This to me is one of those ideas where I sit here and say “why didn’t I think of that…”
NEXTDOOR is a spin off of Facebook but for a neighborhood. It can help with crime watch or just connect a neighborhood in ways they have not been before. Currently, the social media site is venture capital funded and located out of San Francisco, CA (go figure). Over 47,000 neighborhoods are on Nextdoor since launching in 2011.
Nirav Tolia is a 40 year old from Odessa, Texas the Odessa from Friday Night Lights. The inspiration for Nextdoor could have come from the small town he grew up in and the feeling of community he lacked when he left. The social network designed to help neighbors find a babysitter, sell a StairMaster, or simply get to know each other. Members use Nextdoor to share basic information about themselves and send messages. All the conversations are archived so it’s easy to find the name of that sought-after electrician long after someone first recommended him.
It will be very interesting to see where this, heavily invested in, start-up goes in the coming years. It seems to have gotten some traction and it would not surprise me to see it grow into the next big social media site.
I agree that the communities that we live in today seem to lack the “community” feeling that everyone imagines. I support this idea and hopefully it will help to bring people together and turn back the clock on the idea of friendship to mean more than being just associated throught the internet.
I think this concept has a lot of great potential. My parents often tell me about how close the neighborhood they grew up in was, and how things just aren’t the same anymore. It would be phenomenal to have a way to connect neighborhoods, even through an online medium.
This is such an awesome idea! This is a great way to also connect with your neighbors and get to know each other better. I remember at my old house in my old neighborhood we were all pretty close and we would have block parties. This would have been another great way to connect with the new families that were moving in too! Also agree with the whole “why didn’t I think of this” moment.