Category Archives: social networking

Expanding To New Markets

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eNeighbors is looking to expand our sales efforts on some specific local markets across the country. We are currently considering the following cities:

Chicago
Phoenix
Orlando
Philadelphia
Dallas/Fort Worth

I’d like to ask our readers opinion and hear if they have any insight into these markets and whether or not the homes association market would be primed in these areas for eNeighbors to make some significant headway on getting communities online.

Additionally, if anyone has some other suggestions for where we might have success, I would love to hear what you all have to say.

Thanks.

The Future of Online Classifieds

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Kevin Kelleher wrote an interesting piece last week about eBay’s new Kijiji classifieds service in the U.S. and how it stacks up against Craigslist.

Kevin links to Internet Outsider which has this great comment:

Despite significant online classified efforts, moreover, the classified opportunity remains massive: The dying newspaper industry still rakes in tens of billions of dollars a year for printed classifieds — a less efficient, less informative, less convenient, more wasteful, and more expensive way to buy or sell products. In another few decades, when the current (and last) generation of hard-copy newspaper readers dies out, printed classifieds will seem as archaic as whale oil. The newspaper companies may be able to retain some classifieds business as it moves online, but given the success of Craigslist, Monster, et al (and the seriously weak newspaper efforts thus far), this percentage will likely be small.

So, there’s a $10 billion plus market for classifieds, and the majority of it is not online.

Here’s where I get excited. Of all the news and community content features that eNeighbors offers to the neighborhood residents, classifieds have been the most popular by far. To date (we launched in April), we have had over 300 classifieds posted from only 2000 users in 18 neighborhoods. Keep in mind that most of the neighborhoods have only been using our service for a few weeks.

Additionally, we have already received numerous comments from users that they would like to be able to publish their classifieds to other neighborhoods in their area. This is a site enhancement that we are currently working.

The great thing is that we built the classifieds engine as a “nice to have” feature for residents to use when garage sales were not appropriate never expecting it to be so popular, but our users have begun to see a huge potential for a truly hyper-local type of market square.

I’d like to see eNeighbors follow in Craig Newmark’s footsteps and provide valuable relevant classifieds in an even more hyper-local context.

Never underestimate the power of free.

TownKings: Location-based social networking

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TownKings is an interesting concept. (TownQueens is the sister site for women.) They both look like they’re geared toward dating, but they also attempt to connect you to local parties and information about your friends.

My only concern with sites like TownKings and FatDoor is privacy.

I’ve registered on the site to test it out. Feel free to send me a friend request. You can find me by my username, cstock. So far, I’m the only guy who’s joined in my area.

Mosh, Yahoo’s new social network?

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TechCrunch is reporting that Yahoo! is working on a new social network called “Mosh”. I actually like the name. I assume that it makes reference to moshing.

It’ll be interesting to see if they tie local into the mix. Right now, there isn’t any information to suggest that they are, but local and social is a big focus for them this year. Or at least it was before Terry left.

Goodbye Backfence

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So, you might have heard — Backfence.com is shutting its doors. As expected, the industry insiders (Greg Sterling, Peter Krasilovsky, etc.) have commented most eloquently. However, Perry Evans has posted my favorite analysis of the dilemma that was the ultimate demise of Backfence. He gives the best “when the rubber meets the road” commentary on why hyper-local may or may not work.

In reference to whether or not hyper-local destination sites can be created and survive, Evans states the following:

“I am constantly pleased by the insight I read from newspaper new media executives. Nothing I am saying hasn’t been said, debated and documented in the newspaper industry. Having said that, the gap between understanding and execution is one perplexing motherload of a gap.”

Additionally, American Journalism Review (AJR) takes quite a long look at the Backfence situation. Here’s my favorite part:

“What we’re struggling with, and every major paper is struggling with, is how to reach our audience on a granular level, in a way we’ve never reached them before.” — Jonathan Krim, WPNI.

So, nobody has figured out hyper-local yet. Everybody says it’s doomed and can’t be done. yet more and more companies keep trying. I love that the AJR article recognizes the Lawrence Journal-World as one of the few innovators that have been successful. The LJW was my news source for many a year when I was in school at Kansas University. The town of Lawrence is truly a remarkable anomaly in the middle of nowhere midwestern U.S.A.

Well folks, those of us here in Kansas must be on to something, because eNeighbors will do exactly what all the experts say can’t be done, and we aren’t doing it in San Fran or Philly or DC or Chicago.

First, we’ll build the online network that residents in the community will actually visit and populate with relevant “backyard” content. Next, we’ll build the ad network that will allow those residents to access local business and service provider information. Finally, the entire platform will give way to highly targeted, community-driven citizen journalism, political activism and the ultimate “grail” of all — offline human interaction.

Join us in our vision, and get your neighborhood online today.

Supernova 2007

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Guys like Mike Arrington, Reid Hoffman, and Max Levchin are all hanging out at Supernova 2007 this week in San Francisco.

From the site:
At Supernova, we attempt to answer “what’s next” after everything is connected. Supernova is the only event that assembles the most compelling people and companies from the converging worlds of computing, telecom, and digital media to put decentralization issues into meaningful social and business contexts.

In addition, Google, Yahoo!, AOL, Comcast, Verizon, Cisco, Sun, and IBM are all represented as well.

Some interesting topics of discussion include virtual worlds, user-generated content, online identity, social commerce and media, net neutrality, advertising, and copyright.

Check their blog for updates.

Can Online Advertising Be Useful?

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The Future of Online Advertising (FOOA) conference wrapped a couple weeks back, and I’ve been reading a lot of summaries and commentary about the different sessions and the overall direction of online advertising.

Not surprisingly, the topic of video was very hot. YouTube and Google made sure of that. And of course, the traditional TV networks are in full support of a medium that they are at least somewhat familiar with, but the trend that I thought was more relevant to us here at eNeighbors was the demand that online direct marketing be even more measured and tracked than it already is, and secondly, that the media and channels provide accountability.

With so many different online channels (e.g., blogs, videos, social networks, etc.) to use for your ad campaign, picking the right ones are going to be determined by how measureable and accountable a particular channel is willing to be.

Additionally, the content aggregators that are stripping content from their source only complicates the measurability situation. So, I think the question for how to determine effectiveness will ultimately end up with figuring out where and how people want to receive their content. And if (and that’s a big “if”) when they do receive that content in their personalized fashion, they are willing to put up with advertising.

The key is relevance. If I’m looking for a new grass treatment company for my lawn, then I’ll welcome all the ads I can get for lawn companies. But the icing on the cake will be whether I can quantify those ads in regards to value.

So, what we need is useful aggregator of content that is personal and relevant. And when I need it, provides me with a useful way to find and assess a service provider for whatever my need might be.

Good luck.

eNeighbors Features: News

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The “news” feature is next up in my profile of eNeighbors’ services. Everyone likes to be informed, and we use CNN, Yahoo and MSN to keep up on all the world, national and even city-level news, but what about the news that’s happening in your own back yard, literally.

The News feature is the most versatile of the communication tools. You can use it to alert the community to upcoming events, post details about neighborhood activity, remind residents of safety protocols, or simply use it to start an online conversation.

1. Anyone can post a News item.

2. Anyone can leave a comment on the posted News item (this helps to generate an online discussion by allowing real-time feedback).

3. The top 3 most recent News items appear on the Home page.

4. When you post a News item, it is viewable by anyone in your neighborhood that has registered on the website.

5. Finally, each News item is automatically put into the eNewsletter and sent to every neighbor that has chosen to receive the newsletter either daily, weekly, or monthly.

Contact us today to get more info on signing up your neighborhood for eNeighbors

eNeighbors Features: Classifieds

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We’ve recently put together a small sales team and subsequently developed some training materials to get the guys up to speed on all the features of eNeighbors. So, I thought I’d follow suit here on the blog and post a series of entries tied to the different features that eNeighbors offers a neighborhood.

First, there are 5 core communication features that we offer:

1. News
2. Events / Calendar
3. Groups
4. Classifieds
5. Bulletins

In addition, there are other more standard web features:

1. Online Resident Directory
2. Contact Form
3. Architectural Request Form
4. Resources (this is for all your HOA documents)

The first feature, I’ll cover is Classifieds since it has been our most popular so far. As of this morning, there have been 253 classifieds posted on eNeighbors from about 15 different neighborhoods in the past 10 weeks.

1. Classifieds are free

2. It’s so easy to post a classified, you can do it in about 2 minutes. All you have to do is click “Post a Classified”, type up your ad, preview it, and then click “publish.” Your ad is instantly added to the site for everyone to view.

3. The top 3 most recent classifieds appear on the Home page.

4. When you post a classified, it is viewable by anyone in your neighborhood that has registered on the website.

5. There are 4 different categories you can post to:
– For Sale
– Wanted
– Neighborhood Services?
(things like babysitting, pet sitting, yard work, etc.)
– Professional Services
(things like, Mary Kay, tax services, house painting, etc.)

6. Finally, each classified post is automatically put into the eNewsletter and sent to every neighbor that has chosen to receive the newsletter either daily, weekly, or monthly.

Contact us today to get more info on signing up your neighborhood for eNeighbors

Browsing vs. Searching vs. Sharing

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The other day, Techcrunch ran a guest post from David Sacks (founder and CEO of Geni and previously the COO of PayPal). I’m going to attempt to summarize his point in one sentence:

Locating content on internet portals has evolved from browsing to searching to sharing.

And today, Facebook has this latest stage of “sharing” figured out way ahead of Yahoo and Google who are still in the search phase of allowing users to locate info on the web.

Ultimately, the sharing phenomenon is more about “pushing” content rather than “pulling” it since the content is recommended by your trusted sources (i.e. your friends list).

So, given that this is the eNeighbors blog, I’m obviously going to tie this into our long term vision and content model…

eNeighbors is building a hyper-local network of neighborhoods, and our registered user base is tied to a physical location (as opposed to the 18 different profiles you have on MySpace under various aliases and which MySpace can offer no data at all about where you really are on the planet).

Once this network is in place and has enough adoption, it inherently creates the ultimate local platform for local business advertising and referrals since the users all live in the same area.

The sharing concept of trusted content becomes extremely important when you are looking for someone to fix your roof or the best real estate agent in your area.

So, instead of going to Ask.com or Yahoo Local to find service providers in your area where you have to search at the city level or metro level, eNeighbors will be able to provide neighborhood-level information on service providers, and on top of that you’ll be able to get trusted referrals from your neighbors that have actually used the service.

I’m telling you, the top down approach to these search portals has to go, people. Demand better (and more relevant) information.