Business POV

Chicagoan Adrian Holovaty, a former Washington Post staffer, in January launched EveryBlock.com, an aggregator of data on restaurant inspections, construction permits, crimes and numerous other topics for each block in the three cities it's thus far focused on: Chicago, New York and San Francisco. It's a much more expansive version of his pioneering site ChicagoCrime.org. We asked Adrian to walk us through the site and talk about what he thinks his business model will look like.

The site was funded by a $1.1 million grant over two years from the Knight Foundation, which gives new-media journalists funds to pursue new concepts. Holovaty is using the funds to pay his four-person staff, rent office space, and pay server costs. The site has plenty of room to grow: Holovaty says it currently features only 10% of the data sources he and his team want.