Just learned of Neighborrow.com. Seems focused on NYC apartment buildings. Neighbors join and offer to loan stuff to each other, and make requests. Website is up. Featured groups have a couple dozen or fewer members. It has a young feel (don’t borrow from anyone over 30?) and has some plumb media coverage… Grist article and MSNBC interview.
Our neighborhood has a manual version of this. Erik maintains a list of items people are willing to loan. I think he invited several neighbors into the group. Everyone gets the spreadsheet. Need an extra sleeping pad for this weekend’s camping trip? Check the list and make a call. Simple. However, not heavily used either.
This kind of thing seems to happen spontaneously through Front Porch Forum more… “hey, anyone out there have a sleeping pad we can borrow for this weekend?” That would likely get several responses from our nearby neighbors, who may or may not be on Erik’s list. Kind of “just in time” stuff-to-loan. And no database to keep up to date.
Posted in: Borrow and Lend, Front Porch Forum, Local Online, Local Search, Neighborhood, Social Media
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more
What a great concept! Thanks so much for sharing, I am looking forward to using their service.
Great Interview by Loscreador with the founder of Neighborrow Adam Berk Read more at http://www.loscreador.com/web2interviews/neighborrow
Neighborrow looks cool, I will check it out.
check out my site that is also dedicated to lending and borrowing – from friends.
it’s called Traxtuff and it’s a dashboard that let’s you keep track of stuff you already lent and borrowed to/from friends,
and by adding stuff the items-database grows and you can also search for stuff that your friends are willing to lend, or lent in the past.
here’s the address, hope you like it:
http://www.traxtuff.com