Front Porch Forum | Ghost of Midnight

Average Age of Social Networkers?

Posted on Friday, April 13, 2007 by Michael • Comments are off for this post

MediaVidea offers this today:

Rolling Stone will one of the first mainstream magazines entering into the social networking field... Comscore analysis shows that:

– More than half of Myspace visitors are now 35 and older.
– 71% of the Friendster’s 1 million user base is 35 and above.
– 50% of Facebook users are 25-plus, despite that it has now almost become mandatory for new college and high school students to register there.

Aiming an aging demographic is a smart idea. They have the buyer and stating power, vis- -vis the fickle younger crowd.

Adult-oriented social networking sites are already up and running, Multiply for example.

Next up: A social network fro Esquire and New Yorker magazines, perhaps?

Front Porch Forum members appear to range from teens to 80s. Since entire households tend to subscribe, I’m hard pressed to guess an average age.

Forum as Evening’s Entertainment

Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2007 by Michael • Comments are off for this post

I just snipped this comment from a member of the ONE Central Neighborhood Forum in Burlington:

I loved the comments tonight. I used to read the personals when I was lonely. Instead now, I go right to the forum. Then sometimes, like tonight I just laugh happily all the way up to brush my teeth. Jason you are really cracking me up. Despite all the issues in the Old North End, I like being a part of this group. It really fills me up.

Legislators on the Vermont Autobahn

Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2007 by Michael • Comments are off for this post

With thousands of local members contributing to Front Porch Forum, every day brings something new… an especially insightful or inspiring post, etc. Here’s a beaut that will be published in the next issue of the Huntington Neighborhood Forum.

Where to start? I had to go to southern VT on business yesterday and on the way back had the pleasure to be a part of the mass exodus from our fine capital, Montpelier. All our elected officials were headed home… They get a nice distinct license plate so it’s easy to spot them. I had the cruise set at 70 MPH ( at 65 MPH you risk getting hit from behind). I was being passed like I was standing still!

All the cars had only one person in them… WOW

All sorts of things come to mind while this was happening… I’ll leave that up for your imagination. Well, maybe I should point that imagination in a positive direction by saying this:

Lead by example, Carpool, set up transportation hubs so folks can park and ride, make them carpool. You’re an elected official. This is how you get into work.

We have to start somewhere why not start from the top. =-) JIM

James Fecteau
Huntington Neighborhood Forum

[Thanks to Jim for his permission to publish this beyond his neighborhood forum.]

Missing Child updates on Front Porch Forum

Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2007 by Michael • Comments are off for this post

Members have been using Front Porch Forum for neighborhood watch type activities for some time. Here’s something similar. Burlington police use a nationally available service that automatically calls all phone numbers within one or more neighborhoods to alert the community about a missing child… wonderful use of technology. (I can’t imagine how terrible this situation must be for the people caught up in it.)
The downside… after receiving this alarming call from a machine, with few details (you don’t know who the kid is typically… just that a neighbor boy or girl of certain description is gone), you get nothing more… no follow up. No “we found Billy and everything is okay.” The service can’t be used that way, only for emergencies.

So it was interesting to read the minutes from the March 2007 Neighborhood Planning Assembly meeting for Ward 5 today:

Corporal Fabiani informed the NPA of a localized “Child is missing” alert that was activated recently and was successful in finding the child safely. Currently there is no ability to make a similar phone call to cancel the alert. Suggestions were made that the Front Porch Forum could be used to alert neighbors of the status. Local TV and radio stations are already used.

That’s another great use of our neighborhood forums, and, in fact, this has been done at least twice recently, once in the South End and once in the Old North End to good effect. Put the word out on the forum and it spreads across the neighborhood.

New Forum Member Gets It

Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2007 by Michael • Comments are off for this post

A new member of the Centennial Neighborhood Forum in Burlington, Vermont, writes today to her neighbors:

I’m very glad this exists… and it looks like many people are using it. The forum seems like a great supplement to “front porch” conversations, especially since the snow and cold often keeps us indoors (or playing far from the front porch)! Looking forward to conversations and meeting many more neighbors.

That’s what Front Porch Forum is all about!

Forums induce behavior change directly?

Posted on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 by Michael • Comments are off for this post

As I reported in a recent post, some neighborhood forums are being used to elicit action from local leaders. In one case, the ONE East Neighborhood Forum’s ongoing discussion about college student noise and poor behavior as neighbors has been raging for weeks. And the City of Burlington and University of Vermont are now responding… that’s great!

And now another result… apparently the students themselves are starting to respond. Those who live off-campus in this neighborhood of lovely old homes (many of which have been split into multi-unit student dwellings) are joining Front Porch Forum too. They’re reading what the permanent residents are writing… about the late-night awakenings, the broken bottles, the “my kids’ swingset is not a toilet” remarks… it’s all starting to sink in for some students. This is a real neighborhood, full of real people, real families… time to shape up or move this behavior elsewhere.

I’ve been told of group discussions among students. One will say something like… “only students live here so we can do whatever we want… right?” Someone fires up the laptop and produces dozens of ticked off neighbors’ messages from Front Porch Forum. “Oh… I didn’t know. I’d never act this way back home.”

Ahh… to be 21 again. I, for one, didn’t know which way was up at that point in my life. [For the record, I now know which way “up” is… but with none of our young children consistently sleeping through the night, that’s all I’m willing to commit to right now.]

So, in addition to providing a place to vent and a way to organize neighbors to get an official response, Front Porch Forum appears to be directly effecting the parties involved… a civilizing impact.

P.S. I hear from some “official” type folks who have been working on this issue for years that they now can use Front Porch Forum postings as leverage to pry their higher-ups into action.

Front Porch Forum has Arrived

Posted on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 by Michael • Comments are off for this post

Thanks to a couple Vermont women for bringing a Vermont Woman article to my attention today… that’s Melanie Brotz and Nancy Osborne. In the April 2007 issue, Ann Hagman Cardinal writes about Marci Young who has given up driving for environmental reasons… commendable! But here’s the part that caught my attention…

“I ended up catching a ride home [from Solar Fest] with friends I hadn’t known were going. That’s why we need Front Porch Forum!” she says, referring to the Internet-based neighborhood networking movement.

That’s right, we (all 4,300 members to date) are a movement! Alright! Love it.

Neighbors’ Forum-Talk spurs Action

Posted on Monday, April 9, 2007 by Michael • 1 comment

Regular folks are using Front Porch Forum to get the attention of local media and elected officials. Some examples:

1. Neighbors on the ONE Central Neighborhood Forum have several interesting threads going recently. One is about the state of the new beltline bikepath… trash, homeless folks, human waste, and various ideas for making it all better. Lots of good input and ideas. Relevant officials are tuning in. Mention of a grant for fencing. Progress?

2. Meanwhile, just up the hill a bit, the ONE East Neighborhood Forum has been focused on college-student noise in this residential neighborhood. Frustrations have been aired, the problem defined, history provided, solutions proposed… and now an official response. The City of Burlington and UVM issued a press release outlining all that they already do on this front and what they plan to add… a step in the right direction. One subscriber writes to his neighbors:

This Forum is the first time people have had a vehicle to express their thoughts, make suggestions and actually have an impact on a variety of topics; but it has been very interesting to see how local officials and social activists are reacting to the ‘elephant in the room’ – indignity over student behavior and the determination to put and end to it. This is an elephant, by the way, that has been in the room for decades now.

3. And the remarkable situation of city council Democrats lining up behind a Republican for council president, rather than a Progressive… several people have made their voices heard to their neighbors and councilors via their neighborhood forum. In fact, the Burlington Free Press almost mentioned Front Porch Forum in its April 8 article:

[Councilor-elect Ed] Adrian explained why he is voting for Wright in a message he posted on the Buell Street Neighborhood Forum. He said Wright, a state representative as well as councilor, has more experience than Ashe, would offer a balance to the Progressive administration of Mayor Bob Kiss, would be fair, would be unable, as one of just three Republicans on the council, to “stack” council committees, and, Adrian pointed out, Democrats, even with five of them on the council, don’t have a candidate for president this year.

[Councilor Joan] Shannon justified her vote for Wright in similar terms in a message posted on the Five Sisters Neighborhood Forum.

(The material referenced for this article should have been attributed to Front Porch Forum, rather than (or in addition to) the individual neighborhood forums.)

Sex and Romance Drives Craigslist

Posted on Friday, April 6, 2007 by Michael • Comments are off for this post

I’m often asked if Front Porch Forum isn’t an awful lot like craigslist Burlington. Besides the obvious Grand Canyon of a difference in scale and success (all hail craigslist!), I usually answer “no.” While it’s true that both are an online place to sell your used car among other things, they diverge from there.

And now we see some interesting analysis of how craigslist is used, or at least what drives most of its traffic… anonymous sex and romance postings. None of that on Front Porch Forum (how many readers just nixed FPF with that statement? 😉 ).

Stephen Bagg at Compete supplies the chart below:

He adds:

Compete reports just under 17 million people visiting per month… Analysis of eight major American cities shows erotic services consistently garners the highest number of individual visitors for February – almost always twice as many as the next ranking category, averaging 265,000 people per city. Equally racy lists that consistently score high visitor volume are the section for casual encounters as well as personals for women seeking men. The most commonly frequented venue outside of this virtual red-light district? Cars for sale.

Local news, business supplies for sale, real estate and web design are probably better off advertising somewhere else since they contribute less than a whisper to the overall site traffic.

Avoiding the social issues and political debates that fall beyond this brief glimpse behind the Craigslist curtain, perhaps it isn’t shocking that the search for romance is extremely popular in the online space. Offering anonymity, privacy, and little room for embarrassment, Craigslist is an ideal marketplace for those looking for those willing.

So, Front Porch Forum is in some significant sense the opposite of craigslist… no anonymity, out in the open within the neighborhood. Thanks to MediaVidea for highlighting the original information.

Forum keeps Member on Trampoline

Posted on Friday, April 6, 2007 by Michael • Comments are off for this post

It’s tough to put into words how wonderful it is to be the moderator of Front Porch Forum‘s 130 neighborhood forums in and around Burlington, Vermont. In addition to the sheer magnitude of the response (4,300 members, 8,000 messages in our first seven months), the quality is remarkable. In this catbird seat, I see good news flit by every day. While the big stories stand out (see many past postings), it’s the shear volume of the little day-to-day beauties that inspire my wife and I to keep going against the odds. Take this sample from this evening’s inbox:

It is with mixed emotions that I write this post. I am selling my house after living here for 15 yrs. Among the things that are the hardest to leave behind will be this forum. I have used it for emergencies (thanks to all who responded to my dire need for heaters) and for my craft sale announcements (one is coming up later this month) and to feel connected to my home on my frequent trips away. I want to publicly thank Front Porch Forum. Just having it makes me feel safer, like the netting around the trampoline, it helps me from feeling like I could fall off the edge. Thank you all. -L.C., Five Sisters Neighborhood Forum

See what I mean?

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Missing Child updates on Front Porch Forum

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