A fascinating article in the New York Times was brought to my attention today (thanks Hubert) about Babajob.com…
Babajob, by contrast, connects India’s elites to the poor at their doorsteps, people who need jobs but lack the connections to find them. Job seekers advertise skills, employers advertise jobs and matches are made through social networks.
I’ve been reading several postings about Google’s first Local Symposium that they hosted at their HQ the other day. Here’s one.
The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute video that is worth seeing. It’s moral jibes with Front Porch Forum‘s mission of fostering community with those around you.
It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
Thanks to Jerry Michalski for inviting me to participate in his Yi-Tan Weekly Call today about community building at the neighborhood level. There, I learned about other efforts, including…
LifeAt, Meet the Neighbors, Neighborology, i-neighbors, Front Porch Forum, TownConnect, Mesh Tennis and rBlock
Vivek Hutheesin, rBlock’s founder, offered many excellent insights. And from his most recent blog posting…
Fatdoor has just announced in Private Equity Hub their first-round financing through Norwest Venture Partners and their new CEO, Jennifer Dulski, from Yahoo! Here is a quote from Jennifer, which I know is true from my own experience:
“Building online local communities that scale is an extremely difficult problem to solve, but the market opportunity is immense and consumers are craving a solution that will make this vision a reality.”
To address this immense market, any platform needs to first solve some very difficult problems in four areas – boundaries, applications, verification, and privacy. rBlock believes that it has solved them all. However to win a big share of this immense market, rBlock’s solutions must be integrated in a manner that leads to viral growth. This requires, among other things, a user-interface that’s easy-to-use and scalable. rBlock believes it has solved this too, paving the way for more plan execution than experimentation.
Greg Sterling writes about online reviews today… lots of good stuff.
Adding to the mounting evidence that online reviews are now critical for both consumers and businesses, comScore and the Kelsey Group released online survey data (n=2,090) last week showing that 24% of consumer-respondents used online reviews in the context of looking for a local service business (during the preceding three-months)…
PQ Media issued a new report that estimated “word-of-mouth marketing” has become a $981 billion business. In addition, the report says that among consumers surveyed, 80% rely on friends and family for recommendations. This phenomenon is now moving quickly online… [lots more]
Taken together, these data all show how significant online reviews are becoming – as an extension of traditional “word of mouth” – for both consumers and local businesses. As the stakes get higher, which all these data suggest they will, the risk is that there’s more gaming and manipulation of reviews. Note that 30% (of the 24%) in the comScore data wrote reviews because they were asked to do so. (And see my recap of the SMX panel on user review content.)
Reviews and recommendations are a large part of the Front Porch Forum postings. Most arrive upon request from a neighbor.
Dryer’s Ice Cream commissioned a phone survey of 1,000 U.S. homes in 2005 as part of a promotion tied to neighborhoods…
More than half of Americans (55%) believe they are less familiar with their neighbors today than their parents were with their neighbors a generation ago. And, according to a recent survey, our hectic schedules are to blame. In this fast-paced world of instant worldwide communications, it’s ironic that sometimes the hardest connections to make are with folks just across the street.
Dreyer’s Slow Churned Ice Cream asked Americans across the country how well they knew their
neighbors. Here’s the scoop:
- Three out of ten Americans (27%) don’t know their neighbors first and last names;
- Six in ten Americans (59%) who aren’t friendly with their neighbors say it’s because they’re just too busy to create meaningful relationships;
- Fewer than half of Americans (48%) have borrowed something, like a cup of sugar, from one of their neighbors
Research and community experts say that on average, students perform better, people live longer, and
crime rates are lower when people who live in the same community have a basic familiarity with each
other.
Pattie tells a good community-building story around this information.
Danah Boyd asks… who clicks on web ads? Part of her answer…
Over the summer, Dave Morgan (AOL Global Advertising Strategy) blogged about a study that they did to investigate who clicks on ads:
What did we learn? A lot. We learned that most people do not click on ads, and those that do are by no means representative of Web users at large.Ninety-nine percent of Web users do not click on ads on a monthly basis. Of the 1% that do, most only click once a month. Less than two tenths of one percent click more often. That tiny percentage makes up the vast majority of banner ad clicks.
Who are these “heavy clickers”? They are predominantly female, indexing at a rate almost double the male population. They are older. They are predominantly Midwesterners, with some concentrations in Mid-Atlantic States and in New England. What kinds of content do they like to view when they are on the Web? Not surprisingly, they look at sweepstakes far more than any other kind of content. Yes, these are the same people that tend to open direct mail and love to talk to telemarketers.
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