The Local Onliner reports today:
BackFence CEO and co-founder Susan DeFife has resigned from the company, amidst a major downsizing that saw 12 of 18 employees let go. Co-founder Mark Potts will serve as interim CEO as the company looks to solve what he calls “BackFence 2.0.” DeFife… notes that Backfence has built 13 sites in three metro areas… and got two percent of community members to register in its most mature communities. BackFence had received $3 million in funding from… investors back in October 2005.
Without more information than this, it’s hard to say much about this development. But, in the spirit of citizen journalism, let’s give it a shot!
Perhaps BackFence isn’t aiming at the right target. Stories that appeal to an audience across a 50,000 to 100,000 population, i.e., BackFence’s target (e.g., “city council enacts smoking ban in restaurants”) may best be reported by professional journalist, as has been the case for generations. Stories that appeal to residents of one neighborhood, supposedly the cornerstone of BackFence (e.g., “utility work closes Maple St. and Birch Ct. to through traffic this week”) are not of interest to the other 49,000 people in town.
So, a BackFence model runs the risk of combining (A) stories with broad appeal that may not meet professional journalistic standards with (B) lots of micro-stories that are each only interesting to a very small slice of their readership. This brings to mind Cathy Resmer’s piece yesterday about local news and community newspapers.
For comparison sake, after four months, Front Porch Forum has about 6% of metro-Burlington signed up while in early start-up mode. And, our content is parsed out into neighborhoods. So only the one or two neighborhoods affected by the street closure example get that message… not the whole town. The differences don’t stop there.
Front Porch Forum seems to be sweeping through neighborhoods like a social epidemic. A few people in a neighborhood get “infected” and nothing much happens for awhile. Then – BAM – 20, 50, then 100 households join in short order and start sharing messages with neighbors through their online forum. A new family moves into the neighborhood and is “infected” by several neighbors almost before they unpack.
Thanks to John Horchner, an FPF member, for suggesting Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point (2000) vis-a-vis the spread of Front Porch Forum across our initial metro area. From Gladwell’s reading guide:
The Tipping Point is that magic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. At what point does it become obvious that something has reached a boiling point and is about to tip?
Of our current crop of 130 neighborhood forums, about one-third have “tipped” in our first few months of operation, that is, they have a critical mass of engaged members putting their forum to good use. Most got there when a resident decided to make it happen and went door-to-door with a flyer. Others were sparked by local media attention. Some were pushed over the threshold by a neighborhood controversy playing out through their forum.
So, what’s a great sense of community worth to you? Tom Byrne bought his home two years ago for $150,000 and found that he had landed in an ideal community. Now he’s being offered $1M. His answer? No. “You just can’t buy a way of life. This is my home.”
Brian Skoloff reported for AP today about Briny Breezes, Florida:
The owners of nearly 500 mobile homes in one of the last waterfront trailer-park towns in South Florida stand to become instant millionaires if they agree to sell to a developer. But some are holding out, saying there are things more important than money.
The Briny Breezes brochure calls it a “self-governed mobile home community of kindred souls.” Residents of the Palm Beach County town cruise the narrow streets on golf carts, passing palm trees and tiny, neatly manicured yards. They wave to each other and chat about the next neighborhood outing — water aerobics at the community pool, shuffleboard near the clubhouse, bowling night.
A developer has plans for high-end condos and more and wants to buy the whole place for $510M.
John and Gay Sideris, retired teachers from New York who bought their home in 2001, are conflicted. “It will be good for us because we’ll be able to help our family, but this is an amazing place to live. You know all your neighbors. You can walk your dog in your pajamas,” said Gay Sideris, 70.
“If you sneeze, a neighbor hands you a napkin,” added John Sideris, 71.
The couple paid just $155,000 for their home and now stand to make close to $1.5 million. “We’ve been living a beautiful life,” John Sideris said, sitting in a chair, staring out his window at his boat tied up to a dock just feet away. Asked how he would vote, he crossed his arms and breathed a heavy sigh. “The money is great, but you can’t get another place like this to live,” he said. “It’s like Club Med.”
Our Five Sisters neighborhood in Burlington has been recognized nationally for its great sense of community, but, unless global warming really gets rolling and Vermont becomes oceanside property, we are not likely to face such a dilemma. However, this high degree of neighborliness has driven up property values here by most estimates.
So, how much of a premium would you pay to live in a neighborhood bursting with a strong community vibe? And once you have it, what would be your selling price? Ten times what you paid?
I stumbled across a relevant book recently called Refrigerator Rights: Creating Connections & Restoring Relationships. Drs. Will Miller and Glenn Sparks thesis apparently (I haven’t read the book yet) is that we all need people in our life who we are comfortable with… to the degree that they have refrigerator rights in our home. That is, they can come in and help themselves. The authors point to Americans’ frequent relocations, as well as TV and computers, as likely culprits to the lack of such relationships.
The authors have a new blog too. Looks like their 2003 book is picking up steam and will be published again in 2007 with some new material. This book and its success supports the impetus underlying Front Porch Forum.
Many neighborhoods are using Front Porch Forum to get organized in the face of shared challenges… proposed highways, landfills, convenience stores, etc. Others have gone beyond playing defense to using their neighborhood forum to plan constructive changes… new playgrounds, block parties, strengthening communication with elected officials and more.
Now some of our area’s more innovative community organizers are figuring out ways to use Front Porch Forum to reach hundreds and thousands of local folks across multiple forums. Several options are being used successfully:
1. Develop an email list of local contacts. When you have a message to get out, send it to your list and ask each of them to post it on their neighborhood’s forum… kind of like an old fashion phone tree. Organizers report a more favorable response to their message, because people are getting the pitch from a neighbor vs. a stranger. Some of your local contacts may need to sign up first… send them to Front Porch Forum. Here’s a recent example:
Build Burlington’s Future. Our schools need you! Please volunteer to post updates to your neighborhood FrontPorchForum.com. There are approximately 40 neighborhood Front Porch Forum’s in Burlington and we want to get the word out in EVERY neighborhood. Reply to this email to find out more.
2. Join Front Porch Forum’s network of neighborhood organizers. In our first few months 175 people signed up for this designation across our 130 neighborhood forums. This group has it’s own forum where these organizers swap tips for successful neighborhood forums, as well as share interesting messages that organizers may choose to pass on to their own neighborhood forums. Any members can log onto Front Porch Forum (password required) and select the Neighborhood Volunteer status on their Account page.
3. Some local officials have access to multiple forums across their district/ward/town for “official business.” In some cases, an official is asked to share a message across several neighborhood forums.
4. In the first part of 2007, we plan to test a new feature that will allow members to post messages in neighborhoods other than their own, for a fee… something like a paid classified ad. Stay tuned!
Also from The Local Onliner today, an interesting quote from an outgoing R.H. Donnelly executive, Simon Greenman:
Yellow Pages “[p]ublishers are well-positioned to become local search providers. But they’ll need to become much broader, with classifieds, promotional information and service directories. They’ll need to become more consumer-centric, with social networking, merchant recommendations and other features.”
I’m not sure how compelling all these features are when tacked onto a local search site. Front Porch Forum‘s approach is to build the most engaging local social networking service available, then integrate commercial features to add value for our members and pay the bills. That is, design the service for neighbors, and only treat these good people as consumers when and where it makes sense.
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