Following up on our previous posting about Grayboxx, here’s the headline from Peter K. at The Local Onliner today… Grayboxx CEO: OK, Burlington Probably ‘Too Small’
I’m glad to hear a reasonable explanation for the funky results seen by people who live in Burlington. I hope Greyboxx does well elsewhere and improves in Burlington.
Peter appears to have stolen Montpelier’s crown as Vermont’s capital and bestowed it upon Burlington. 😉
And while Grayboxx says it should work better in areas with more than 100,000 people, that doesn’t quite jibe either, since greater Burlington has about 130,000 (the City proper is 38,000).
Jim Lantz, of Burlington’s South End, had a hit last year with his original play The Bus. Now he and his crew are hard at work preparing for the opening of his new play, American Machine (FlynnSpace in Burlington, VT, September 25 – October 7, 2007)…
Part parable on the American dream, part cautionary tale taken from the headlines, American Machine tells the story of a great factory that once made parts for classic American cars.
This local original production will rely heavily on word of mouth and any member of Front Porch Forum has an opportunity to help spread the word. First, write a short post on your own neighborhood forum announcing the play. Then, after you see it, post a brief review. While American Machine is advertising on Front Porch Forum, any posting from a neighbor will likely carry more weight with readers. Here’s how Jim put it…
One of Burlington’s great gems is Front Porch Forum, an on-line neighborhood forum created by Michael Wood-Lewis. If you live in Chittenden County, chances are you live in one of the 130 forums that neighbors use for all sorts of communication – finding a lost cat, recommending a plumber, to… letting people know about a new play!
One way you can help our production (and the Burlington Schools Food Project) is to place a free notice on your local FPF telling neighbors about our play and the opening night benefit for the Burlington Schools Food Project. Be sure to include our web address: www.AmericanMachineThePlay.com
Not a member of your neighborhood Front Porch Forum? Go to FrontPorchForum.com, take a tour, and join. … It’s free!
I’m looking forward to it! Get your tickets today.
Hard to believe that Front Porch Forum was launched one year ago this month! The response to this local start-up (focused on its initial pilot area of greater Burlington, VT) has been wonderful and overwhelming. What a privilege to work on this effort with the likes of…
Moving forward, our goals are simple and challenging…
So thanks to each FPF member! And please post messages to your neighborhood forum and encourage those around you to sign up at FrontPorchForum.com Here comes autumn! -Michael and Valerie
Grayboxx has been generating some buzz online recently with its impending launch… which happened today. And lo and behold, its first target is our very own Burlington, Vermont. From its press release…
Grayboxx Inc., a Silicon Valley-based online local search firm, today announced that Burlington is the first city to gain access to the company’s unique “neighbor-recommended” local search service. By using patent-pending techniques to accurately determine the community popularity and approval for local businesses, grayboxx.com provides the most meaningful local recommendations on the Web. Grayboxx will roll out its service to other communities across the United States in the coming months.
For people who live outside of the largest metropolitan areas, there are few, if any, online local search options that provide extensive business rankings and recommendations. Grayboxx’s unique approach to local search has enabled it to assemble a critical mass of community feedback on more than 3,000 of Burlington’s businesses. The site features more than 12,000 “neighbor recommendations”, covering everything from antique shops to violin stores.
Wow! Burlington’s population is about 38,000… a little more than 12,000 households. Here’s how it works, according to the company…
Grayboxx’s innovative PreferenceScoring™ engine is able to translate everyday actions people take with or about businesses into meaningful expressions of business popularity and quality. For example, when a user checks out a restaurant online, makes a reservation, and then a week later makes another reservation, this can be considered as a positive recommendation of the restaurant.
Online reservations are just one of the many methods used by the powerful new local search engine to assess the top recommendations in Burlington. Grayboxx works by processing anonymous information from a variety of sources to create implicit neighbor recommendations in more than 6,000 yellow page categories in Burlington or in any city. This approach differs greatly from that of current search giants, which rely on manually entered user reviews for their recommendations.
This sounds interesting. Wisdom from boiling down databases… the final dish depends on the ingredients (data) and the chef’s technique (Grayboxx’s software). Let’s see how it tastes…
The following are samples of grayboxx’s top results for businesses and services in Burlington, as ranked by the Burlington community.
The top neighbor-recommended “jewelers” in Burlington are:
* Fremeau Jewelers, with 34 neighbor recommendations
* Von Bargen’s Jewelry, with 12 recommendations
* Hannoush Jewelers, with 3 recommendationsThe top three neighbor-recommended “taxi” services in Burlington are:
* Benway’s Taxi, with 38 neighbor recommendations
* Yellow Cab, with 8 recommendations
* Airport Taxi, with 5 recommendationsA search for “computer repair” in Burlington returns with the following:
* ReCycle North, with 47 neighbor recommendations
* Computer Rescue Squad, with 7 recommendations
* Pine Computers, with 4 recommendations
I just plugged in several other items… groceries, computer dealers, newspapers, shoes, pizza… maybe some of the databases they hope to mine are not quite ripe or fresh. As a local, I haven’t had one search produce what I would call “good advice from a neighbor.” Makes me wonder about the chef’s secret recipe (mysterious ranking criteria)… hard to trust when initial tests come up with what I’m seeing.
I know Grayboxx is taking aim at smaller markets, but this seems more suited for large anonymous metro areas. If I didn’t know anyone local to ask for a reliable and a reasonably priced taxi option, I’d be happy for this kind of service.
Burlington, and all of Vermont, is so reasonably scaled, that lots of this kind of information is near at hand. Ask a few co-workers, friends, etc. Indeed, this is one of the most common types of messages posted among neighbors on Front Porch Forum. People get real “neighbor recommendations” in Burlington everyday this way.
At this point, I’d rather ask a couple hundred neighbors for a computer repair recommendation through FPF than turn to this kind of service. Or I’d sooner take a peek at the local successful reader survey that our weekly alternative paper runs, the much coveted Daisies, by Seven Days. But Grayboxx may be more attractive than some of the other non-local data-driven behemoths stomping through the local online scenes these days. I’ll have to keep trying it… fun to have it here first.
And thanks to Greg Sterling for the lead.
Two of Burlington’s Neighborhood Planning Assemblies are now online…
All of the NPA Steering Committee members deserve thanks from the citizens of Burlington for the volunteer work they do on our behalf. About 25 of these good folks also participate on their neighborhood’s Front Porch Forum and have access to all of the neighborhood forums in their ward.
Kudos in particular to Basil Vansuch (Ward 5) and Lea Terhune (Wards 4 and 7) for creating these NPA blogs and thanks for mentioning Front Porch Forum on them.
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