YourStreet launches today and aims to not only locate visitors, but also provide them news about their neighborhood. The company claims to have a better algorithm to do that than many others who've been down the path of hyperlocal news. It also uses MetaCarta's tools. The investment? Thus far just $400,000. The business model - for now Google AdSense ads, but eventually, that's right, hyperlocal ads.

My trial went ok - it put me in Boston, but I needed to key in my ZIP to get to my neighborhood. Once there I found many "article" icons with sources from the local Somerville Journal and blogs from the city. As I panned the Google Map sources changed - as I headed toward Tufts University sources popped up from that's school's paper. I could add stories to the map, comment and note myself as a neighbor. The interface is slick - but the maps is a bit small such that the popups of lists of stories are easily cut off if there are more than a few articles. There's options at the top of map to sort stories by time: today's, the past week, past month, etc. I'd rate it better than most attempts in this space. One to watch.

via TechCrunch