Former Googlers Launch Yatown, a New Local Social Network for Neighbors

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Available today in 192 thousand neighborhoods across America, Yatown is bringing communities closer together by re-acquainting neighbors in providing a single, well known place for users to go and immediately "see" one another in an online "townsquare."

"Yatown was born out of our own frustration in connecting to our neighborhoods online. We had to locate obscure mailing lists or antiquated and poorly maintained websites," said CEO of Yatown, Christopher Nguyen. "People have been trying to solve this problem through services like Ning and other build-your-own-social-network sites, or Facebook groups. These approaches don't work for three reasons: they're too much work to set up, too difficult for neighbors to find, and people do not associate existing sites with their geographic neighborhood."

80% of U.S. disposable income is spent within some 10 miles of the home, according to the CFO of Cox Interactive Media. The two co-founders of Yatown, Christopher Nguyen and Kevin Lim, both successful Internet industry experts, recognized this opportunity and created Yatown as a local social media solution specifically for neighbors to connect and share information where they live.

"We see our neighbors and wave at them all the time, but are limited to just a few houses nearby, and have no convenient way to connect with others who may know what's going on with that downtown construction, or what that traffic jam was all about, or who's the best plumber around," said Lim. "There is no easy way to announce a garage sale to the neighborhood online, no easy way to promote the school fundraiser other than using a mailing list and no easy way to reach out to the neighborhood and campaign for school-funding measures."

http://yatown.com plans on solving this problem with a strong emphasis on trust  social responsibility. Yatown provides tools to help neighbors raise funds for schools and community organizations, sponsors local community projects with direct grants, as well as donates a portion of revenues to community projects. In being able to reach residents down to single households, Yatown will be an important way for candidates in the 2012 election to reach their constituents.

Yatown looks to connect users living near each other, in contrast with Facebook's utility in connecting friends spread out globally. Neighbors will automatically be grouped into neighborhoods without any special set up required of them.

Given the track record of the co-founders, Yatown is backed by investments from an impressive roster of former and current executives of Yahoo, Salesforce.com, TiE Angels, and others. Yatown plans to become the #1 platform for all things local.

For more information visit http://yatown.com

Contact
Kevin Mateo
pr(at)yatown(dot)org
http://yatown.com/about/press
408-372-8664
440 North Wolfe Road, Sunnyvale, CA 94085

SOURCE Yatown