New York is the place to go for the best of everything, from high-end shopping in Soho to the dumplings on Canal Street. With future-forward tools and an innovative content strategy this site for NYC & Company—New York City’s official marketing, tourism and partnership organization—extends that philosophy to the Web.

The site structure, content and tone takes on an “everyone is a local” style of thinking. With enabled information-sharing across mobile and social platforms it allows users to rate their favorite landmarks and shops as well as create, publish and share custom lists and itineraries (which means no more link-collecting or map-forwarding).

The build began as the creation of the best, most usable, wow-inducing Web site New York City tourists had ever seen. However, what was discovered during user testing is that almost everyone, including those who had only visited the city once or twice, didn’t think of themselves as tourists. They instead thought of New York as “their city.” As such, they didn’t want structured guides or check-off lists of landmarks. They wanted to make discoveries on their own, without sacrificing insider-only perks like bargains, advice and convenience.

• The site has extensive mobile and transactional capabilities. Visitors can make dinner plans and book travel reservations right on the site through vendors such as Open Table and Travelocity and texting the word “today” to NYCGO delivers a list of the day’s events through SMS.

• Typical convention and visitor’s bureau Web sites feature flat content and infrequent updates. Not here. The whole experience is current, insider and niche. As an example, a Restaurant Week collection integrates with Google Maps or customizes the site layout to preferences.

* Visitors can text themselves directions and information for any listing in any borough—which almost makes site visits superfluous.