Ghost of Midnight

Amy Kirschner writes in Money in the Mountains this month…
Getting to know your neighbors leads to economic opportunities…

If you’re a Burlington resident, you’ve probably heard of Front Porch Forum. The service was started in the Five Sisters neighborhood by Michael Wood-Lewis and his wife, Valerie as a way for neighbors to share news by email.
Front [...]

eNeighbors is making steady progress in its work in serving neighborhood’s online needs.
26 neighborhoods online.
2,797 registered users at 2,628 unique addresses. We now have neighborhoods in Kansas, Missouri, Florida, Virginia, California, Texas and Arizona.
With 9,745 potential addresses in the neighborhoods that have signed up so far, we are at 27% adoption rate for our entire [...]

From TechCrunch today. This type of service could prove useful to Front Porch Forum users to share documents among neighbors.
Docstoc is designed to be a shared repository of commonly used forms and documents… Docstoc competes with Scribd… Today, Docstoc is coming out of its private beta into a public beta. Anyone can now upload and [...]

From Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba…
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is reported to have told a library group that month:

50% of all Wikipedia edits are done by 0.7% of users
1.8% of users have written more than 72% of all articles

If we also add evidence from Bradley Horowitz that roughly 1% of Yahoo’s user population starts a [...]

YourStreet.com is launching. From TechCrunch…
What do you get when you combine Google Maps with hyper-local news and comments? You get a map-based news site called YourStreet… [it] detects where you are located and serves up news stories about events that recently occurred in your city or neighborhood, as well comments from YourStreet members [...]

TechCrunch reports today…
We’ve been informed that Meetro - provider of a location-based instant messaging service - is working on a stealth project that aims to make forum setup, customization, and moderation as easy as blogging with Blogger.
The project, codenamed “Makaha”, has been in development since the beginning of this year. While many forums require users [...]

I’ve always wondered about those stories of pets finding their way across unfamiliar terrain to get back home.  Now we have a Front Porch Forum version.  First, Lara posted her “lost cat” announcement on her new neighborhood’s forum and got no response.  Then, she got it posted on an FPF neighborhood forum in Burlington’s South [...]

I’m pleased to share this special offer for residents of Burlington, VT…
Sign up for Burlington Telecom service (phone, internet, cable tv) now and receive a $25 CREDIT when you mention Front Porch Forum at the time you place your order. Referral also supports your neighborhood forum. Order at 540-0007 or http://www.burlingtontelecom.net (check the Front Porch [...]

Interesting traffic numbers for social networking sites on TechCrunch today.  Lots of interesting comments.  My first take-away… loads of options for online social networking and more flooding onto the web every day.
It’s not about features, it’s about who’s already there and tone.  The internet is overflowing with social networks for (1) snarky techno-types, (2) pop-culture-obsessed [...]

This appears to be a genuinely valuable project locally here…
As the age boom impacts Burlington, can residents say with conviction “this is a great place to grow old?” The Burlington Livable Community Project is engaging residents, community organizations and the City to make changes so people of all ages can live in the setting of [...]