CiVicinity

CiVicinity is an aggregator of community information built around the idea that most information in smaller communities is distributed around a large number of websites where each only contains a small amount of information that is updated regularly. For example a non-profit group may only hold public events once a month or less. This creates a challenge for organizations to quicly get announcements out to the public, both because the static nature of their own website makes regular visitors unlikely and because advertising locally involves reaching out to many broadcast, print and online media outlets.

The site currently aggregates Atom/RSS and iCalendar feeds from over 45 sources (non-profits, blogs, media outlets, educational institutions, etc.) in the State College area. The site supports geospatially mapping feeds that are geo-tagged (unfortunately few sites currently do). Some key features of CiVicinity are that: authenitcated users can configure their own feeds, users can easily share links to content that interests them, community events can be sorted by distance from your location . Part of this project is working with non-profit organizations in the communtiy to show them how they can get their information out to the community using Web 2.0 technologies. A current goal for the project is incorporating CiVicinity feed aggregation into a location-based portal for public WiFi in the downtown area.