Hyperlocal news and data
OpenBlock turns civic data such as crime reports, 311 service requests, and building permits into local news. Browse it by neighborhood, address, or map, run it as a community news site, or add it to an existing publication.
01 / The platform
Run OpenBlock as a complete hyperlocal news site, or use it as a service that adds geotagged content, feeds, and widgets to a website you already have.
Publish civic data and community reporting on a site that lets readers browse by neighborhood, ZIP code, block, date, or kind of news.
Keep your current website and add geotagged stories and public records through a REST API, custom RSS feeds, and embeddable widgets.
02 / What it does
OpenBlock connects public records to the places they describe, then gives readers several ways to find them.
Connect crime reports, 311 service requests, building permits, restaurant inspections, and other public records.
How data enters the platformReaders can move by neighborhood, ZIP code, block, or map, then narrow the view by date and type of news.
Read the core conceptsPublish geotagged RSS feeds, email alerts, and widgets that fit into an existing website or a new one.
See the widget guideServe stories and data through a REST API for maps, mashups, and custom front ends.
Open the API reference03 / Data model
Every record is a NewsItem: a time, a place, a title, a description, and a schema that describes its type.
A schema adds searchable fields for each type, so police reports and inspections can carry different details.
Build a custom schema04 / Project notes
Release news and public moments from the team that built and maintained OpenBlock.
OpenBlock is rapidly approaching a 1.0 release. The beta can be installed from Python packages without a Git checkout, as documented in the updated install guide.
OpenBlock Rural was named a winner of the 2011 Knight News Challenge. The project congratulated Ryan Thornburg and welcomed the news.
The team exhibited OpenBlock at IRE 2011 in Orlando and gave a demonstration during the conference.
The first official alpha release made OpenBlock available as a zip download just before the IRE conference.
05 / Documentation
The documentation follows the work: install the platform, run a site, understand the packages, then trace the release history.
Prepare a server, install the software, load geographic data, and configure a site.
Start installing 02Run scrapers, define schemas, send alerts, and publish through the API or widgets.
Run a local site 03Understand ebpub, ebdata, obdemo, and obadmin, the modules that make up the platform.
Inspect the packages 04Read the 1.1.0 release notes and the full change history for the project.
Read the notesStay informed
Tell us who you are and how you would like to use OpenBlock. The original project used this form to share release news and installation updates.
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