Category Archives: Stories

Make every posting count… twice

Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2008 by • No comments yet

Steve Yelvington posted today…

Knowledge@Wharton has an interview with Joe Kraus, director of product management at Google, in which he highlights the importance of social interaction on the Web:

“So, the killer apps that have really worked on the web have always been about connecting people to one another. So, whether it is instant messaging and e-mail as communications to connect people to one another, whether it’s photo-sharing as a way to connect people to one another through photos, or blogging as a way to connect people to one another through the words, people have always been social and the killer apps that have really succeeded on the web have always been social.”

This got me thinking about a couple recent conversations with folks asking about huge powerhouse online companies that have outposts in Burlington, VT, where we operate Front Porch Forum‘s pilot. The gist was… “Wouldn’t people be better off selling their car on Craigslist Burlington, seeking plumber recommendations on Angie’s List Burlington, giving away their old couch on FreeCycle Burlington and just using Front Porch Forum to organize block parties and find lost cats?”

Good question and I encourage people to use multiple services when they have the need. But like Krause says above, it’s all about connection. While websites offering classified ads, reviews, give-away matching, etc. by location COULD help people connect in some meaningful way, I don’t think they do. My sense is that they help facilitate the immediate and direct need (selling a car, finding a plumber), but they don’t touch the other… they don’t capitalize on the opportunity to add a brick to the house of local community with each interaction.

That’s what Front Porch Forum is all about. We aim to take every posting by clearly identified nearby neighbors and cobble them all together to build real community among neighbors and townsfolk. Why give away your moving boxes to anonymous distant strangers when you can offer them to your nearby neighbors and actually get to meet some people who live near you? That’s tapping the real potential of the internet… as Google’s Joe Krause says… it’s all about connecting people.

Or, as Wolfgang reported a month ago…

Just wanted to let you know that we sold our Minivan today to a neighbor through Front Porch Forum. We had more people expressing interest and more people showing up to look at the van who found out through the Forum than the interest generated by Burlington Free Press, Cars.com and Craigslist combined. Thanks!

So, again, I encourage folks in our service area to post their messages on any site they like… AND to post it on Front Porch Forum. The results typically speak for themselves.

Can’t beat an informed electorate with a stick

Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2008 by • 1 comment

The good people of the Town of Westford are engaged in a running debate about deciding some local issues, like the school budget, via traditional town meeting vs. Australian ballot.  Front Porch Forum has hosted many well-conceived postings about this from a variety of angles.

I was struck by Mary’s posting on the FPF Westford Neighborhood Forum today where she hammered home the importance of citizens getting educated on the issues before weighing in, whether it’s at Town Meeting or a ballot box.

She went on to say…

Front Porch Forum is an excellent tool for distributing information, but obviously it does not reach everyone in town.  Which leads to sending out much information to the public to prepare them for what they are voting on.

I will say between info mailed, The Forum and added meetings helped out tremendously with preparing us for the [failed school] unification vote.

An idea to share:  check with your neighbors and see if they belong to Front Porch Forum.  If not, highly recommend they join.  If you know of elderly people who do not use computers, offer to print out the forum postings once a week or every other.  They would probably love to read this info and people’s postings.

About one-third (270) of Westford households subscribe to Front Porch Forum so far, with more joining every week.  Last month, FPF published five issues of the Westford Neighborhood Forum per week, each issue comprised of about five postings from residents.

New Friends and Snapping Turtles

Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 by • No comments yet

Will just posted the following on his town’s Front Porch Forum…

Thanks to the Front Porch Forum for letting two would-be strangers recognize each other as a result of being FPF members. Last Sunday, while driving to town I saw a baby snapping turtle crossing the road right by the auto place on rte 2 between Richmond and rte 89. I parked where I could, jumped out of the car, grabbed some tools from the back of my car and proceeded to flag people to slow down as I approached the dazed turtle. A woman slowed and asked if I needed help, and I immediately said, “Yes!”

Though it was a baby, it was still about 14″ long and weighed about 30 pounds. So as I lifted the turtle, the woman who stopped to help steadied it while we escorted him across the rest of rte 2 and way up and over the other side of the railroad tracks. We bid him farewell and told him to NOT turn around! The kind woman and I exchanged names only to find that we recognized each other from the FPF. We had engaged in conversation through the forum, and I found it humbling to have actually known this person, though we had not actually met face to face. Thank you FPF for being an avenue for me to make new friends through! Hi Enid!

Multiply this story by thousands of times and you get what’s happening all over our little metro-area. Thanks for sharing Will!

How is Front Porch Forum like an iPhone?

Posted on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 by • No comments yet

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch wrote today about Steve Jobs latest unveiling… the new iPhone, etc.  Here’s the part that stood out for me…

We had a grand debate today on the Gillmor Gang about the iPhone and its place in history. The most interesting part of the discussion for me was the “closed v. open” question. That’s because ultimately I believe the iPhone isn’t competing with Windows Mobile or RIM as much as Google’s upcoming Android, a very open mobile platform.

The iPhone is a closed system, with locked down hardware and platform, and rigid rules for outside developers. Android is all about open. And open is always better, right?

As we’ve seen with Macs v. Windows, and then the iPod v. everyone, closed systems can work. Users will trade price and flexibility in exchange for simplicity and elegance. That’s hard to do when you’re building software that will work across a broad range of devices, technologies and software providers. It’s easy to do when you control both ends of the system, and everything in between.

Ultimately I concede that Android may have a much larger market share than the iPhone. But I’ll argue that the iPhone users will be much happier, even as Apple makes obscene profits off of that smaller user base.

I love the iPhone for the same reason I love technology in general, and loved Disneyland as a child – it drives my imagination and makes me wonder what kind of magic to expect next. Also, it just works.

This reminds me of a recent conversation I had with someone asking for a comparison of Front Porch Forum to other services, such as Yahoo Groups, Ning and iNeighbors.

We have very specific goals with Front Porch Forum, so it’s not a wide-open system.  These other services offer a kind of blank slate on which group organizers can draw all sorts of great things for their individual members… or not.  Front Porch Forum’s mission is not so much  egocentric as it is neighborhood-centric.  We’ve made our design decision to date to optimize neighbor connection and the sense of community within a neighborhood or town.

And while we’re light years away from a giant such as Apple, thousands of our subscribers in our pilot metro area are ga-ga over their FPF neighborhood forum.  This would not be the case if we just offered an open-ended do-it-yourself kind of thing, like many other services.  We get comments like the quote above all the time, praising FPF’s simplicity and ease of use.

People on the Move

Posted on Friday, June 6, 2008 by • No comments yet

People relocate… a lot.  This is apparent through our work with Front Porch Forum.  People contact us all the time to say that they’ve moved from one part of town to another and are eager to get plugged in to their new community via Front Porch Forum.

People move out of our service area too.  Some ask to be “grandfathered in” and stay on board their FPF neighborhood forum covering their former area.  Others say farewell… like Shawna just now formerly of Essex Junction…

I have moved out of the state.  I’m now in NH and wish my community had this!  Thanks.

Fowl Play Indeed

Posted on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 by • No comments yet

Wendy in Winooski offered some of her garden plants to her neighbors via Front Porch Forum yesterday.  This kind gesture didn’t work out so well…

Okay – I suppose I should have been more descriptive about those hens and chicks i wanted folks to help themselves to. They are small, round, green and grow in the ground.

A flamingo lawn ornament is pink, plastic, and stuck in the ground.

Someone apparently didn’t know the difference and removed the flamingo.  Oh well.

Baby-proofing with fridge box

Posted on Tuesday, June 3, 2008 by • No comments yet

Laurel in South Burlington posted the following to her FPF neighborhood forum today…

Hi all – It’s a long story, but I’m looking for an extremely large box, like a refrigerator-sized box, to help me with babyproofing. If you have one, please let me know!

My wife and I have our own houseful of babies and I can only imagine Laurel’s plans.  😉

College student likes connecting with new folks

Posted on Tuesday, June 3, 2008 by • No comments yet

Got this nice note from Jamie at the University of Vermont today…

I absolutely LOVE what you’re doing. I think that Front Porch Forum is one of the best things to happen as a result of the internet. Everyone actually reads the emails and it’s a great way to connect with folks that you otherwise would have little interaction with.

Wow!  Very nice.  I know that all college students are supposedly on Facebook and YouTube 24/7, but I keep meeting local young-uns who aren’t that enthralled with the idea of living their lives through their laptops and cell phones.

Desperately Seeking Sitter

Posted on Sunday, June 1, 2008 by • No comments yet

Andrew posted this request on his FPF neighborhood forum the other day…

Hi – My wife and I have tickets to see Mocean Worker at Nectars, June 4th. He/they is/are one of my favorite artists and I was pumped that he’s coming to the Discover Jazz festival this year. However, it’s a Wednesday night, school isn’t out yet, and the show starts fairly late (9:00 pm). We’ve exhausted our store of potential sitters who are college students.

Followed today by…

Hi all – Thanks for all the suggestions and volunteers, the great weekday night sitter dilemma of 2008 has been happily resolved.

Front Porch Forum does work.  I think the beauty of it is that it’s not some online chatroom with a few hundred complete strangers, it’s people you know.  So the conversation continues on the rec field, in the post office, library or country store.

Live Blogging Vermont’s e-Future

Posted on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 by • No comments yet

Hey, hey… should be a good event tomorrow (May 29, 2008) at Champlain College (Burlington, VT)…

Fulfilling Vermont’s e-State Potential
Building Community in a “Connected Age”

Front Porch Forum will be among several community-building efforts featured. Lewis Feldstein from New Hampshire, who co-wrote Robert Putnam’s follow up to Bowling Alone, will provide the keynote.

Another fun angle… Cathy Resmer from Seven Days and Bill Simmon from Candleblog will be live blogging the event… so tune in, follow along, and comment as we go. I hope that blog comments will find their way into the live conversation at the event.

UPDATE: A good day! Read all about it…

And Bill even snapped some art photos… or whatever you call this one…

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

Search the Blog

Yearly Archives

Post Categories