By showcasing every U.S. city, business, and individual from a grassroots, local level, MyCity.com promises to enrich the lives of members by helping them network with fellow citizens, get involved in local organizations, reach out to local governments and reinstill basic community values and traditions.
"USA Today said it best," said Wolf Shlagman, President, CEO and co-founder of MyCity.com. "America, as we know it, is vanishing. What happened to all the community icons--drive-in theaters, family farms, independent bookstores, and town squares? They've disappeared. And along with these disappearances, we've seen an increasing decline in community involvement and community values."
Shlagman says he sees a connection between the disappearance of these community groups and an alarming increase in American concerns about such issues as violence, drugs, gun control, education, breakdown of the family and distrust of government officials. Spurred by a public desire for these disappearing ideals, he's developed MyCity.com to rediscover America's communities and forgotten values.
"MyCity.com networks people within and across every American community," Shlagman says. "It renews that 'back-home' feeling--the feeling that binds people to their neighborhoods--regardless of where they are or what they're doing."
America's First Local Wide Web MyCity.com refers to itself as America's Local Wide Web (LWW), with an Internet-based connection of some 50,000 interwoven geographic community sites. A full-service, local information Web site, MyCity.com provides a geographic, interactive and easy-to-use guide to a user's local community online. It offers localized, customized and personalized information that will enrich, enhance and simplify the user's daily life. "This will be the largest community portal on the web," said Kristen Routh, Vice President, Marketing & Communications for MyCity.com. "Our Mission is to bring consumers and businesses together online on a local level. We will do this by becoming the leading provider of free online information services that are local guides, which serve the community and are compelling-to-use, offer unparalleled local content, promote community involvement and help to open the lines of communication within local communities."
MyCity.com plans to take its relationship with members to an ultra-personal level, and to impact their lives in ways unprecedented by any other medium to date. In a day when Americans are focused more than ever on community-oriented issues (Reuters/Zogby, July 1999), MyCity.com lets users find out about game stats from the little league baseball team's last outing; get information on fundraising activities for local organizations; identify sales and specials going on at the local grocery store; post information about their Saturday afternoon garage sales; even participate in live town hall discussions with local politicians and policy makers from home.
