It’s no secret that the use of online mail lists for neighborhoods is growing, especially, it seems, in more tech-savvy areas. Friends report their widespread use around Austin, TX, for example. And, this weekend, a compelling article by Kathleen Sullivan for the San Francisco Chronicle probes the adoption of Yahoo and Google Groups by neighborhoods all across the Bay area. Kathleen writes:
Thousands of Bay Area residents… have become members of online communities devoted to their neighborhoods, using free services offered by Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and other companies. The groups have attracted renters and homeowners living in condominiums, townhouses, apartments, single-family homes and planned communities.
David Kopp, senior director of Yahoo Groups, said it’s hard to estimate how many people in the Bay Area are chatting about their neighborhoods using its service, because most groups choose to be categorized by subject, not by geography. Some choose not to be listed at all. Many Bay Area neighborhood groups are included in Yahoo’s Cultures & Community category, which lists 700 groups in California. Neighborhood-focused groups can also be found in its Regional and Family & Home categories.
These groups have some design elements in common:
Kopp said most local groups choose the “membership required” option. “They want people in the local area to feel safe and comfortable sharing information and opinions with other members of their local communities,” he said.
[One neighborhood organizer says] “Since we don’t meet over the back fence or in the front yard, we can use this message system to ask for resources, like best cell phone service, set up carpools, find lost pets and more,” she wrote on the group’s home page. “All our responses will be kept in an archive that only members can access. That way, if someone has already replied to ‘What is the city phone number for potholes,’ you can just check the archive.”
Good or bad news for Front Porch Forum? Great news. This is more confirmation of the pent up demand for this kind of service. While Yahoo and Google Groups are dominating giants, there’s room for some start-ups with a different formula to slide in. And, the start-up with just the right recipe might find some surprising success… I know we’re getting some exciting early results. One can dream, eh?
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.
Many of the neighborhoods that use Front Porch Forum end up with some of their local officials on their online forum. Ten neighborhoods in Ward 5 of Burlington, Vermont, for example, have the following on board: 2 state reps., 2 city councilors, 2 school board members, and various city officials, such as a police lieutenant and a community development specialist.
Officials report to their constituents on hot topics. If they wander too far off the path and get into politics (vs. reporting on things), then they usually hear about it directly or through the neighborhood forums (so that lots of other citizens see the rejoinder too)… so they tread carefully. Taxpayers also toss questions to the officials through the forums… “I wonder if our city councilor can report on the status of the construction along Pine Street?”
Today The Local Onliner reported on an interesting development:
OhioElects performs targeted searches of state, local and national political Web sites as part of its broader political coverage. Hundreds of sites have been crawled and indexed in the site’s first go-round. The site itself hopes to serve as a portal for all types of contextual political advertising.
Further, I recently accepted an invitation to participate in a session at Harvard later this month focused on the internet’s role in local politics. The event is co-hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the Sunlight Foundation. I don’t think it’s online anywhere yet.
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!
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