Category Archives: Front Porch Forum
More from Where 2.0
The Local Onliner reports today from the Where 2.0 conference about online mapping. A couple points of interest…
MapQuest Gm James Greiner brought everything back to Earth with a survey showing that just 42 percent of Internet users use mapping sites, and relatively light penetration of advanced mapping services… just 22 percent want to post a map publicly (i.e. on a blog or Website). The survey found that while advanced imagery (i.e. 3D maps) is considered interesting, with 47 percent planning to use it, just 18 percent currently do. The demand for personalized features may be hotter than advanced imagery, with interest jumping from 49 percent to 68 percent when examples of usage were provided. The survey also found that 75 percent want to save addresses; 55 percent want to share with family and friends; 59 percent want Points of Interest on maps’ 50 percent want to increase the presence of storefronts on maps; and 50 percent want the ability to search select vendors and/or services.
I think this jibes with a larger trend of dot.coms putting out loads of great new technology and getting too far in front of demand. Or in some cases, going far astray… heading off to where the general public is unlikely to ever venture in big numbers. Front Porch Forum uses Googgle Maps API in a simple way and our members seem to appreciate it, but it’s not the main event. Peter goes on to report…
Outside.in co-founder Steven Johnson reminded the audience that “It is not always about the map. We don’t need maps all the time to show us what’s going on.” For Outside.in, a placeblogging site, he said, “we decided to make the map as small as possible” in order to focus on the thoughts of the community.
Hey… that’s what I just said! Excellent point. 😉
Online Ad Revenue Grows 35% in 2006
According to a new report, online ad revenue climbed to about $17B in 2006, a 35% gain over 2005.
Branded display ads and search placements helped the online ad industry post its best year ever in 2006, according to numbers released Wednesday by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Overall, revenue increased 35% last year to $16.9 billion–due in large part to record fourth-quarter revenue of $4.8 billion.
Both search revenue and display revenue climbed 31% year-over-year, to $6.8 billion and $5.4 billion, respectively. Search accounted for 40% of last year’s revenues, slightly lower than the 41% it commanded in 2005. Display advertising, classifieds and referrals accounted for 32%, 18% and 8% of last year’s full revenues, respectively.
See more details here.
Front Porch Forum is just getting its sponsorship program rolling, and we’re going with a flat rate per ad approach. This report states that 48% of online ads work that way, while 47% of the ad deals are based on ad performance.
Palore and EveryBlock Answer One Question
From today’s Local Onliner…
We’re all guilty of feature creep. A lot of the stuff isn’t especially useful. Now comes Palore. When it comes to directory listings, Palore believes hardly any of the info is useful. In fact, consumers want to know just one thing.
“The interesting thing was that they all wanted just one thing and didn’t care much about the rest. It was all about users wanting to see something very specific and personalized to them when making a local search,” says [Palore co-founder Hanan] Lifshitz, an Israeli who had previously started a banner exchange network. “They didn’t want more reviews or better maps. They wanted to know things like:
* The size of a restaurant’s wine list
* Does the business have handicap access?
* Is the business sustainable / vegetarian / organic etc.
* Is there free wifi access?
* Did the restaurant win any award?With such results in mind, Lifshitz launched Palore in Israel a year ago. The service quickly got 100,000 – quite a landmark in a small country – capped it there, and has been working on bringing it stateside since then. He’s raised $1 million from angels to do so, and has set up shop in the Bay Area.
Sounds compelling. In Burlington, lots of folks just post those questions to their neighborhood forum via Front Porch Forum. Not only do they get good results, but they foster relationships with their real-time in-the-flesh neighbors in the process. Next time, they’ll just call out over the backfence to ask about the wine list… offline. (horrors!)
Also… I was just reading more about EveryBlock, the pre-start-up about to get underway by Adrian Holovaty, late of washingtonpost.com and recent winner of a $1.1M grant from the Knight Foundation. His project… To create, test and release open-source software that links databases to allow citizens of a large city to learn (and act on) civic information about their neighborhood or block. His goal… To create an easy way to answer the question, “What’s happening around me?” Hey! That’s one question again.
Google’s Vint Cerf calls for e-Respect
A friend just shared this bit from NPR by Google Vice President Vint Cerf (thanks Nancy).
Once, I was being driven by limo to a hotel in Palm Springs to give a speech. The driver appeared to be in his 60s, and I remember thinking, “How sad that he has to keep working at this menial job.” It turned out, though, that he was the retired CFO of a major Chicago-based corporation who had gotten bored with golf. He took a part-time job driving the hotel’s limo, so he could meet people and stay in touch with the world. He even ended up giving some good advice to me, a financially naive engineer.
I believe that every person deserves respect, and that I can learn something new from everyone. Now, I make a point of asking people about their stories…
He goes on to call for civility on online mediums too. Amen… that’s one of planks of the platform on which Front Porch Forum is built.
Good Web Host Recommended
Some folks have taken the time to share their appreciation of Front Porch Forum with me today. That’s a wonderful thing. As one of them wrote about people’s tendencies to criticize…
Although positive feedback may not make it through as much as negative in general, it’s usually there. So many of us need a gentle reminder to share our positive thoughts and feelings in an effort to build a healthy community (and to give some context for our more constructively critical thoughts).
So this spurs me to share the great experience I’ve had for past nine months with JP Peach and Associates, the web host for this blog and Front Porch Forum. Peach, the man behind the company, knows his stuff and does a great job meeting specific needs. We started at one of the big daddy web hosting companies (although not THE Big Daddy), and they simply could NOT meet our specific needs. With Peach it’s been no problem. And his prices are reasonable.
If you’re looking for a web host along these lines, check out Peach. From the site…
The flexible organization of J.P.Peach & Associates allows us to offer a wide range of services at a significant cost savings compared to other software companies. We are a collection of independent contractors and keep our overhead cost low by not maintaining a bricks-and-mortar location.
Our company and web hosting are built on flexibility. Over the years we have used a large number of web hosting services, from the cheap to the expensive, and have never been really happy with any of them. They forced us into a “hosting package” that never really fit our client’s needs. So, we decided to set up our own server so that we can have full control over it. If you want to host your site with us we will customize the services and software to fit your needs. We have “hosting packages” but they are only a starting point, we will customize the hosting services to meet your specific needs.
[I’m not getting any compensation for this plug… it’s just good karma to acknowledge a job well done.]
Amazing Event in NYC
The Personal Democracy Forum was intense! Amazing that Front Porch Forum landed me on the agenda alongside the CEO of Google, the founder of Craigslist, best selling authors, a thrice Pulitzer Prize winner, several web advisers to presidential campaigns, A-list political bloggers, top academics, other VIPs, and lots of up-and-comers. I was and am honored and thankful to Micah Sifry for the invitation.
I learned much from the various sessions and hallway conversations. Here’s a photo from Steve Garfield of one panel’s audience (with me typing away on the floor in the foreground),
and another by Caviar…
Front Porch Forum was very well received by a several folks I met there, but not all. Our approach is different enough that it requires a ready and open mind to understand it, and in a “30-second elevator pitch” environment that can be a challenge. That’s fine… many there were eager to know more.
Part of my pitch…
Imagine much of today’s social media occurring among clearly identified nearby neighbors, instead of anonymous distant strangers. It’s happening with Front Porch Forum where 20% of our pilot city has subscribed in our first half-year. Every plumber recommendation, restaurant review, piece of citizen journalism, classified ad, etc. posted not only gets a direct result, but all those messages add up to neighbors getting to know each other and build real community in their neighborhood. People LOVE it!
The speakers’ cocktail party the night before the event was hosted by Google at their NYC digs… definitely not your usual cubicle farm. Here’s the view (thanks to Steve Garfield again)…
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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