When I looked at the site it required verification - by phone or snail mail - of the user’s address.
Have none of you encountered this?
mmm
My spouse and I (but mostly her) have been users both in crowded / tech savvy Seattle (where it’s divided into neighborhoods) and out in the Indiana countryside, where we currently live (where it covers a larger area). We find it a good blend of social media / FB type news sharing, and local action / activities that would be otherwise difficult, if not impossible, to do without having everyone’s contact info.
We’ve used it for:
- Alerting people to lost pets / found pets
- Potential criminals in the area / why are all the cops rushing about furiously / what’s going down
- Weather alerts: tornado spotted, take shelter (we don’t always get warned, so I’ll take any warning I can get)
- A housewarming party put on by someone new to the area, but about 3 miles away. Don’t know how we would have been invited or got to know them outside of this site.
- Asking people about what local businesses are good, trustworthy, etc. Direct word of mouth from a consensus of neighbors counts more to me than the odd Yelp or Google review.
Nextdoor has, in my mind, also been paired with other local-action-type sites like “buy nothing.com” where you can donate unneeded stuff, auction-style, to nearby people who have a stated need for the item you’re donating. It cuts out the donation centers, and gives you an excuse to get to know your neighbors better. I couple these two neighborhood sites together because in one case it’s info sharing, the other, physical material sharing.
Anyway, it’s a great idea, fairly well implemented* and very useful.
*Except when I moved from one place to another and tried to deactivate my old neighborhood…but that’s another issue, one that they may have resolved by now.