Billed as "the most comprehensive online source of crime information," spotcrime.com has been a growing source of information to check out the safety of neighborhoods, and give you an idea if you want to move there or not.
While police departments have said you have to be concerned in general over the accuracy of the information, at the same time it's a useful tool to use.
"It's helpful if you live in a neighborhood, and you want to see what types of crimes are in your neighborhood," an Austin, TX police official said. "It's helpful if you're thinking of moving to a specific neighborhood. We get a lot of parents that 
go on to our Web site, because they're sending their children to college in Austin, and they want to see what the crimes stats are for the apartment complex that their children are going to be living in."
Police did add that the Web site is weaker when looking for specific information, as it lacks the depth of what may of happened. Other than that they recommend it for giveing you the idea of how safe a neighborhood may be.
The site offers information primarily for big cities and metropolitan areas, it doesn't offer much for smaller towns.
Sources for the information are police records and news sources.
As far as the site itself, most people using it are happy with its ease of use, and recommend it to their friends. You can also check informatin by specific dates and time periods.
I like this because it has a lot of potential to monetize, as it's something that relates to everyone, and people are always concerned about their safety.
At this time the Web site is only using Google Adsense as far as I could see. They could offer up a lot of different crime prevention products that would probably make them a lot of money. It's a good idea and good potential source of significant income. There's a lot of ways to go with it.
Comment Preview