Irvine runs New York Sidewalk (newyork.sidewalk.com), Microsoft’s new World Wide Web-based entertainment guide to the Big Apple. The software giant launched a Seattle version of Sidewalk in April, and will roll out 10 to 15 more by the end of the year (Boston and Minneapolis launch next, in June). Bill Gates’s incursion into the world of Web content is just one of several guides that are turning the Internet into real competition for local newspapers and city magazines across the country. (The Washington Post, NEWSWEEK’S parent company, is a partner with CitySearch in creating a similar service for the Washington, D.C., area.)
The big question: do these digital upstarts do anything that a magazine or paper doesn’t do already? The short answer: yes. Sidewalk’s database is not only vast but searchable and updated three times a day by about 12 full-time staffers and a crew of freelancers. The Sidewalk team takes its journalism seriously. New York’s executive producer, the service’s equivalent to an editor in chief, is Eric Etheridge, the former editor of George magazine. Seattle Sidewalk poached its top editor, Jan Even, from the Seattle Weekly, where she was in charge of arts and entertainment coverage.
““Customization,’’ which allows users to define their tastes, works well, but doesn’t quite make the service the ““virtual entertainment butler’’ that Microsoft says it is. Sidewalk does have some innovative features. In the restaurant section it anticipates common questions. Can you smoke? Is the food kosher? How decent is the wine list? And, in Seattle, can I arrive by boat? Sidewalk will alert you by e-mail when your favorite jazz trio comes to town, or tell you how much scalpers are asking for tickets to tonight’s playoff game.
It’s not perfect: a search for Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, an obscure summer festival, came up empty, as did one for a popular Village sushi joint. Still, Sidewalk makes a case for Net-based city guides and ditching that old remote.
