Recently, Peter Krasilovsky noted in The Local Onliner that Backfence.com is finding success with it’s “hyper-local” online newspapers (content supplied by local volunteers). Backfence attracted a $3M investment over the last year and now is operating in 13 communities. Further…
Usage-wise, more than 10 percent of local residents in the site’s communities are logging on, and one percent are posting. “We don’t have as many posts as we’d like to have,” but the site has made real inroads in its communities, she says.
It’s a bit apples-to-oranges, but Front Porch Forum had 10% of Burlington, VT households on board within two months of launching… and for a tiny fraction of the investment. Our most successful neighborhoods have 80% of the households registered.
Also, on the issue of scale, The Local Onliner reports about Backfence…
One [lesson learned] is that a hyper-local site had better be scoped along hyper-local lines. “Arlington hasn’t done as well as Bethesda because it is a bigger area,” notes DeFife. “Arlington is actually (four) communities – Clarendon, Ballston, and North and South Arlington. It shows us what (is likely to) happen when we go into counties,” and that it important to keep the hyper-local focus.
If that’s “hyper-local” then I’m not sure how to describe Front Porch Forum’s target scale… micro-local?
Regardless, I’m fascinated to see the variety of approaches. Different strategies will work in different places.
I just set up the links in the margins here. It’s interesting to see other online efforts attempting to support community within neighborhoods. Each has it’s own approach. Of course, I’m biased and favor the strategy used by Front Porch Forum. I’d love to participate on a panel with representatives of:
Who else?
Please share links to other services focused on local online community-building. Also, I’m interested in social capital, social cohesion, civic engagement, etc. Any good sites to recommend?
Kevin Harris found an interesting item:
Here’s another take on the scale of neighbourhood, developed for work on children’s play:
‘Doorstep’ – 60m straight line distance from home (100m walking)
‘Neighbourhood’ – 260m straight line distance from home (400m walking)
‘Local’ – 600m straight line distance from home (1km walking)This comes from a presentation given by Issy Cole-Hamilton of Play England, at a recent Neighbourhoods Green seminar.
This deliniation is similar to what we’ve found in our work with Front Porch Forum:
1. Borrow a cup of sugar distance… homes within site. Maybe 20-30 households.
2. Your neighborhood… several blocks around you. Maybe 200-300 households.
3. Your side of town… an area, more than a neighborhood. Maybe 2,000-3,000 households.
Our service is aimed at the second level. We get folks who want us to make it work at the first or third levels… but that’s not what we’re designed for. Too small, and the forum doesn’t acheive a critical mass of users and the conversations dies out. Too large, and the sense of intimacy doesn’t occur.
Richard Kemp interviewed me about Front Porch Forum on his cable access show, Near and Far, on Channel 17 recently. It will be aired at 6 PM on Nov. 20, 2006. It’s also available online (video or audio podcast). This show is a decent primer on how Front Porch Forum works for anyone interested.
CCTV Channel 17 in Burlington, VT will broadcast a talk show about how to build local face-to-face community using online tools. Front Porch Forum and FreeCycle are featured. The show, Media Literacy Series – Internet Communities, originally aired on Sep 27, 2006 and will be repeated:
Sun, Nov 12, 2006 at 11:52:00 PM
Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 4:52:00 AM
Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 10:52:00 AM
Both the video and podcast are also available on Front Porch Forum’s media page.
Today Front Porch Forum launched an online forum open only to FPF Neighborhood Volunteers in Chittenden County, Vermont, USA. Volunteers can trade tips for recruiting residents to join their neighborhood forums, as well as share fodder for quality local messages. If you live in the Burlington area, sign up for your forum today, then log onto the website and edit your account page to join the 150+ community organizers who are participating. Cheers!
Step up onto our Front Porch and have a seat. This blog is created today to explore building healthy, vital community within neighborhoods. I’ve always been an organizer at heart, whether it was rounding up buddies for a game of kickball as a kid or running a campaign to convince my university to start buying recycled-content paper.
Earlier this year, my wife, Valerie, and I launched Front Porch Forum. This Burlington, Vermont-based service provides email forums for neighborhoods. We aim to help neighbors connect with each other in a way that fosters community.
If you live in Chittenden County, Vermont, please check out our site and sign up for your neighborhood’s forum… it’s already set up and underway. More than 2,000 households joined in the first two months of our beta period… a surprisingly fast start for a small metro-area. Word has spread mostly person to person, as one neighbor tells another. Those outside of Chittenden County can go to the site and join our wait list. We anticipate spreading beyond our intial area in 2007.
In this blog, I hope to explore some of the societal trends that pushed us to start Front Porch Forum. Reports of increasing isolation for individual Americans, lessening civic involvement, and decaying social capital in many places add up to a compelling case for fostering community within neighborhoods.
I anticipate looking at various attempts to improve the community feel of neighborhoods, including results from Front Porch Forum.
Comments are encouraged!
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