Outside.in no longer outside looking in

Outside.in on Tuesday officially launched its Web service for sharing and exploring information about neighborhoods (3,217 altogether) in 63 cities nationwide. John Geraci, president and co-creator of Outside.in, talked about the site during a panel discussion at Inman News' Real Estate Connect NY last month. The site aggregates information from the blogosphere, traditional media and individual users for a comprehensive look at real-world communities on the Web.

The company also announced its first significant round of financing from backers including Union Square Ventures, and Internet luminaries Marc Andreessen, John Seely Brown, and Esther Dyson. Additional financing came from Milestone Venture Partners, Village Ventures, and angel investors George Crowley, John Borthwick, and Richard Smith.

"We have learned that the best Web services are two way systems," said Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures. "They take content in, add something to it, and then send it back out. YouTube works this way. So do Delicious and Flickr. To date, we haven’t seen such a service for local information online. Outside.in will hopefully fill that void and we are excited to be involved."

All rights reserved. This content may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this content without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.