors open that might otherwise be passed by, giving personality and accessibility to the surrounding blocks. To walk through the city eyeing your Foursquare tips is to realize just how little of it you ordinarily see.”

My moment of awe came during a visit to San Francisco in 2007. With my WAP enabled phone in hand, I walked down the street googling the names of every restaurant I passed — my obsessive-compulsive way of picking a good one.  A website called Yelp.com consistently popped up at the top of the google searches, and although I had never heard of it, I found their information and reviews extremely valuable.  I suddenly realized the power of this technology: I could get more insight about a restaurant by Googling it than stepping foot inside.

Back in New York, I graduated college and waved goodbye to Morningside Heights and moved into to a completely new neighborhood:  Hells Kitchen.  Again, I suddenly I found myself overwhelmed with choice!  I distinctly remember running cost-calculations in my head: “How much it would cost to try out every single restaurant on 9th Avenue?”  The answer?  Too much.

And here’s where Yelp really shined.  Yelp was my insider guide for my new neighborhood.   I could literally zoom into a city-block and see every single business on the block listed — alongside details, reviews, and tips.  Suddenly I had a way to learn about those ‘off the beaten track’ spots. Empire Tea and Coffee?  If it weren’t for Yelp, I’d have overlooked one of the best coffee places in the city.

Why are hyperlocal services so powerful?  Because there’s a high personal relevancy to the information they offer.   Steven Berlin Johnson (author and co-founder of outside.in) sums it up well:

Say you’ve got a particularly nasty pothole on your street that you’ve been scraping the undercarriage of your car against for a year. When the town or city finally decides to fix the pothole, that event is genuinely news in your world.

It’s news in your world and only your world!  By the way, If you’re not already getting a daily everyblock.com newsletter, you should sign up.  The information you’ll learn is incredible.

Perhaps what’s most exciting is that existing news sites and reviews guides are just scratching the surface of what’s possible with hyperlocal information.  Friend-finders like Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt are finally starting to take off. But cool startups are working on defining whole new hyperlocal categories too: Deals, Nightlife, and even Casual Encounters!

In the deals category for example, Spotter by Yipit uses the foursquare API to find deals at the places you visit!  The result is an incredible daily deal newsletter that’s custom-tailored to where you live, work, and hang out. In a different category, Buzzd and Citysense are trying to track nightlife activity and tell you what’s ‘hot’ around you.  And let’s not forget Grindr, an iPhone app which facilitate sexual encounters between gay men.  The service has over 500,000 users and on a given day 30% log on.  Incredible traction.

Hyperlocal has finally come of age.  And seeing it go mainstream is going to be really fun.

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