Yearly Archives: 2007
Amazing Event in NYC
The Personal Democracy Forum was intense! Amazing that Front Porch Forum landed me on the agenda alongside the CEO of Google, the founder of Craigslist, best selling authors, a thrice Pulitzer Prize winner, several web advisers to presidential campaigns, A-list political bloggers, top academics, other VIPs, and lots of up-and-comers. I was and am honored and thankful to Micah Sifry for the invitation.
I learned much from the various sessions and hallway conversations. Here’s a photo from Steve Garfield of one panel’s audience (with me typing away on the floor in the foreground),
and another by Caviar…
Front Porch Forum was very well received by a several folks I met there, but not all. Our approach is different enough that it requires a ready and open mind to understand it, and in a “30-second elevator pitch” environment that can be a challenge. That’s fine… many there were eager to know more.
Part of my pitch…
Imagine much of today’s social media occurring among clearly identified nearby neighbors, instead of anonymous distant strangers. It’s happening with Front Porch Forum where 20% of our pilot city has subscribed in our first half-year. Every plumber recommendation, restaurant review, piece of citizen journalism, classified ad, etc. posted not only gets a direct result, but all those messages add up to neighbors getting to know each other and build real community in their neighborhood. People LOVE it!
The speakers’ cocktail party the night before the event was hosted by Google at their NYC digs… definitely not your usual cubicle farm. Here’s the view (thanks to Steve Garfield again)…
Sponsorship Status for Front Porch Forum
Front Porch Forum has enjoyed a surprising level of success facilitating neighbor-to-neighbor connection. In our first half-year, 20% of the City of Burlington has subscribed and put our free service to great use. Thanks and congratulations to the thousands of people who are making it all happen.
Now, we’re focused on developing a local-business-to-neighbor component… our new sponsorship program. We intend to provide snippets about local businesses largely not available elsewhere, AND, in the process, we aim to generate enough income to cover the expenses associated with hosting 130 neighborhood forums across Chittenden County.
We’ve been working on this (and posting updates on the various neighborhood forums) for the past few months. Now, this week, we tested our first sponsor message from Seven Days, the local free weekly newspaper (Cathy Resmer blogged about it)…
SPONSOR MESSAGE
By Seven Days, http://sevendaysvt.com, web@sevendaysvt.com
Wed, 16 May 2007Should Zoe Christiansen be allowed to play her clarinet on Church Street? Find out why this young busker was banned from the Marketplace. Listen to her music and tell us what you think at http://sevendaysvt.com.
We’re sensitive about balancing this new program with the desire to keep each neighborhood forum focused on the neighbor-to-neighbor conversation, so your feedback will be much appreciated. We’re excited about the sponsorship program because it will support (hopefully!) Front Porch Forum as we move forward AND it will give local businesses and nonprofits a chance to connect with various neighborhoods.
We’re still in an early testing phase, so we’re only working with a few sponsors. If your business, nonprofit, agency, special event, etc. is interested in sponsoring a few to all of the neighborhood forums in and around Burlington, please add your information to our sponsor wait list. If you already have joined that wait list and would like to join Seven Days and others in our initial test, please contact me directly. Cheers! -Michael
Husband Rentals get Press
Paula Routly has a good piece about a local hardware store’s “Rent-A-Husband” service in today’s Seven Days. The dust on this was first kicked up by John Grimm when he joined Front Porch Forum and posted his thoughts… past postings here and here.
First FPF Sponsorship Deal Struck
Seven Days is now Front Porch Forum‘s first sponsor! Thanks to Paula, Pamela, Cathy, Bob and the whole crew there. Here’s one of the FPF ads that will run in Seven Days…
Seniors Connect with Neighbors via FPF
Great article about how seniors are making use of Front Porch Forum in this month’s Vermont Maturity Magazine. Writer Barbara Leitenberg did wonderful job.
Pew’s Latest Report and FPF
The Pew Internet and American Life Project really cranks out the research. The latest one, A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users, is, despite the catchy title, a great read full of valuable insights. For example, based on their survey of 4,000 American adults, we break down as such…
- Elite Tech Users – 31%
- Middle-of-the-Road Tech Users – 20%
- Few Tech Assets – 49%
The elite users of information and communications technology (ICT) consist of four groups that have the most information technology, are heavy and frequent users of the internet and cell phones and, to varying degrees, are engaged with user-generated content. Members of these groups have generally high levels of satisfaction about the role of ICTs in their lives, but the groups differ on whether the extra availability is a good thing or not.
The middle-of-the-road users consist of two groups whose outlook toward information technology is task-oriented. They use ICTs for communication more than they use it for self-expression. One group finds this pattern of information technology use satisfying and beneficial, while the other finds it burdensome.
For those with few technology assets (four groups), modern gadgetry is at or near the periphery of their daily lives. Some find it useful, others don’t, and others simply stick to the plain old telephone and television.
Front Porch Forum members, I estimate, are scattered across all of these categories… not just the tech elites. In April 2006 (when the survey was completed), 73% of Americans labeled themselves as internet users (same as cell phones).
Pew reports that 18% of respondents “post comments to an online news group or website,” while 8% have a blog. Looking at the last six months in our flagship Five Sisters Neighborhood Forum, 90% of the neighborhood subscribes and a full 50% of that group posted to their neighborhood forum in the past six months.
Neighborhood Mail Lists Thriving
Steve Hendrix wrote in The Washington Post today about the widespread use of neighborhood email lists in and around Washington, DC. Read here for lots of interesting examples. (Thanks to E-Democracy.org for the tip.) Also noted…
According to the Pew Center‘s Internet and American Life Project, 55 percent of Internet users subscribed to e-mail group lists in 2006 as a way of maintaining ties with the community or hobby groups they belonged to, up from 32 percent in 2001.
Yahoo, which provides free hosting services in exchange for implanting small ads at the bottom of each message, says it handles more than 8 million groups with more than 100 million members.
So there’s a huge demand for neighborhood email lists and a huge number of people are not yet served. Further, the leading provider in the sector now, Yahoo Groups, is decidedly user-unfriendly and not accessible to lots of people with low computer skills (based on personal experience trying to guide many folks onto and around various Yahoo Groups that I’ve been involved with).
This adds up to great potential for Front Porch Forum.
Yahoo! We’re going to Google NYC Party
Just got an invitation to a gathering at Google NYC! It’s the speakers’ cocktail party for the Personal Democracy Forum. Photo ID required to get into the party… guess we’re not in Vermont anymore. 😉
Front Porch Forum is on the agenda, alongside some A-List political bloggers (Huffington Post, TPM), successful dot.com entrepreneurs (craigslist, Wikipedia), Presidential campaign online directors (Edwards, McCain, Joe Trippi), best-selling authors (Thomas Friedman), etc. Very exciting. The conference is May 18 at Pace University. I’ll write about the experience here.
About Blog
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
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