VC Fred Wilson wrote this week about his Outside.in and Everyblock.com. The comments are interesting too. Fred wrote…
Techcrunch calls outside.in a competitor of EveryBlock. I think collaborator is more like it. It’s going to take more than one company to rebuild the local newspaper from the ground up.
Amen. Front Porch Forum is very different from either of these efforts, but plays in the same space. With 30% of our pilot city subscribing and a large percentage posting, we’re definitely well beyond just the heavy web users that dominate much of Web 2.0.
Marc Andreessen (go UIUC engineering!) writes today about a group of neighbors in Seattle creating an online social networking using Ning to address concerns over a recent crime wave…
From Bill Gossman and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
“I’ve lived here 11 years and never seen anything like this,” said Bill Gossman, a Magnolia resident who about two weeks ago started a neighborhood Web site [on Ning] that he dubbed sleeplessinmagnolia.ning.com.
The social network, Gossman said, has received 55,000 page views and brought together 550 block-watching neighbors to share information, tips and experiences…
That’s great. It’s an example of the kind of thing that people are doing with Front Porch Forum all across our pilot city of Burlington, VT (30% subscribe already). Crime and neighborhood watch activities are common… as well as lots of other uses.
Ning, in addition to having amazing resources, provides “white label” social networks… that is, build your own. While Front Porch Forum provides the network/forum for 100% of the neighborhoods in its service area… and it’s designed to address the real problems of isolation and individualism by helping nearby neighbors connect.
I was pleased to be interviewed recently by John Barstow of the Orton Family Foundation regarding “innovation in place.” The Orton Family Foundation is and has been involved in some fascinating work. John asked insightful questions about Front Porch Forum.
Occasionally Front Porch Forum is criticized for hosting moderated online forums. The critics worry about freedom of speech… giving every hothead unlimited space to vent seems to be some kind of gold standard.
While I recognize the immense value that our Bill of Rights grants us, especially freedom of speech, I also feel that the incivility found on many online spaces stifles free speech from those of us less willing to step down into that kind of environment.
So it was heartening today to read Charles C. Haynes piece on this subject. He writes, in part,…
I want people to read The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends On It, a just-released book by Os Guinness — an influential Christian writer and public philosopher… Guinness urges us to focus on the urgent question that confronts the United States and the world: How do we live with our deepest differences, especially when those differences are religious and ideological?
The answer, he argues, begins with a rejection of extremes on both sides of the culture wars. Say no to a “sacred public square” — where one religion is privileged at the expense of others. And say no to a “naked public square” — where all mention of religion is removed from public life. Both are unconstitutional and unjust.
Guinness proposes an alternative vision of America, a vision consistent with both the letter and the spirit of the First Amendment: A “civil public square” where people of all faiths and none are equally free to enter public life on the basis on their convictions and where the government neither imposes nor inhibits religion.
Among other things, a civil public square requires forging a civic agreement to uphold the rights of others, even those with whom we deeply disagree, and a commitment to debate our differences with civility and respect.
Haynes goes on to say…
Civility doesn’t mean we all pretend to agree; it isn’t “niceness” that papers over disagreements. Differences matter — and we should debate them openly and freely. But how we debate, not only what we debate, also matters.
Civility, argues Guinness, doesn’t stifle debate or dissent. On the contrary, genuine civility “helps to strengthen debate because of its respect for the truth, yet all the while keeping debate constructive and within bounds because of its respect for the rights of other people and for the common good.”
When I was a kid, I was a paperboy starting in 2nd grade and on into junior high. It was a modest afternoon route handed down through my older brothers. Took about an hour on my bike (I’d see how far into the route I could get each day riding no-handed). Had to “collect” every two weeks in the evenings, going door-to-door… “$2.40 please.” Oh the excuses I used to get over a couple bucks!
Now someone is protecting kids from this experience and so we have adults in cars doing the job… at least that’s what I’ve seen in many places. We’ve had good delivery service in our neighborhood… no complaints. Our favorite carrier was a high school girl saving up for college… did the route every morning at a jog to get in shape for school sports.
But the things I hear on Front Porch Forum… ay yi yi. One neighborhood forum complained that their delivery man was also a peeping Tom. Police were called. Another FPF neighborhood forum complained so long about delivery service (late, no paper, wrong location, etc.) that the newspaper eventually responded in writing through Front Porch Forum to the whole neighborhood with a broad apology and excuse and a plan to do better… not sure where that one stands today.
And one neighborhood reported that the delivery person’s car was so loud that it was waking people and, amazingly, the neighborhood’s response was to pass the hat to give the person a gift certificate to a local muffler shop. Now today the identical issue surfaced across town… did the same carrier get transferred and just pocket the gift certificate? A resident of the new neighborhood reports, after being awakened repeatedly at 4:30 AM, that the newspaper advised him to call the police… it’s not the paper’s problem.
So, the blogosphere is crowded with discussion about newspapers’ business woes as brought on by the web and other forces. But I haven’t read anywhere about the struggle to just get their product to customers’ doorstep. Where are our nation’s 12 year olds when we need them?
P.S. Of course, before Front Porch Forum it wasn’t so easy to know what was going on in a given neighborhood. Maybe it’s always been this bad. I recall tossing the paper onto the porch roof of one my customers so often that I knew where to find the closest ladder (two doors down, behind the garage) and put it to use before I was found out… lucky for me he didn’t post my bad aim online for the whole neighborhood to see!
A detailed posting about Smalltown.com‘s status today including its acquisition of Local2me.com… worth a read (comments too for a little fun).
While I’m uncertain if Smalltown’s approach has enough juice to keep people tuned in (it’s a souped up yellow pages with some social networking running through it), I am fascinated by their authentically local approach… town by town growth with real people on the ground.
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