It’s always fun to explore a neighborhood that you don’t know. To make it a better experience, we recently upgraded the site to include “view neighborhood” feature, where you can view the surrounding areas of an ad and get a better “look” right on the page.

So what have been added?

The Google street map

This is not exactly new but we made it better. You can now view the Google street map and navigate around the block in camera view if it’s available.

Yelp.com business reviews

Yelp (yelp.com) is a website that connects people with great local businesses. It provides a nice API to show the businesses in a specific area. With the API, we are able to “mash up” the business reviews on Yelp into our listings. You can find their locations, ratings and reviews right on a map. So If you want to see what kind of food, shopping or local services you can get, open up the neighborhood view and the information is there for you.

Movie theaters

Everyone wants to enjoy a movie once in a while. And we put Americans’ number one entertainment choice in the neighborhood view as well. If you are a movie fan, it’s probably not a good idea to live in a place where there is no theaters around so make sure to check it out!

Schools and libraries

This is a great addition for those who are looking for family friendly places. Of course we all do but if you have kids, it’s better to know what are school options, how far are they, and whether there are libraries close by so you can easily borrow books for the little ones. With this information, I hope moms and dads have a easier time to make their decision.

This is an exciting upgrade and it’s also just a start. Since there is so much information about a neighborhood and different visitors may have different areas of interest, we are looking forward to adding more interesting and useful subjects. As always, let us know your thoughts and feedback!