Neighbourhood Networks

Briefly, I just wanted to throw together some sites that represent a trend in how physical residential neighbourhoods are starting to bleed on to the web.

• StreetAdvisor: StreetAdvisor is the easy way to find out what people REALLY think about the street they live in. It’s a place where people can finally voice their opinions about where they live, have lived or simply visited!
• Fatdoor: Looking for a golf buddy in your neighborhood? Perhaps looking to form a volunteer group in your community? Or, do you have a recommendation to share with your neighbors?
• Zillow: A real estate site, but with a growing set of features aimed at attracting and keeping users engaged.

The first two sites (StreetAdvisor and Fatdoor) are intended for residents to enter their information and populate the site's data base with reviews and perspectives about the neighbourhoods. I've almost signed on to these but felt that they required a little too much of my real world identity.

Comments

[Danny Bull]

There's also our own My Neighbourhoods, a UK based service that doesn't require giving away as much personal information.

http://www.myneighbourhoods.co.uk

[Prolific Programmer]

One of me mates pointed me to http://meettheneighbors.org as well.

[Jamie K.]

Author: I agree that F4tdoor has far too much information about myself/real identity (without my prior consent) so that site really worries me. But StreetAdvisor? they have no personal information at all about anyone (unless you write about yourself). The UK website looks to be the same re: no personal info. I think your fears are a bit inaccurate for that that Advisor website. I like that site and another site called Y3lp.

[Matthew Hurst]

StreetAdvisor does gain information about you as it has your id and your address (at least, according to the interface, it *assumes* you are writing/searching on 'your' street address). Certainly, phatdoor goes way beyond this in terms of explicitly getting personal info. I didn't actually write about the British sites in my post, they are in the comments.

[Jamie K.]

@Matthew Hurst and StreetAdvisor: Somehow I think you're really drawing a long long bow there. If what you are suggesting is that when I search for an address, they must be recording what I search for against my log in account? What about the assumption that most people would be searching anonymously?

Secondly, if i enter some data into their site, then I must be living on that street? Ha! There's no way they know where I live, even when I post data there. So much so, i've 'joined' many streets with only one of them being my real one.

Thirdly, they have no idea 'who' i really am. F4tdoor on the other hand has very SPECIFIC information on myself and where i live in the USA -- and that really upsets me considering I don't want a lot of that personal knowledge becoming public ... and aggregated so easily. So we both agree with the F4tdoor comments :)

Now if StreetAdvisor only gains content ... then it will go good. otherwise it will be a Y0urStreet story .. which i doubt though.

[StreetAdvisor]

Here at StreetAdvisor we are serious about maintaining people's privacy - to the letter and spirit of the law. Also, we think people are more likely to share and be honest in what they say if they are (or can choose to be) anonymous.

Brian Ward
StreetAdvisor Community Manager