About Close By Me

"it's a simple idea really: allow users to tie content to a location, and then let other users search for that content based on their own location"

Close by Me (CBM) is an online community allowing users to create postings: messages, notifications, announcements, etc. The content is then associated with a general location (postal/zip code). Other users in the community can search for information based on their own location, area of coverage (radius or distance from them) and items of interest, in close proximity or far beyond their own city.

Postings can be anything from jobs, sale items, rant and raves, discussions, personals, real estate, activity groups, services, etc. CBM is in essence a combination of interactive classifieds, notifications and discussion groups. CBM is an innovative twist on an old idea, it differentiates its self by allowing people to search for items of interest by their location and proximal distance, thereby changing the relevance of the results in what they are looking for (hence the name "Close By Me"). Each step in CBM allows users to expand and change their search by hopping from one location or category to the next. Through each step, message by message, users can continue an open journey that may meander thru different categories, locations, and points of interest.

Close by Me (CBM) was launched in the spring of 2009, which explains the relatively low amount of messages in the system.

The best is yet to come!

Close by Me Team,
San Francisco, California
Spring 2009

Current Features

• Over 800,000 US and Canadian Zip/Postal codes
• Ability to tie and search for messages by locality, proximity, classification and key words
• In depth classification hierarchy for indexing and searching message posts
• Attributes associated by category for classification and refined search
• Ability to maneuver by zip/postal code and radius of coverage
• Ability to email, print, respond, rate, social bookmark, and comment on messages
• Invite friends and create new friendships by location
• Track posts from friends, or key people to follow
• Interact with individuals about posts and key interests thru email
• Create subscriptions about key posts of interests and monitor multiple subscription feeds
• Directly message post authors using Internet based messaging system
• NEW! The ability to add images and photos to posts!