The intersection of proximity and importance gives a better view of news than doing either one alone.

When looking at news through the lens of a local geography, it can be very easy to miss things that are outside of the defined boundaries of local. Everyblock does a great job of gathering news from many sources and organizing them geographically. I'd like to build on that data and apply filters to find what's happening locally and put that on a continuum that connects the local stories to global news

From the other side, it's very easy to miss local and smaller stories when you check news through sites that take a higher altitude perspective. Sites like CNN, or even your metro daily newspapers do a good job of presenting the big items, but the long tail falls off very quickly.

From a single location, you'll be able to visit one webpage to see what's happening close to that location, and see things that are happening further away, but are still important. Output is not limited to just a webpage though, kml output, maps, and an API all feel like natural progressions.