Ask HN: feedback on an idea - send messages/questions to suburbs/cities

1 point·andrewstuart··6 comments

Probably one of the many location based startups do this now, but anyway.

I was thinking it would be good to be able to send a message/question to a suburb or city. People who know the area can reply.

Is there a site that focuses on this concept?

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The best site that I know of for this is http://www.city-data.com/

It looks terrible, but frankly there is some great information on there, and the forums are pretty useful too.

I'm kind of thinking more like sending a message to an area, where other people in the area can respond. Mobile is probably ideal but no reason not to be web too.

How specific of an area? Can you provide a use case for someone asking for feedback and another for the person providing it?

Say for example a suburb - people in the suburb of Camberwell chatting to each other locally. Or maybe when you visit a city as a traveller, for example to Sydney, send a message to anyone tuned in and ask them where to find X or Y, or what current events are happening or something.

Kind of like CB radio but text, and over the Internet, and just for a local area. like cb radio, messages would have limited range.

I understand completely why travelers would want this. I've often had a need for something like this but i'm not sure what locals would get out of it.

You might be right although I think many local people like to help out travellers who are visiting and peering at maps on street corners in confused manner.

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