Should we commune virtually, and have a social network to call our very own?
Today in Montclair limits the two-way conversation, due to the blog format. We find something interesting to share almost every day, and are amazed by the traffic from Montclarions and other Oaklanders. You send over all kind of ideas and questions, and I try to post items based on what’s interesting to you – but that’s only one posting a day.
Where do you go to ask a quick local question? It feels like our virtual options are limited today. Montclair Safety (MSIC) runs a Yahoo group that focuses on safety and crime matters. Yelp provides user-contributed reviews about restaurants and some retail shops. There seems to be a gap here.
Let’s try out a real Montclair social network, where anything goes. We just set up this site – http://montclairoak.ning.com – and encourage you to join and post messages to everyone. It’s a pretty simple way to share questions, comments, events or even photos. You even have “your own” pages to use.
Right now, your faithful Montclair blogger is there with a few others – and I’m officially rolling out the welcome mat. Remember this social network succeeds if you and your neighbors have reasons to use it. I’ll report back here about what happens…stay tuned.
More info: Check out the specific resources on the site, through this quick tour.
Today in Montclair, 94611 
So can you add feeds from things like yelp to this? if so I would say this is the way to go. If not I doubt that a “roll your own” type of community site would work. Im also pretty sure the Montclair Safety committee group would not be up for sharing the posting to an external site.
ping me via email to discuss more in depth.-john
From mission control, aka the social site.
Yelp’s a good idea, so we added a quick link there. Now you can browse and search Montclarion hot spots, and of course continue searching Yelp. There’s a separate feed that can be included later, which we’ll have to consider.
Thanks to the handful of pioneers, who have signed up already. We’ll see how this works and what villagers want to share in an open group. There are all kinds of features, and I believe that members can reach each other privately if desired.