Yearly Archives: 2007
Buffalo Rising Online Effort
The Local Onliner reports today about Buffalo Rising, the monthly magazine in Buffalo, NY, and it’s efforts to combine its paper and online offerings.
Building the perfect template for hyper-local media has been the endgame for a number of companies – BackFence, American Town Networks, Pegasus News, and Citysquares, to name a few.
HyperLocal Media has been working at it as well, focusing on the synergies of a print/offline model to effectively sell advertising to the community. Since I profiled the company last June, it has built a custom headquarters in cheap-rent Buffalo, and continued finessing its tools and services with Buffalo Rising. In my view, the site is easily one of the best up and running…
Lots of interesting insights from these folks in this posting… read more.
Social networks reduce impact of Alzheimer’s?
Can vibrant social networks limit the negative effect of Alzheimer’s disease? Refrigerator Rights points to a medical study…
Dr. David Bennett summarized the work by saying it this way: “Many elderly people who have the tangles and plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease don’t clinically experience cognitive impairment or dementia,” said Bennett. “Our findings suggest that social networks are related to something that offers a ‘protective reserve’ capacity that spares them the clinical manifestations of Alzheimer’s disease.”
That’s a sizable claim. We’ve always felt intuitively that positive social networks like Front Porch Forum contributes to good health. I seem to recall that Bowling Alone presents evidence along these lines as well.
New York Times Guru on Social Web
The Local Onliner has a piece well worth reading today…
New York Times Digital Chief Martin Niesenholtz, keynoting the Yellow Pages Association conference this morning in Las Vegas, called local “a huge untapped opportunity in the directories arena that no one – including the portals – has yet tapped.”
… the winners in local “could come from many different directions: from the social networking side; from information businesses; from search; from startups; and, of course, from the directory players. So far no one has truly tapped and structured the input from local audience/s. When that happens, it will be a game changer. I have very little doubt about that,” he said.
During his talk, he told YPA that it is critical to fully embrace the social web. “There is tremendous knowledge and power locked up in our users, and traditional media businesses have failed so far to adequately exploit that.
Read the full post here.
Wait wait… don’t tell me!
Here’s Front Porch Forum‘s spoof of the popular NPR game show. In this version, one answer is bogus, nestled in among many true statements lifted from local neighborhood forums. Can you guess the false one?
1. SIGNS OF SPRING REPORTED ON VARIOUS NEIGHBORHOOD FORUMS…
A. The whistling song of a cardinal.
B. Crocus poking their way out of the mulch.
C. Neighbors’ garbage and recycling blowing down the street.
D. Not having the car heat maxed out during morning commute.
E. The need of a good exterminator for carpenter ants.
F. Red Sox fever.
G. Free stuff set out from spring cleaning.
H. Matsuri, a Japanese festival of spring.
I. Ramps (wild leeks) popping up and tree swallows flitting about.
J. Graffiti tags blooming all over Burlington.
2. GREAT NEIGHBORHOOD EVENTS ORGANIZED THIS PAST MONTH ON NEIGHBORHOOD FORUMS…
A. Plant swap… share your perennial thinnings and pick up something new.
B. Neighborhood Green Up Day teams.
C. Park clean up and party.
D. Neighborhood-wide yard sale.
E. Weekly walking club.
F. Photography shoot of missing curbs.
G. Mud festival… a day full of mud-themed games, food and good clean fun.
3. LOST ITEMS FOUND IN APRIL VIA NEIGHBORHOOD FORUMS…
A. Run-away husky named Kiva.
B. Lots of lost cats, including Boaz the Large.
C. New pair of prescription sunglasses.
D. Bicycle and scooter.
E. Earring.
G. Tent.
H. Family heirloom aluminum canoe.
I. Stroller.
J. Ball cap and table cloth on a tennis court.
4. RECENT RECOGNITION OF FRONT PORCH FORUM SUCCESS…
A. Won a “Technology Fostering Community” award.
B. Won a “Community Improvement” award.
C. Invited to speak at NYC conference alongside founders of Craigslist and Wikipedia.
D. Featured in local daily newspaper.
E. Asked to lead training session of local nonprofits interested in Web 2.0.
5. TIPS FOR GETTING THE MOST OUT OF FRONT PORCH FORUM…
A. Recruit your neighbors (send them to http://frontporchforum.com).
B. Tell Front Porch Forum when you change your email address!
C. If you move locally, switch your membership from your old to your new neighborhood.
D. Send a message to introduce yourself to your neighborhood forum.
E. Search your neighborhood’s online archive for past postings (e.g., plumber recommendations).
F. When responding to a neighbor’s request, do so to the entire forum (instead of just to the one neighbor) for everyone’s benefit.
G. Post a nasty note about your next-door neighbor’s dog/cat/kids.
ANSWERS…
1. Trick question… These are all pulled from members’ postings.
2. G… No, but I’m willing to share this idea with anyone who wants to run with it. 😉
3. H… Reported lost on the Huntington River, but not yet found.
4. D… Not yet. These honors are shared with all FPF members.
5. G… Thankfully, this kind of thing almost never happens on Front Porch Forum.
SCORE…
0-2 Up and comer… log a few more hours on an actual front porch.
3-4 Good neighbor… nice work.
5 Neighbor of the Year!
Eight Year Old Rocker!
I love the message posted today on the Five Sisters Neighborhood Forum below by a father on behalf of his kid…
I am 8 years old and a 3rd grader at Champlain. I have been playing the drums for two years (lessons every week) and I am getting quite good. My Dad and Mom have told me that it is “cool with them” if I want to start a rock band. I am looking for a singer, guitar player, keyboard player, and a bass player. I am looking for band mates from the ages of 8 to 12. We can practice at my house on the weekends. I have my own drum set and we have keyboards as well. Please call me if you are interested. Rock on…
I think this is a first for Front Porch Forum… maybe we’ll make it in the liner notes some day (do they still write liner notes?).
Connecting with Neighbors helps Kids
Kevin Harris reports today about some ESRC research that shows that parents who feel connected with their neighbors allow their young children more freedom to roam.
The findings are from a three-year study involving some 600 children and 80 parents in five contrasting areas – two inner London boroughs, an outer London suburb, a new town in the South East of England, and a city in the Midlands. During the study, the researchers examined children’s experiences of traveling to school and to a wide range of activities outside the home – from formal clubs to hanging out in the park.
They found that the more parents were involved in the lives of their neighbours, the more freedom they gave their children. At the same time, the more social networks children have in a neighbourhood, the greater parents’ confidence in the safety of that area.
The research also suggests that when parents allow their children to roam, their classmate’s parents draw from that confidence. This in turn impacts upon their classmates’ freedom of action.
It’s good to see more evidence of Front Porch Forum‘s underlying premise… when people are more connected with their neighbors and plugged into their local community, all sorts of good things can happen, including for kids.
How People Use the Social Web
Ross Mayfield recently offered the Power Law of Participation…
Social software brings groups together to discover and create value. The problem is, users only have so much time for social software. The vast majority of users with not have a high level of engagement with a given group, and most tend to be free riders upon community value. But patterns have emerged where low threshold participation amounts to collective intelligence and high engagement provides a different form of collaborative intelligence.
At first blush, I’d say that Front Porch Forum‘s neighborhood forums travel along this curve, from left to right, as the neighborhood forum gains participants. People join and lurk and then past some tipping point things get interesting and collaboration kicks in as neighbors start working to get the potholes filled, graffiti cleaned up, block party organized, etc. He goes on to say…
Charlene Li at Forrester just came out with a report on Social Technographics that surveyed user engagement.
As I previously commented, 50% of one neighborhood forum contributed in the past six months. Not sure how our model fits into this web-centric world view.
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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