Microsoft Sidewalk, Anyone?

Show of hands: who remembers Microsoft Sidewalk? Sidewalk.com was Microsoft’s attempt at listing and promoting local events in a given city. It would show music, art, food, and dozens of other categorized events in an area local to the registered user. It had a fairly simplistic design and interface – very Microsoft at the time.

It lived for about 10 minutes. It seems as soon as Microsoft bought the domain, they hosted the site for about a year and then shuttered. Thing is, I really dug using it. And, I still – to this day – think it’s a great idea. Where does someone go to get a compendium of goings-on in their local area? Which bands are playing which clubs? What are the events being held downtown this weekend? Who is planning on going?

CitySkyVue was my answer to all of that, and I again enlisted a few Microsoft buddies to make a demo to pitch for funding. It came off pretty well, and I really like how it was designed. But, alas, things in life changed and it was never developed. I haven’t completely given up hope, however. I still think there is a market out there if any developers are interested in taking a crack at it. 😀