House Hunters: Meet Curbwise, the Omaha World-Herald’s real-estate news app

NiemanJournalismLab reporting:
The Omaha World-Herald wasn’t looking for blockbuster traffic and wave upon wave of pageviews with the launch of Curbwise. Rather, they were looking for a sustained audience, which would justify their investment in the project just as well as any rush of clicks.
That’s because Curbwise is an evergreen news app, a site that uses public data to give homeowners in the greater Omaha area (Douglas County, to be exact) valuations on their homes and neighborhoods, as well as historical data on property values and taxes. And since the app also offers homeowners custom reports on property values in their neighborhoods, Curbwise is also a potential revenue stream. Which makes the investment — basically part-time hours from three staffers — well worth the while.

 And that’s where Curbwise is instructive to other newspapers, particularly those that may have more in common, either in circulation size or staff, with the World-Herald than with, say, The New York Times or the Chicago Tribune.
“We had three guys working part-time on this for a couple of weeks. This is doable, it’s possible,” said Matt Wynn, a developer/reporter for the World-Herald. “You can do this without having to turn to consultants or IT guys. You can build these products.”

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