neighborhood search article

neighborhood search article

There was an article in yesterday’s Inman News (a real estate news service) on the growth of Internet based neighborhood search services. It focused on the problems that some Web services have in defining the boundaries of neighborhoods. It also provided an interesting statistic, that 15 percent of all searches on the Web are local (unspecified source). Unfortunately there was an error in my quote, \”localization\” should of course be \”glocalization\”. Back in 1999 Barry Wellman and I did a user study for onemain.com (now Earthlink). We found huge demand for local content, but users were completely unable to find local content at the time. It seems that this need is now partly being met. It is interesting that almost every site I have seen focuses on the \”outsiders\” view, that is what content an outsider would like to know about a neighborhood. Few if any provide content from the perspective of what an \”insider\” might want to know. This includes the ability to communicate with other local residents. Another finding from the 1999 Onemain study, low interest in local syncronous chat forums – based on my experience with Netvill, E-neighbors and i-neighbors.org, this is something I think remains true today. Asynchronous email lists are the way to go.