Author Archives: Chris Stock

Does the Internet bring us closer together?

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From Wired:

Technology makes it more fun and more profitable to live and work close to the people who matter most to your life and work. Harvard economist Ed Glaeser, an expert on city economies, argues that communications technology and face-to-face interactions are complements like salt and pepper, rather than substitutes like butter and margarine.

Does the net actually increase your face-to-face interactions with the people you live and work with? Or does it decrease your face-to-face interactions and isolate you behind a computer screen? Please comment.

Lost dogs and neighborhood social networking

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Last night, a small Sheltie was lost in LionsGate, a neighborhood of 582 homes in southern Overland Park, Kansas. Unsure of what to do to locate the owner, the neighbor who found the dog decided to post a bulletin on the neighborhood website at 11:24am this morning and due to the urgent nature of the request an email was immediately sent to the 533 residents that are signed up to receive email alerts from eNeighbors.

At 1:39pm or 2 hours and 15 minutes later, we received the following email:

Subject: Dog safe at home 

Thanks to our great neighbors and community of Lionsgate, the dog is home with owners. The email system works, thanks for sending it out so quickly.

-M. Kurtz

This is a great example of how an online neighborhood social network can leverage the power of the community to help the community and its residents.

A sign of the times…

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via Local Onliner

It was perhaps inevitable, but the first newspaper has made the decision to abandon print and go “online only.” The Cincinnati Post, a 126 year-old paper owned by E.W. Scripps, published its final edition on Dec. 31 at the end of a Joint Operating Agreement with Gannett, which owns The Cincinnati Enquirer, the dominant paper in town. Henceforth, it will publish KYPost.com.

This should be interesting to watch.

Won’t you be my neighbor?

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Study finds that 55% of Americans believe they are less familiar with their neighbors today than their parents were with their neighbors a generation ago.

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

(via FrontPorchForum)

When you move, what’s the first thing that you do?

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Join the neighborhood website…of course. We received the following email from a family moving into one of our neighborhoods: (edited for privacy)

My family and I are moving to Lionsgate at the end of next week from MN. We would like to receive a pin number in order to be able to access all neighborhood events. We would also like to register for the December Luminary Event but we need to have our pin number before we do that. Would you please assist us in getting registered as a member of this community?

I love to hear how our website is making new connections.

This email also points out the good part of requiring a PIN to register. (If you’re not familiar with our PIN registration process, you can read all about it on our website.) First, it provides a way of keeping track of people moving in and out of the neighborhood. And it also ensures privacy inside of the neighborhood, which makes residents feel more comfortable with sharing information, whether that be a phone number or a classified posting.

Property Managers Rejoice!

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We have finally added property managers to the newsletter and bulletin distrubtion lists. Property managers will now receive the weekly eNewsletter for the neighborhoods that they manage. You can change this preference on your profile page to daily, weekly, monthly or not at all.

 You will also receive bulletins as they are sent out starting Friday, November 2nd.

News Challenge Deadline is today, October 15th

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There are three categories for which you can apply to receive a grant from the Knight Foundation: (1) General Open Source, (2) New Business Ventures, and (3) the Young Creators category.

Today is the last day that you can apply for a grant. I would encourage startups, organizations, academic programs, and driven people to apply for this opportunity if you meet the basic criteria. According to their website, you need to:

  1. have strong digital innovation,
  2. use new forms of news or information in the public interest, and
  3. focus on a specific geographic community.

At the time of publishing, only 227 applications have been posted to the Open Category, and 54 to the Young Creators category. The New Business Ventures category is closed, and as a result, we can’t see how many applications have been made.

How about those young creators? Good for you. They represent 35% of the total applicants world-wide. This is reserved for people 25 years and younger. (Funny, I guess I’m a young creator too…just barely.)

eNeighbors has applied to the New Business Ventures category. I wanted to seek funding from the Knight News Challenge because of the obvious alignments between our organizations:

  1. eNeighbors has a strong digital innovation – online social networking for neighborhoods
  2. eNeighbors uses new forms of news/info in the public interest – neighbors participate in contributing community news and information
  3. eNeighbors focuses on specific geographic communities – neighborhoods

I’m hoping to see some more interesting applications to review.

Email Trouble

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We were having some email trouble yesterday between 11:00am and 6:00pm. If you sent in a support or PIN request and haven’t heard back from us, please resend your request to support [at] eneighbors [dot] com.

As of now, all support requests that we received have been closed. So if you’re waiting to hear from us, we do not have your request.

The importance of community and neighborhood to local search

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I wish I had said it first… (via Marty Himmelstein)

The fundamental role of a community in local search is to establish an environment of trust so that users can rely on the information they obtain from the system. Businesses exist in a network of customers, suppliers, municipal agencies, local media, hobbyists, and others with either a professional or avocational interest in establishing the trustworthiness of local information. These community members can contribute unique perspectives to create a rich and accurate depiction of the businesses with which they are involved. The group targeted by Google’s new program, college-aged students who want to earn extra spending money, hardly comprise a community as described. But it is a start. One must assume the current program is a precursor to a more disciplined and organized initiative where Google works with organizations that have more substantial relationships of trust in the local community.

Exactly.