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I-Neighbors, Not just another social network
neoatbay writes "Globeandmail has a story on I-Neighbors.org, a social networking site based on geography, rather than affinity. Unlike other websites that allow global, national, or city-wide communication, I-Neighbors links members of a single neighborhood, defined by the people that create them. It is created by a team led by Pro. Keith Hampton at MIT. Anyone in this neighborhood, and play badminton?"
This is a stupid idea. I lived in the same neighborhood my first 20 years of life and only knew one neighbor - barely. Then the rest of my life since then, I've lived in the same apartment complex and I've never known anyone. I have seen the people who live next door and downstairs once or twice in the last five years, but I don't know anything about them. Or maybe they don't even live there and they're just visiting the people who do.
Anyway, the point is - I don't know (nor do I want to) the people that live six inches away from me on the other side of the wall. Why the FUCK would I want to know any other people in the "neighborhood"?
This sounds like just an excuse for local people to hookup and fuck behind their significant others' back.
This has potential. One thing I've noticed (and read about) over the last twenty years (the explosion of the information age) is the accelerated pace of everything. I had lived in neighborhoods where within 200 feet of me are ten households and potentially contacts and friends. But everyone is SO busy working, commuting, carting children around, being paranoid.... noone has time left for socializing. So, after living in that house for almost ten years, the only people we really became acquainted with were our next door neighbors.
Ironically, right before moving from there, we discovered potential new friends one block away. How? She was the bailiff of a trial for which I participated on the jury. In a trial 30 miles from the house!
I've already created a new neighborhood for my new place. Will be inviting people around the area. I think this could be disruptive technology, which in this case could be very cool. My $.02
Seems like a weird idea. why would you want to meet "neighbors" id rather go on irc and talk to random people that to go to a "picnic" with my "neighbors".
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GCS d-- s+:+ a18 C++ L++ P+ E--- W+++ N+ o K- w--- O---- M+ V-- PS PE Y+
I can see it now, instead of the "Welcome to the Neighborhood!" cake, you get a "Welcome to the Neighborhood" email.
If I wanted to interact with people that were geographically near me, I'd just hit the community center/park/mall. Sounds like just another way for people to stay shut up in their homes.
All I need to get to know my neighbors is my telescope and digital camera.
-Letter
If they live in your local neighborhood, is it really necessary to meet over the internet?
How defined are the neighbourhoods? For instance in America you could probably have city-wide hoods and it have a decent member size. But in Australia lots of cities aren't going to have any members but 1 or 2 people. What do they do? Can they have a state-wide hood? If not it isn't going to be popular in places such as Perth (one of Australia's 8 largest cities).
Can hoods be redefined? For instance you might have a state-wide hood, but then as it becomes popular in that state you might want to break it down into smaller hoods? Is that sort of flexibility allowed? If not I can't see this being popular.
This idea relies upon it having lots of people to get lots of people. But that's the problem, how do you get lots of people in the first place? By making it so large hoods can be created that can later be broken down into smaller hoods. Otherwise I don't see this being popular at all.
How is this more than a zip-code structured Orkut community system? Besides pre-defining the communities before any participants arrive, it's really not.
How CAN you improve on the orkut-style social networking system?
1. Dont be so DAMN slow. Friendster, orkut, etc are all so slow at this point it's almost worthless. They all start off fast but load kills them.
2. Create an easy 'port' system whereby you can just 'point' the new site at an existing profile to have the new profile auto-created and friends added automatically. Filling out 4 page profiles and spamming your friends multiple times a year = no fun.
It's sort of like the joke about the totally immersive new video game called "Actual Reality." If you want to communicate with your neighbors and find out their interests, why not just ask them face to face?
I live in the middle of a big inner-city ghetto. I'd be surprised if there were people in a mile radius of me that owned computers in the first place, much less used them to access the Internet and converse without sounding like 12-year-old AIM kiddies.
In short, I'd set up a neighborhood, but it'd likely just get used to organize crack deals if anybody joined at all.
As other posters pointed out, there are few neighborhoods registered so far. One of the reasons this is so is that i-neighbors has, in my opinion, a ridiculous policy for what a neighborhood is: "An area of fewer than 500 households, or a single apartment complex." If they get even 5% participation across the US, an incredible feat by website standards, they would have on the average, less than 25 households in a neighborhood. That's a pretty minimal selection of people. I don't see what the point of making neighborhoods so small is; I can easily get to at least 10,000 households by foot in my average, suburban town. If this think wants any chance of survival, they better change that rule.
"I, for one, welcome our new neighborhood overlords!"
In china. This kind of websites may have potentials. You know the reason :-)
--- I'm a farmer in sillicon valley. My laptop is my hoe. http://ggnm.coku.com
Having a web based service requires that people sign up. Most people would be reluctant to, maybe because of laziness, maybe because of indifference.
If you want to get more people involved, how about getting community funded Internet? Start a community association, then raise funds to put in a reasonable pipe and a few 802.11g router/ APs and provide the service FOC to members of the community.
The only cavet would be that all users will have to see a community page as home page on first load and the DHCP lease expires every 12 hours.
That way the community is more involved, as it provides an incentive for members of the community to participate.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
can you say "I-slashdotted"?
It is only for English-speaking North American countries for now.
Lack of time to expand, or just a revenge for Orkut?
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
I just spent *my time* enterting data for my neighborhood only to be confronted with error messages.
Even though it told me there was an "error" on the creation of my village, it was created anyway, however I am not recognized as the founder.
Upon attempting to join my neighborhood I was then confronted with more error messages.
Please - don't waste your time like I did. This is alpha software, and that needs to be noted conspicuously.
This level of unprofessionalism is unacceptable.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
I thought Slashdot Meetup was already doing basically the same thing.
How about more people around Gainesville/North Florida sign up so we can get together.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
The site/service/whatnot could just as well defined the "neighborhood" to any interest, event or location, and the site would've been exponentially more interesting.
Combine that with the ability to form sub-communities and you could get the real interesting stuff like:
"started MIT 1980, born in Brooklyn, NY and likes to paint abstract paintings"
That's just an example, the sub-community could be anything really.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
I live in an apartment building with about twenty residents. I feel guilty that I don't know my neigbhors (I don't even know their names). But I feel it would be an intrusion to knock on doors and introduce myself.
Miss Manners has a good idea about how to introduce yourself to people in a large apartment building, but my building is too small for this to work. (The relevant letter is the second one in this column. It's possibly the best two-word reply ever written by an advice columnist.)
Could i-neighbors help break the ice in my building? Maybe a flyer posted by the mailboxes would do the trick. But it could just as easily be an invitation to a Labor Day party, instead of an invitation to join a website.
I assume that somebody with your fine character is at the Republican Convention this week. So you should be out of commision anyways.
If it's by neighborhood -- Why is a complete registration required? Craigslist also does it by geographical location, but it does NOT require a registration before it lets you see anything. In fact, I can already find 5 badminton partners within a short driving distance.
That is, until our daugther started school last september.. she would be invited to birthday parties or play dates and one of us would stay, hit it off with her friend's parents. It would steamroll from there. There hasn't been a weekend in ages that we have stayed home alone.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Neighbor: Hi neighbor, can I borrow a cup of sugar? :(
:P
Me: How about a nice cup of shut-the-fuck-up?
Neighbor:
Just what what I always wanted, a bunch of stupid neighbors that don't know shit ahout computers, they would probably bug me to come over and reinstall windows 98 on the their pentium 75
Even worse, if they used your network to access the internet, they might be tempted to get rid of their internet and leech off yours. I'm not gonna pay for someone elses internet access. Knowing my luck...I'd talk to some chick and I would feel sorry for her...and let her use my bandwith and then come to find out its a dude. Or even worse a married chick with a slob of a husband who sucks up my bandwith at night watching porn.
Bah. Even for their home zip code (02139) they failed to make MIT a neighborhood, despite the fact that it covers most of the zip code area!
This is the first time I've gotten interested in social networks. I've been offered gmail accounts by several friends, but this is different. You can relate that to real-life people around you, and you can make friends where it matters: next door.
Also the potential for kidnappers and child molesters increases with this service, so the rules of Internet safety still applies. Beyond the 'general neighborhood', or say upto 2 blocks away, no other information about the person should be shared IMHO.
I'd be interested in everyone next door, in my building etc. For example there are other geeks, and classical-music players/listeners in my building, just cant find them, or a good time to start a conversation.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
The first 3 replyers get them. (/off topic)
Will it find other people like this in my neighborhood?
iThink i have Inough Idiocity from my I-neighbor with my iMac and iPod downloading from my I-neighbor's Insecure iPass AP.
Thats why Im on the computer, finding like minded people around the world. If my hobbies change to domestic violence and drug dealing then I'll go hang out with my neighbours.
Here's what I got when selecting my state on i-neighbors.org:
Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in F:\ineighbors\inc\e_table.inc on line 194
He needs some help.
They subdivide Canada into provinces and then FSAs (Forward Sortation Areas, otherwise known as the first three characters of your postal code) before letting you drill down to the neighbourhood level. Unfortunately, this particular way they've chosen to break down the geographic hierarchy is oversimplified and basically unworkable, at least for Canada.
My neighbourhood (Mount Pleasant, in the East Side of Vancouver, BC) doesn't follow neat FSA boundaries. The hierarchy should be a little fuzzier, like Country -> State/Prov -> Region -> City -> Neighbourhood, and the "city" part should probably be optional, because there are neighbourhoods that cross civic boundaries. My friend who lives four blocks east and ten blocks south is most definitely in the same neighbourhood, but he lives in a different FSA.
i-neighbors.org/canada.php?rank=state
I live in a City. In my zip there are 3 distinct areas, each had a neigborhood defined. Around the park, at this triangle etc..
Of course living in cambridge MA, those regions were already in the computer.
How the system reacts to sparsly populated suburbs remains to be seen.
For each zip you can have multiple areas. I'm not sure if they divide.
The temptation
Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim
I can see the submitter's apartment building from my front window but I have no idea who they are. Not that any Slashdot reader could ever be accused of seldom going outside to meet one's neighbours...
P.S. I don't play badminton, but I do play squash.
There is a similar site called The Facebook for universities. You can only join if you actually go to one of the listed universities (they have alot). Since universities are basically like huge communities, it's basically the same idea. It's really quite useful, because you can see people that are in your classes, live in your residence hall, etc. It also has a quite extensive search function. So, for example, you could search for "freshman" "females" living in "yourdorm" whose interests include "heavy drinking" and "casual sex". Quiiiite useful... =)
Here are a couple of ways that I have used to meet my neighbors in the past.
1) When you see someone new moving in, ask if they need help. If they do need help, then you've made a new friend. If they don't need help, introduce yourself anyway. Just say something like "Well, my name is xxxx and I live in apartment number yyyy. If there is anything you need, just come and ask." Your neighbor feels welcomed and you don't actually have to carry any boxes. I have offered this service quite a few times and have never had anyone say that they needed help moving stuff. But, I have made several friends this way.
2) Invite some of your friends over to play board games or watch a football game. Make/order some food and pick up some beer. When you see your neighbors a couple days before your party, introduce yourself. Say "Hi, we've never been formally introduced. I'm xxxx and I live in apartment number yyyy. I'm having some friends over tomorrow for some board games. Maybe you and your husband/wife would like to stop by."
3) This one may not work for a lot of you, due to a lack of hurricanes in most places. During hurricane Charlie I met some of my neighbors because we were all sitting out on the front porch, getting drunk, and watching the storm.
Could i-neighbors help break the ice in my building?
In your situation, I would skip i-neighbors and go straight to an invitation to a party. If you are planning on having a labor day party with your friends, it won't cost you anything to invite your neghbors. I wouldn't plan on it wth just your neighbors though. People often have plans for holiday weekends and won't be able to go.
The bottom line is that you often have to make the first step. If you've never been the person to break the ice, then it can be a little intimidating. You just have to bite the bullet and do it.
I read the terms of service/user agreement. it's overwhelming.
certainly, i'll gladly indemnify everyone at your university and company.
i'll indemnify everyone in my neighborhood.
what a way to collect information stasi-style.
If I wanted to meet people in my neighborhood, I wouldn't be on the Internet all the time.
I seem to be the first person to join I-Neighbors from this neighborhood. As such, I'm the "founder": my description of the neighborhood and its boundaries is official, and changes can't be made without my permission. What if I go mad with power?
Where I just leaned over my fence and said "Hi" to my neighbours.
....
Maybe I should patent that
So we're creating a virtual neighborhood of... A real neighborhood? Forgive me, but there is just something perversely wrong with this. If you don't want or like to interact with your neighbors IRL, why in the world would you do want to do it over the net?!?? What could the internet possibly add here worthy of i-neighbors existance???? Freakin bake some brownies, ring the doorbell and shoot the shit for a while. Having a few real beers with a live person is better than putting a 10x10 pixel picture of one at the end of a witty sentance. -_-'
But I've got a great alternative for neightbors to keep in touch virtually. It's called EMAIL. Or use an IM if you want to be picky about it.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
YES, it works for CANADA too, don't be shy.
but you could try asking in the 'Canada East' subforum of the 'Places to Play' forum over at www.badmintoncentral.com
Got this error:
Warning: mkdir(Archives/RiverdaleM4K): File exists in F:\ineighbors\listnew.php on line 70
There was an error processing your neighborhood.
Disruptive to what?
To prove you're the smartest person in your area code. Since no neighborhoods are listed in mine, that must mean I'm one of the only people who reads /. to come across the site in the first place.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
I think this is a fine idea, but it has some problems that the other stsrems don't. Primarily it needs a significantly larger base before it gets interesting at all. The average user won't log on and create a neighborhood for just himself; but would be fairly likely to stick around if something was already happening. In order to get this larger group of people interested, or to get them to stick around long enough for the next person to show up, there needs to be something more to it. I own a computer gaming center, and find that it is a great social networking tool. Everyone comes in for the games, but very quickly it turns and becomes about the people. Friendships are made, and networks are grown and strengthened accross groups that would ordinarily never meet. And let's be honest, the geek crowd isn't the most social. http://www.tweakt.com/
There is a BIG problem with the way your little world is so different from that of your ancestors (and that applies to me, for that matter).
Now, that we Americans have been atomized, our community has been hollowed out, and now where do the ideas that get into our heads come from? From the Teevee, my friend (of course, I speak here of MOST Americans, not us Net Geeks, who spend so much time online; and of course a lot of people talk on the phone to friends). But in any event, so many Americans gets their ideas from the teevee. But what is the problem there? Well, the ideas that come out of your tv are filtered, filtered to be acceptable to the bosses that run it and the wealthy CEOs who run the corporations that own tv stations and networks and the wealthy investors who own most corporations that advertise on them.
And those ideas coming out of the tv to nest in our brains are not necessarily good for the well being of the average American. THese ideas have transformed America over the last few decades, and have moved America in a decidedly conservative direction. THis ideas come from the top, down to you, through your tv. But your ancestors, even your grandparents, had a community filled with people much like themselves, who had financial interests in common with them. You and I have little in common with the rich executives and investors who control what ideas get on tv.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
One of the best things about the internet is that you can pretty much guarantee that the weird fucks that talk to you on it don't live anywhere near you, so you'll never have to be stalked by them in real life.
The Face Book is a social network for people in the same college or university. You can fill out classes you're taking, and then see all the people who are also taking it, as well as fill out where you live, etc. Very popular with a lot of the schools that it supports (listing is on the home page).
LiveJournal has turned out to be a really interesting online community, and it appears to have scaled up quite well too. A neighbourhood would be easy to add as an "interest".
Geocoding data is easy, searching on geocoding is also easy. Getting that integreated into tools that have been set up to do text is a bit more difficult. How do you let people freely define geometries, yet still have some way of searching and retrieving via text? C-Squares sounds cool, as it seems to give enough detail for most purposes, but as it's got a pretty distinct namespace, they use Google to do their search and retrieval:
C-Squares
Get calendars in there too (as a 4th dimension) ("show me people with an interest, in a place, at a time"), and the picture gets even more crazy. "Notify me when Bon Jovi is in my city".
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Apparantly,
.org !
and saying that they went over the trouble of registering a
Mike
God forbid we live in a society so open and unregulated that our friends could make unscheduled and unapproved visits. I'm going to venture out and say this probably isn't a problem for you in the first place.
-ashot
Otherwise known as the "National Sex Offenders Registry"
I-Mac, I-Pod, I-this, I-that, and now I-Neighbours?
Why don't these fools who want my money, they can suck my I-@#$@!
Apparently a family of trolls lives in my neighborhood.
Thanks to i-neighborhood I now know to avoid them.
From their website:
It might be new to some of the slashdotters but Singapore (a puny country in Asia) has already got its own website like i-neighbour. See http://www.wholivesnearyou.com It is really quite useful if you happen to live in a country that has one of the highest population density in the world.
the uk has had upmystreet.com for years, whcih does the same thing. pretty cool and they've managed to hang a business model on it based around (mostly) local estate agents and service...
" Who cares why you would or would not want to do it... many people will."
Oh, I'm _sure_ many people will. (I'll get to that later.) And many people will get disappointed, just like with all the other services.
Here's some free clue: friendship is more than two people knowing each other. For example at least having any common topic to discuss is pretty much a requirement.
That's why stuff like IRC or message boards work (somewhat): they come sorted by topics, not by irrelevant idiocies like ZIP codes or "who knows whom". If you want to talk about, say, cats, you can drop into a channel about cats and chances are most people there will also have some interest in that topic. You already have a common topic, and you know what that topic is.
Merely being "connected" to someone by some arbitrary criteria, whether it's ZIP code or by 6 degrees of separation, does not a friend make. It still makes just two strangers who don't really give a damn about each other. The same as if you just stopped and talked to a random neighbour without some idiotic online service.
But ah, you don't know how to start talking to that neighbour in the first place, right? (Or after that how to stop him from yawning and making a quick excuse.)
Which brings us to who those many people will be:
Anyone who was extroverted enough to just naturally hit it off with perfect strangers, is already out there chatting and making friends. They never needed an online service for that, and they still don't. So you won't find them on such crap sites, or not for long. (And they'd look for other extroverted people, not for the geeky guy who can't string more than two words together.)
So who joins this crap? The losers. The ones who can't actually go and make friends, but still live in some sad fantasy world where they're really the life of the party and they'd be up to their ears in friends if anyone only introduced them. Unlike last time they got introduced to someone IRL, and it still led nowhere. But you just wait and see. This online thing will surely be the magic bullet.
The same ones who clogged the other such services, got disappointed, and went looking for the 20'th such promised land where surely they'll be popular. Except they still won't, and it still won't work. Because they just don't have the personality type for that.
Just as with everything else, there is no magic bullet. There never was, there never will be. Wake up. Friendship isn't something you can win at an online lottery.
(And no, I'm _not_ calling every introvert a loser. I'm fairly introverted myself.
I'm just calling anyone who can't cope with reality a loser. If you want friends, go talk to people. That's the only way that works. It's that simple.
All the other fantasies and pipe dreams stay just that. The whiny angsty duckling doesn't grow up into a swan, it just grows into a lonely and bitter duck.
Or stay introverted, but accept the reality that you're _not_ going to be the life of the party. Don't build stupid fantasies and go buying _false_ hope online.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
http://www.upmystreet.com/overview/?l1=N4+1SB#CnvL ink - Links up conversations/messages by Postcode ( UK equiv of Zip Codes but smaller area )
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ican - for folk to organise campaigns one factor is locality
And yet such services are rarely available.
The Postcode system here narrows you down to a few hundred feet, and it does so with math, rather than arbitrarily drawn boundaries.
This implementation would be completely trivial here, but was probably a pain in the ass in the US.
After I've used it more than 10 minutes I will probably discover more things, but that's all for the moment.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
This place needed a lot more work and a lot more testing before it was released to the public. (Unless they released it to the hordes at Slashdot as a way of (extreme load) testing!) But they should indicate it's got (serious) bugs and is still being worked on (along with a good way to report them as they are found). It's got lots of things that need to be fixed before it's even close to the kind of quality we should expect for a site to visit for that kind of purpose.
They probably do not know what they are doing (this is not a criticism, often you start one of these things and learn what it should morph into over time) and are new at this. Also the site is new, and hasn't had much exposure so it hasn't had much opportunity to develop an audience. Some of these large portals have had many years to define their focus and obtain their audience. But if they are going to put up an alpha-software based site in order to discover what needs to be fixed, they should indicate this and let people know how to report problems.The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
I guess it all depends on where you live. I live in a rural town of about 10,000. Most people say "hello" or "good morning" to you as you pass them on the sidewalk. I can't say I've known all of my neighbors well, but I have at least spoken with them enough to know a bit about who they are. Visiting larger cities like Boston or New York makes me feel weird. Nobody looks you in the eye, and everyone seems constantly pissed off, almost like everyone is scared of everyone else... yet this all seems perfectly normal to them. Personally, all of my friends have been people I've associated with daily. When I was in school, my friends were classmates. Now most of my friends are co-workers, and the few people I knew from school who I still keep in touch with. Chances are good that there are people in your neighborhood that share your interestes or are at least compatable at the personality level who you wouldn't normally interact with on a daily basis.
wouldn't it be easier to just go outside?
I like the idea but feel like this type of collaboration has the most potential for kids in the neighborhoods, not the adults. It might be a way to engage them in the computer instead of the playstation.
Having said that, this type of thing doesn't need to be on the Net. Why put a neighborhood network on a global system? Why not set up a mesh network in the neighborhood and host it there? That way the kids can actually use it since it isn't hooked to the net and it would be more difficult for a pervert to case the neighborhood using the network. i.e., more strict access control and censorship by moderation have their place.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
On 118th St. and Manhattan Avenue in the recently built P.A.L. (Police Athletic League) community center, you can find the first Black Chess Grand Master in history. Maurice Ashley, 33, is in charge of the chess center at the P.A.L., he is currently trying to bring chess to the Harlem community. I went by the other day to find out what the deal was with chess and why should it be in the Harlem community. Melvin Johnson: Mr. Ashley,what encouraged you to teach chess in this newly built community center in Harlem ? Maurice Ashley: I've been teaching and coaching chess in Harlem for years now, since 1989 as a matter of fact. Before I became a Grand Master I really had the hope to spread chess to the youth of Harlem as a start, and then in our communities around the country. Chess is not really popular in our neighborhoods. I really want kids tuned into chess and playing. MJ: So when did you become a Grand Master? MA: Officially I became Grand Master in October of this year. MJ: What was the competition like? Who did you play against ? MA: When you play Chess its an international sport, so you have to play people all over the world . From Bermuda, Russia, Romania, England, France. I mean I had to play everybody, I traveled all around the world, because that's my profession..." http://www.harlemlive.org/community/orgs/chess/ Columbia's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science hosted New York City's first-ever high school robotics contest at Levien Gymnasium March 15-17, drawing 5,000 visitors to cheer 40 teams of students who designed and built remote-controlled robots for the athletic-style contest of knowledge and strategy. Among the enthusiastic spectators during Saturday's competition was New York City Schools Chancellor Harold Levy, who watched as teams from every city borough, upstate, New Jersey and New England squared off during the competition. The winning team was Rice High School in Harlem. (Results may be viewed at: http://www2.usfirst.org/2k1comp/events/nyc/teamran k.html)
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/01/03/robot.html
Anonymous Coward, I'm sure the people living in your particular "inner-city ghetto" are overjoyed that you are keeping your bigoted ass away from their neighborhood activities.
Pitty about the exclusive US/Canada functionality.
I might have used this if it had support for my country.
Ok folks it doesn't get any more retarded then this.
A social network driven by geographic areas for the specific purpose of driving advertising.
Great now the freaks can masturbate while socializing with their neighbour's avatar! fur sur!
Tards!
Another idea is IKU,
http://www.crystalballinc.com/iku/
search for friends through people you know
I signed up and created my neighborhood since it wasn't in there yet. I could see this being useful. Simple example: our local gas station doesn't plow snow off their sidewalk in the winter. This leads people to walk in the street and increases the chance of getting killed. This bugs me but I do nothing about it. Now maybe some fellow neighbors will agree and we could boycot them or something if they don't listen to our request. I could see things like this site making it easier to fight the Man.
But I didn't use my real name. You think I'm nuts?
slashsearch.org - slashdot search. powered by google.
There's a social networking site called Local2Me.com (http://www.local2me.com) that solves this. (Disclaimer: it's my site.) Each person defines their own group geographically centered around them, using lat/lon coordinates to define their community. Early on, users can start with big circles (e.g., people within 15 miles of me) and as the group grows, they can individually choose whether to be connected to more and more neighbors, or re-scope their community to, e.g., 3 miles. Thus it scales extremely well, making it easier to get critical mass initially and then solving the crowding problem later.
It's been around for several years and is popular in the Bay Area Peninsula where I've focused. (Only available in U.S.) For the naysayers who think this is anti-social, let me tell you - it works. People love being easily connected with locals. They get trustworthy referrals for local businesses and are able to form impromptu groups. Local2Me users regularly report that they have met many more locals in person as a result of the service than they would have otherwise.
One man formed a spur of the moment singing group that he used to propose to his girlfriend. Another woman asked for places to get high quality used toys to bring to kids in Mexico for Xmas, and the community poured out their free used toys - so much so that she had to go back to the group for suitcases! All this resulted in many face to face meetings.
http://www.local2me.com/local2me is basically the same thing and been around much longer.
I like V8Juice.
Someone has been reading too much Chomsky for their own good...
So I checked this site out and I must say I have two major beefs about the site.
First off, you have to actually belong to a neighborhood to view any of the good stuff there. There's no browsing (or trolling depending on how you look at it) of neighboorhoods to see who lives there, calendar of events, etc.
Secondly, I think there should be a parent-child type relationship between neighborhoods. The reason being I have one other person in my nieghborhood. If there was a superset neighborhood called "Canada" I could see everyone in Canada, national polls, national events, etc. and that would be cool. Just my opinion really.
Oops, how did this get here?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
There's a JSR (Java Specification Request) for complementary currencies at http://dem.sourceforge.net/JSR/.
I'm also involved in a PGP-based voting project. PGP-based voting might be an interesting addition to usual polls: A peer to peer network (Java JXTA, jxta.org) is used to collect PGP-signed votes which do not have a legal status but can be used to collect a public opinion with a very high credibility (in my case, to prepare for a direct democratic public poll about the european constitution as a next step). More information about this can be found at http://pgpid.sourceforge.net/.
i know two people in my neighborhood. i daresay i already know two too many people in my neighborhood as is.
--A witty sig proves nothing.--