SAN FRANCISCO, June 2, 2011 – Trulia, a top resource for homebuyers, sellers and renters, today expanded its product suite with the launch of Crime Maps, a innovative and proprietary social crime mapping technology that allows consumers to view, explore, compare, interact and comment on crime data across the US. With Crime Maps, Trulia gives consumers hyper-local visibility into the good, bad and ugly dynamics of neighborhoods, enabling them to make better decisions about where to buy or rent a home.
Crime Maps leverages geodata from multiple partners, including CrimeReports.com, EveryBlock.com and SpotCrime.com, who work with hundreds of police agencies, crime feeds and news outlets to create a curated map of criminal activity in many metropolitan areas. Users can view crimes in a specific area, toggle between multiple neighborhoods, and directly compare the crime statistics of two different regions. Trulia also enables users to add insights, comments, and advice via Facebook’s Social Comments for additional context and information on top of the geodata.
“Historically, detailed and easy-to-decipher crime reports haven’t been easily accessible to the average citizen, and Trulia aims to bring that data to light at the most important moment – when people are deciding where they should live,” said Pete Flint, co-founder and CEO, Trulia. “As a business, Trulia continues to move beyond public record data to in order to add more depth and details about what it’s like to live in a neighborhood. We’re leveraging the acquisition of the Movity team to build visual and innovative mapping platforms and integrate social features into the core of our user experience.”
Upon launch, Trulia’s Crime Maps will be available in 50 counties, with plans to quickly expand nationwide. Trulia provides a visual heat map analysis of historical data. To ensure that the crime-related information on each map is as accurate as possible, Crime Maps automatically displays the last 2,500 crimes committed in a given area.
“With the democratization of data, now we are capable of building a product like Crime Maps,” said Eric Wu, Head of Geo/Social Products at Trulia. “We’ll continue to not only aggregate this valuable geodata, but help users understand and consume it through beautiful products. Ultimately, we want to help paint a complete picture of location on a hyper-local basis, and we believe coupling data with social comments is a very powerful combination.”
In creating Crime Maps, Trulia has unearthed some interesting statistics about crime in America based on the 50 metros that are available at launch. Some highlights include:
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Crime in America
· Theft · Assault · Burglary · Arrest · Vandalism
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TRULIA CRIMEMAPS:
- Neighborhood Crime Insights: Learn more about a neighborhood’s crime statistics using large interactive maps to view where and what types of crimes occur in neighborhoods across America. Compare time-of-day data, stack statistics of one neighborhood against another and dig in deeper to the details of crimes.
- Heatmaps – shows historical crime during the past twelve months
- Social Commenting: Via Facebook’s social plug-in, users can leave detailed comments about areas, providing local, personal and relevant context to the Crime Maps data.
ADDITIONAL ASSETS
· To view and explore Crime Maps, click here
· To view a video about Crime Maps, here
· To view a slideshow of the findings, click here
· To view Crime Maps methodology, click here
· To download high-resolution screenshots of Trulia’s Crime Maps, click here
About Trulia, Inc.
Trulia is the fastest growing online real estate resource, empowering buyers, sellers and renters with smarter tools to help them find the right home. Trulia helps you find the home that best meets your specific needs. Our smart and personalized real estate search experience brings together local information, community insights, market data and national listings all in one place. Trulia is headquartered in downtown San Francisco and is backed by Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital.
