CityTools offers new ways to explore stories

The main page features a rich mix of material

  • CityTools members may write original stories -- citizen journalism, neighborhood news, fiction, satire, poetry, whatever interests them -- and share this with the world.
  • Members may share links to stories and great sites from elsewhere on the net, just as they do on other social networks. The team behind CityTools has been doing social news experiments since 1995, it's part of our DNA.
  • Members can create powerful, dynamic lists -- in fact, the list features are so unusual, they've got a section of their own.
  • Everything can be ranked on CityTools and the more active (and productive) you are, the greater weight your opinion has
  • You can organize content by time and category -- want to see all the technology stories from the last week? It's just a click or two away.
  • With a single mouse click, you can drill down on a single topic, a single author, a geographic region, or story tags. We're all about discovery...

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Best of all, all this power can be local!

  • CityTools rich geographic engine means that you're never more than on click away from enjoying original content, shared news, lists and more all from your local area!
  • On the main list pages, all you need to do is click "home" to view local content in whatever timeframe or category or combination of both you choose.
  • And anytime you want to go back to the global viewpoint, you're there with one click. Think of it as a lens that allows you to effortlessly shift focus from local, to regional to national.
  • Our nifty location ribbon across the top allows you to expand the area of coverage with a single click.

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And the world is at your fingertips too!

  • Anytime you want to see what people are writing about, sharing, commenting upon in a specific place in the world, all you need to do is browse to another location.
  • CityTools offers full coverage -- in many cases right down to the neighborhood level -- of every city in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Austrailia.
  • Virtually every nation in the world is covered as well; in many cases we also cover major cities within a country. So if you've been dreaming of the day you could have an English language Citizen journalism site in Nepal, well, your time has come.
  • At the moment, our coverage is limited to the English language. But soon we'll be rolling out native language versions with media partners in other countries.
  • The big story of the world is told in countless smaller tales. We want to gather them together. When we share our stories, we understand one another. With understanding comes compassion. Yes, we're romantics that way.

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And now another new thing: Ambient News

  • Sometimes events might unfold that our members don't catch or don't bother to post. That's when Ambient News comes to the rescuse
  • At first blush, Ambient News looks like a simple tag cloud of the kind found elsewhere -- the larger the word, the more heat it's generating. Click on the word to find stories about it.
  • Every 10 minutes, our software analyzes the feeds of several hundred sources of information, weights the importance of certain concepts, compares them to the current interests of our readers and presents the most important ideas in a tag cloud.
  • What this means for you is that you never have to worry about missing an important story -- if it's being talked about in the media, you'll know about it right away. With Ambient News, you're always on top of what's happening.

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return to the main public features overview
Tips!
click on an item below for more info

Where can I find information on the publisher's network?

The features overview can be found here.

If you're interested in the Howtos and quick guides -- including the 15-minute fast track guide -- to using the networks, you can find that here

Where can I find out about features of the free CityTools public tools?

The overview page can be found here

The howtos for teams, writing stories and lists may be found on the menu rail under "Docs and Howtos."

I've got to have this! Where do I sign up?

We were hoping you'd ask that!

You can sign up for an individual account here which is free for everyone.

If you want to sign up for our paid publisher services you may do so here, but you need to sign up for an individual account first.