How well do you know the people that live in your very own neighborhood? If we’re perfectly honest with ourselves, many of us may admit we rarely speak to most of our neighbors or have never even met them. We’re all busy, and it can be difficult to make connections and build relationships with people nearby.
Well, a brand new social network called Nextdoor looks to help change that. Backed by the folks at Benchmark, Nextdoor builds private, location-based groups for neighborhoods throughout the country. Privacy and security is a major priority for Nextdoor, as if would be in any normal neighborhood, therefore new users are required to verify their address before they are given access to join. This is done using a postcard sent with a unique ID code or by phone using a landline associatted with the home adress, credit card billing address or through existing members vouching for a new user via invite.
Most Nextdoor users should be very impressed by the level of personal privacy and identity protection. Leena Rao at TechCrunch points out an additional layer of security: “Information shared on Nextdoor is password-protected and cannot be accessed by those outside the neighborhood or found on Google and other search engines.”
We think that this feature alone will be a major selling point for those opposed to Facebook and other social networking sites because they don’t want to be exposed or visible on the internet.
Some key Nextdoor features are: neighborhood maps to get in touch with those closeby, resident directories to assist in finding local users, and community forums to exchange advice and recommendations about neighborhood-related topics. Users can communicate solely through the site, but also have the option of getting in touch via email.
Now that Nextdoor has moved beyond its private beta stage, it will be interesting to track its success in the coming months. Personally, we think using social media to get in touch with neighbors that you may never otherwise know is a fantastic idea, and a few OPUSfidelis staff members have already started perusing the site to check out Nextdoor availability in their own neighborhoods. The only drawback is the fact that there are still very few user sign-ups in most areas. Granted, this is largely attributed to the very recent launch of the site, but being depending upon ambitious individuals to take on the task of starting groups in their neighborhoods could impede Nextdoor’s growth. Without those individuals, Nextdoor may never get off the ground. But only time will tell if the neighborhood-based social network will take off.
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