Ghost of Midnight

Residents of Burlington’s New North End have been reporting on Front Porch Forum break-ins and scams targeting the elderly this past week.  Looks like one FPF member has found a solution…
Just another voice to add to the neighborhoods re. the shoveling robber. On Monday, the 28th, a man approached our home on Grey Meadow Drive. [...]

Pew’s new report, “Social Isolation and New Technology: How the internet and mobile phones impact Americans’ social networks,” really is required reading for those interested in the intersection of local community building and online tools.  (See other posts for additional points: one and two.)
One of the most interesting sections vis-a-vis Front Porch Forum concerns neighborhood-level [...]

In trying to digest the conclusions and supporting evidence presented in “Social Isolation and New Technology: How the internet and mobile phones impact Americans’ social networks,” I’m getting a little carsick.  It’s a great ride, but I’m having trouble with some of the unexpected hairpin turns.
The authors of this Pew study start with broad conclusions [...]

Thanks to Steven Clift for encouraging me to take a closer look at the recent Pew study “Social Isolation and New Technology: How the internet and mobile phones impact Americans’ social networks.”  This work, undertaken by U. Penn. well-credentialed researchers, really digs into its central question.
However, like much of social “science,” one has to read [...]

With the title “Noise in the ‘Hood: Why is hyperlocal news so terrible?” Slate’s Mark Gimein aims to provoke with his recent article.  He derides EveryBlock.com, Topix.com, Outside.in and Examiner.com, while praising AOL’s Patch.  Of the former, he writes…
The reality of the sites, though, is a scary lesson in just how dreary the local news [...]

David Gershon does great work at the local level all over the world.  Now this piece on the Huffington Post…
Hope for a Climate Change Solution in the Wake of Copenhagen — If Governments Can’t, People Can

I just finished reading The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the 21st Century (earlier post about it) and I recommend it to anyone interested in community in the United States. 
The authors, Harvard clinical psychiatry professors and husband and wife, Jacqueline Olds and Richard S. Schwartz, put forth a compelling thesis.  We see evidence of [...]

From ebebee crafts blog…
I read a posting in Front Porch Forum just now about a collection of warm hats and gloves and socks for homeless people on December 21st, which is apparently National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day, in honor of those who have died homeless.  An important cause!  I passed a guy sitting in a [...]

How do you compare what Facebook does with Twitter, YouTube, or our own Front Porch Forum? Apples and oranges in many ways. Dan Schultz at MediaShift Idea Lab provides a framework for thinking about this today. Here’s his chart…

Two goats took an unscheduled holiday in Westford recently.  Read the happy ending.