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Feb. 6--A Web site is helping people keep their coffee more community than corporate.
Delocator.com launched in April. The site is the project of Christine Hanson, known better as "xtine" online and as an artist. A full-time faculty member at Art Institute of California, Orange County, the Long Beach resident's projects focus on interactive media.
Delocator.com grew out of a 10-minute Internet search for an independently owned coffee shop in SoHo in New York that only turned up Starbucks.
That's when xtine had a "wouldn't it be great?" idea that she acted on, creating a Web site where people could punch in their ZIP codes and pull up local coffee shops.
She made the ZIP codes available for anyone wanting to start his or her own site, which led to the recent establishment of a similar site in Canada.
People in each community enter coffee shops on the site. It's not so much anti-Starbucks as pro-local.
Coffee 'N Dreams in Thousand Oaks' Janss Marketplace shows up in a Delocator.com search. Manager Paul Woo hadn't heard of the site but said anything that gets the word out is helpful.
"I think it's cool that they're doing it," he said. "It's really hard to find independent coffee houses."
Woo said independent coffee shops succeed about 10 percent of the time. He added that many landlords prefer to have corporate shops for the name recognition. Hence, specialty coffee shops suffer.
Xtine plans a new site in the coming weeks that will expand the idea to bookstores and theaters. The new site will incorporate Google maps and blogging technology.
"All three of these business models serve one purpose," she said. "Trying to delocate Wal-Mart would be near impossible. There are so many categories of items."
Xtine said it's a logical progression after working out the kinks with the first site.
"When I first even thought of this idea, I immediately thought, 'Why stop at Starbucks?' " she said.
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