Ghost of Midnight

Thanks to Richard Millington at FeverBee for this tip today…

If you’re eager to build online communities, the best article you can read is Sense of Community by McMillan and Chavis. This article holds more useful advice (and a great practical framework) for developing an online community than any other.
It was written in 1986. Which means, [...]

Front Porch Forum gets lots of predictable postings among neighbors, but I didn’t see this one coming…
“Does anyone know of a place that would have a vintage style Hearse that I could rent like a Limo?  Do I just start cold calling Funeral Parlors?”  -Brennan in Burlington’s Old North End
“Cold calling” indeed.

Mike Ives profiles Vermont filmmaker and author Eugene Jarecki in Seven Days this week.  Jarecki’s 2006 documentary, Why We Fight, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
And he has a new book out…
… he told Jon Stewart recently, he hopes The American Way of War will inspire a sense of common civic [...]

I, apparently, don’t get out much.  This holiday season I’ve found myself in places I rarely visit… suburban America, shopping centers, traffic, food courts, gyms with equipment lifted from the Star Ship Enterprise, watching relations spend a good chunk of “family visiting time” instead stroking their electronic tethers… it’s a shock to the system.  I [...]

I found Corey Bergman’s recent blog post interesting.  In part…
I’m reading a book (that has yet to be released) called “Wired to Care” by Dev Patnaik…
Back in the late 1950s and early 60s, Maxwell House began slowly substituting tasty but expensive “Arabica” beans with bitter but inexpensive “Robusta” beans in its coffee, Patnaik writes. After [...]

From the Local Onliner…
Local media is so fragmented that its becoming increasingly important to aggregate classifieds from several sources. GoogleBase and Oodle go a long way in this regard… But other classified aggregators are coming up the horizon, too.
One site that recently launched is iList, a San Francisco-based company that has received $1.5 million from [...]

Myra Mathis-Flynn reported a story from Front Porch Forum today for the Burlington Free Press…
Michigan family quickly learns the Vermont way
By Myra Mathis-Flynn
Burlington Free Press
December 22, 2008
Much can happen in the process of a move, but when Patrick and Juliet Halladay decided to pack up their three kids and move from Michigan to Burlington, they [...]

Thanks to Dave West for sharing this link…
The City of Decatur, Georgia is evaluating the use of a virtual world interface to “encourage community networking, improve civic engagement, and promote economic development.”
“Virtual Decatur will provide an environment in which residents, businesses, institutions and visitors can interact and connect…  it is it is imperative that the [...]

Greg and I serve on a telecom board together and he’s made great use of Front Porch Forum in his own neighborhood.  So it was lovely to find his posting headed for the next issue (No. 500!) of his forum.  Thanks Greg!
Congratulations on #500!…
I wanted to be a part of the 500th Anniversary Edition of [...]

From Scott Heiferman again…
RevBilly: “The Revolution in the Hello… we’re sluggish now from our deep sleep – we will go to the neighbor that we daily padded by with our iPod, go up to that person and slow down. Taking in that so ordinary and so fantastic neighbor – the revolution is here… If we [...]