Image
Top
Navigation
October 27, 2009

Nixle – Breaking News in Your Neighborhood

ss-nixle

When local news happens, you want to know fast. If you’re like many people, you can’t wait until tomorrow’s newspaper to find out about a building fire down the block or a road closure that might impact your commute to work. For breaking news alerts in your specific neighborhood, there is no better service to check out than Nixle.

By tapping into the public databases for municipal and community-oriented groups across the country, Nixle has found a way to deliver breaking news alerts instantly to your e-mail inbox or cell phone—without forcing you to wait for the nightly newscast to report on the story. After signing up for the free service and entering your home or work address, users can see a list of recent events and ongoing issues in their specific neighborhood. Based on reports from police and fire departments, city government groups, and other outreach organizations, Nixle’s online updates cover everything from missing person alerts, to health advisories, and even reports on recently-made arrests.

Because Nixle’s alerts are location-based, you won’t waste time sifting through news stories that aren’t relevant to your local area. And since Nixle gets its information from credible and recognizable municipal sources, there’s no need to worry about the accuracy or legitimacy of the reports. We would definitely recommend Nixle to anyone looking for a better way to stay up-to-date on what’s really going on in their local community.

Practical Uses:

  • Be the first to know when a crime has occurred on your block
  • Find out about road closures that might impact your commute
  • Stay up-to-date on community events and town hall meetings
  • Instantly know when a child or elderly person has gone missing in your area

Insider Tips:

  • Enable SMS service to get breaking news delivered to your cell phone
  • Add additional locations to keep track of the news in the neighborhoods where your friends and family live as well
  • Use the unsubscribe feature to stop receiving alerts from certain organizations
  • Check out Nixle’s maps to see the specific location where an event transpired

What we liked:

  • Text messaging option makes it easy to get information while you’re on-the-go
  • Ability to receive urgent messages instantly from local police and fire departments
  • Color-coded alerts make it easy to tell the difference between a simple advisory and a true emergency
  • Nixle is completely free

What we didn’t like:

  • Service is still limited in certain areas, although Nixle says users will be contacted via email when more information for their neighborhood becomes available

Alternatives:

  • None that we found

Company Info:

  • Launched: March 2009
  • Privately Held
  • Headquarters: San Francisco, California and Mount Laurel, New Jersey
  • Founded by: Craig Mitnick and Firas Emachah
  • Web site: http://www.nixle.com

Costs:

  • Free

Submit a Comment