Thanks to the generousity of the Orton Family Foundation, Front Porch Forum is now available in Starksboro, VT!
Any and all Starksboro residents are encouraged to sign up for this free community-building service immediately. I see that we have two dozens subscribers there already… I guess word got out before the “official” launch.
Finally, thanks to the warm welcome this evening from the Selectboard and Art and Soul folks.
UPDATE: Here’s Orton’s news release (April 13, 2009). Already 20% of Starksboro subscribes to FPF!
From Google disiple, Jeff Jarvis…
The promise of local ad support for news will come only if a new population of very small businesses can be served in new and effective ways – before Google beats everybody else to it. That’s apparent in the results of Webvisible and Nielsen surveys reported by MediaPost (via Marketeting Pilgrim and Frank Thinking), which show that local marketers are leaving newspapers and the yellow pages but are still dissatisfied with – and don’t pay enough attention to – internet marketing. Factoids:
* 42 percent of small businesses say they use the local paper less and 23 percent use yellow pages less – while 43 percent use search engines more.
* “Though 63% of consumers and small business owners turn to the internet first for information about local companies and 82% use search engines to do so, only 44% of small businesses have a website and half spend less than 10% of their marketing budget online.”
* “Only 9% are satisfied with their online marketing efforts.”
* Mediapost found a disconnect in how small-business owners act as business people and marketers vs. how they act as consumers. That is, as consumers, they use and are satisfied with the internet and search to find other local businesses, but as marketers themselves, they use online less.
The more creative and forward-thinking local small businesses keep finding Front Porch Forum in our pilot area. Most buy ads and report back remarkable results.
U.K.’s Kevin Harris blogs…
Over on the Local democracy blog Dave Briggs asks, how close is local?
I’d say most people regard ‘local’ as geographically within reach, and obviously that differs individually, which is fine. If terminology is fuzzy it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s invalid. We need definitions for administrative areas (wards, cantons, parishes) but not to explain individually-variable experiences of the socially-charged space nearest to the home.
And maybe it helps to think about what local is not. For instance, it’s not the same as nearness, and that’s reinforced in this image (courtesy of Indy Johar, 00 architects), which reminds us how transport efficiencies influence our sense of distance.
So why after generations and centuries of people gathering together in villages, towns and cities, are we suddenly struggling with the fact that terms like neighbourhood and locality aren’t rigidly defined? What has happened for instance that causes Dave quite reasonably to suggest that
‘it will be increasingly important to research how people’s notions of their own ‘local’ will determine levels of interest’? …
Harkens back to a post about neighborhood scale based on early Front Porch Forum experience.
Keith Hopper offers a history of “hyperlocal” news this week, and starts an interesting conversation in the comments. Worth a look.
Among its many uses, people use Front Porch Forum to find and recommend plumbers and dentists and all sorts of services in between. This leads others to ask… “oh, so FPF is like Angie’s List?” Well, yes and no. Yes, in that both FPF (in our one pilot city) and Angie’s List (in its 250 cities) will help you find a roofer. And, no, in that we have different missions.
Front Porch Forum’s mission is to help neighbors connect and build community… and we do that by facilitating conversation among clearly identified nearby neighbors about all sorts of topics.
I don’t know Angie’s List’s mission, but here’s a quote from The Local Onliner today…
Angie Hicks, the co-founder and namesake of Angie’s List, said she thinks of her company as a direct marketing machine. Speaking at ClickZ’s Online Marketing Summit in San Diego this morning, Hicks noted that “we’re direct marketers at heart. If it doesn’t perform, it’s out.”
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