Gary Kebbel is Knight Foundation’s Journalism Program Director

After Knight Foundation’s grant to EveryBlock.com ended, MSNBC.com has bought the Knight News Challenge project that makes neighborhood-level news and information easy to find and use.

We always hope that innovations Knight Foundation funds are supported by the marketplace. As founder Adrian Holovaty says in his blog post announcing the sale, “it means that we’ll have resources to expand EveryBlock profoundly.”

A requirement of the grant was that EveryBlock.com publicly release the code that powers the site, so that others could use it free for their communities. That code is posted at

and at

EveryBlock.com lists information like, crime reports, zoning changes, street closings, restaurant inspections or business openings. It currently has sites in 15 cities.