This is the beginning of something big.
What happens if every resident on your street participates in your online community?
Wouldn't it improve the value of your community? You could borrow a ladder, bulk-buy products, sell unused goods, arrange BBQs and tackle troublesome neighbours much easier.
This is the best community you can create right now. Begin a place for members to chat, s, to give their opinion on issues, share their advice and for newcomers to introduce themselves. Now distribute a few leaflets. See what happens.
It might flop (don’t worry, there are other streets), or it might make your street a better place to live. If you have so little to lose, and so much to gain, you should try it.
I tried that... I have a local community site for the region I live in and I wanted to add neighborhood groups, starting with my own. Didn't get a single bit of interest.
Sounds like a great idea in theory. In practice, not so much. I suppose it depends on the neighborhood, though, and how much time they spend online already.
Michelle
Posted by: Michelle | Friday, 21 May 2010 at 16:09
Indeed, this is hard work. We're making it happen in our corner of Vermont where 18,000 households subscribe to Front Porch Forum. We host a network of 140 online neighborhood forums, and any resident may join the one neighborhood forum that covers where he/she lives. In several of our neighborhood forums, more than half subscribe and 2 or 3 out of 4 post... super active. But it doesn't work everywhere.
Posted by: Michael Wood-Lewis | Friday, 21 May 2010 at 16:55
I've seen Front Porch Forum before and thought it was a pretty good idea. It goes a lot farther with security and ensuring it's just people who live there posting than I did, which I thought would be nice but is more work than I'm able to do.
There's been a few things lately where I wished I could send out a message to my neighbors, so I've been thinking of having another go at it. Maybe I'll have better luck this time. :)
Michelle
Posted by: Michelle | Sunday, 23 May 2010 at 06:58
Yes this will be really good but one problem is how will you convince them to join? And when they finally join, conflict will not be avoided because of so many things..
Posted by: I Need Money Desperately | Monday, 24 May 2010 at 05:58
I manage a Ning network for the "village" where I live called LiveHereOakPark.com and it's been a significant community builder. Not only did I distribute flyers to spread the word about the site the old fashioned way, but I used Facebook and Twitter as well. It has become a hub for community discussions, local news and other good stuff. In addition, we've taken the community offline with regular meetups at local cafes and other businesses. It has been a lot of work, but it has also been extremely rewarding. We now have more than 550 registered members and we're growing every day.
Posted by: Becca | Saturday, 29 May 2010 at 01:18
Neighborhood social networking has been around for a while: http://www.i-neighbors.org
Posted by: Sean Feeney | Tuesday, 01 June 2010 at 15:53