AmericanTowns.com Offers Unprecedented Access to Local Information for Every Town in America
Network of “Community Webspaces” provides a better way for people to find and share local content online.
Fairfield, CT, March 08, 2008 --(PR.com)-- AmericanTowns.com LLC today raised the bar in the hyperlocal space by launching a new version of AmericanTowns.com. This version, which features a new and unique “community webspace” for each town in America, lets local residents find and share an unprecedented combination of local information: community events, local news, train schedules, charitable organizations, local videos, farmers’ markets, jobs, real estate, privacy protection, “sales and savings,” local services and a host of online and previously offline community resources.
Each “community webspace” is accessible at AmericanTowns.com and features new content, new partners, a new user interface and a new technology framework - all built on AmericanTowns’ established strength in community events and other hyper-local information.
“We’re introducing a new way for people to find and share local information,” said Jim Maglione, co-president of Community, AmericanTowns. “There’s a lot of good local content on the web and offline, but it’s not always easy to find. We’ve collected and organized this information for every town in America, and made it easy for each community to add to, edit or share as they wish.”
New Features
In addition to having the nation’s most extensive calendar of hyper-local community events, with more than 1 million new events added per month, AmericanTowns.com now includes the following new features for each town in America:
A “hometown” map, with links to maps of homes for sale, local restaurants, farmers’ markets, aerial views of each town, and more;
News stories from local media, and links to discussions of hot topics, as well as press releases from local community organizations;
An updated collection of Internet videos on town events and activities, which users can easily add to, using popular video-sharing sites;
Access to 10 million business profiles, which supplement the basic listings of more than 17 million small and mid-size local businesses; and
An expanded “Community Resources” area that now also offers train schedules, traffic information, local sales, ways to protect your privacy, an environment section, and a guide to key community links and online resources; plus more depth in each section – for example, the new real estate section features recent sales, photos of homes for sale, the sales records of local real estate agents, local market trends, local neighborhood information, apartments for rent, and information about local foreclosures.
Each of these new features allow users to add their own content or to suggest new sources or links for their town’s unique “community webspace.” Similarly, towns with no previous presence on the Internet can now post community information online, or can change their town’s “radius” setting to find events in nearby towns.
Improving User Experience
To accommodate the growth of content, features, and site usage, AmericanTowns has increased its server capacity, streamlined its database and created a brand new user interface.
“To enhance user experience, each community webspace has a clean, warm, more visual presentation, and straightforward ways for users to sort information by the type of content,” explained Edward Panian, AmericanTowns’ co-president of Technology. “Our new interface gets people quickly and easily to the local information they are seeking in their everyday life.”
AmericanTowns’ new technology framework also pulls in useful local information from selected industry “verticals,” such as Topix, Traffic.com, Alliance Reservations, CareerBuilder, Trulia.com, and Verizon’s yellow pages provider, Superpages.com. At the same time, the site helps community organizations promote their initiatives to local media, through a free “one-click PR” tool, and to other websites such as Superpages.com, which recently integrated AmericanTowns’ community calendar into its site. Additional content-sharing initiatives are in development.
“AmericanTowns is moving ‘local’ beyond the standard search model that favors content with the best SEO work, to a ‘community webspace’ model that organizes the most useful information around the unique needs of real communities and is shaped over time by each community’s input,” said Ted Buerger, chairman of AmericanTowns.
About AmericanTowns.com
AmericanTowns is a national network of community-based websites where residents can find and share local information. For every town in America, AmericanTowns has created a “community webspace” that brings together the nation's most extensive online database of community events, community groups, news, local resources and special tools for organizations. Dedicated to connecting citizens, community organizations and locally-focused businesses and strengthening the bonds of our nation's communities, AmericanTowns has featured more than 10 million community events in the last 12 months, and offers powerful tools to help more than 120,000 listed community organizations interact more effectively with local citizens. Founded in 2000, AmericanTowns is headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut. Visit www.AmericanTowns.com.
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Each “community webspace” is accessible at AmericanTowns.com and features new content, new partners, a new user interface and a new technology framework - all built on AmericanTowns’ established strength in community events and other hyper-local information.
“We’re introducing a new way for people to find and share local information,” said Jim Maglione, co-president of Community, AmericanTowns. “There’s a lot of good local content on the web and offline, but it’s not always easy to find. We’ve collected and organized this information for every town in America, and made it easy for each community to add to, edit or share as they wish.”
New Features
In addition to having the nation’s most extensive calendar of hyper-local community events, with more than 1 million new events added per month, AmericanTowns.com now includes the following new features for each town in America:
A “hometown” map, with links to maps of homes for sale, local restaurants, farmers’ markets, aerial views of each town, and more;
News stories from local media, and links to discussions of hot topics, as well as press releases from local community organizations;
An updated collection of Internet videos on town events and activities, which users can easily add to, using popular video-sharing sites;
Access to 10 million business profiles, which supplement the basic listings of more than 17 million small and mid-size local businesses; and
An expanded “Community Resources” area that now also offers train schedules, traffic information, local sales, ways to protect your privacy, an environment section, and a guide to key community links and online resources; plus more depth in each section – for example, the new real estate section features recent sales, photos of homes for sale, the sales records of local real estate agents, local market trends, local neighborhood information, apartments for rent, and information about local foreclosures.
Each of these new features allow users to add their own content or to suggest new sources or links for their town’s unique “community webspace.” Similarly, towns with no previous presence on the Internet can now post community information online, or can change their town’s “radius” setting to find events in nearby towns.
Improving User Experience
To accommodate the growth of content, features, and site usage, AmericanTowns has increased its server capacity, streamlined its database and created a brand new user interface.
“To enhance user experience, each community webspace has a clean, warm, more visual presentation, and straightforward ways for users to sort information by the type of content,” explained Edward Panian, AmericanTowns’ co-president of Technology. “Our new interface gets people quickly and easily to the local information they are seeking in their everyday life.”
AmericanTowns’ new technology framework also pulls in useful local information from selected industry “verticals,” such as Topix, Traffic.com, Alliance Reservations, CareerBuilder, Trulia.com, and Verizon’s yellow pages provider, Superpages.com. At the same time, the site helps community organizations promote their initiatives to local media, through a free “one-click PR” tool, and to other websites such as Superpages.com, which recently integrated AmericanTowns’ community calendar into its site. Additional content-sharing initiatives are in development.
“AmericanTowns is moving ‘local’ beyond the standard search model that favors content with the best SEO work, to a ‘community webspace’ model that organizes the most useful information around the unique needs of real communities and is shaped over time by each community’s input,” said Ted Buerger, chairman of AmericanTowns.
About AmericanTowns.com
AmericanTowns is a national network of community-based websites where residents can find and share local information. For every town in America, AmericanTowns has created a “community webspace” that brings together the nation's most extensive online database of community events, community groups, news, local resources and special tools for organizations. Dedicated to connecting citizens, community organizations and locally-focused businesses and strengthening the bonds of our nation's communities, AmericanTowns has featured more than 10 million community events in the last 12 months, and offers powerful tools to help more than 120,000 listed community organizations interact more effectively with local citizens. Founded in 2000, AmericanTowns is headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut. Visit www.AmericanTowns.com.
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Contact
AmericanTowns.com
Caroline Langley
212-481-2826
www.americantowns.com
Caroline Langley
212-481-2826
www.americantowns.com
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