Does Your Building Need A Social Network? Why Not.

New York-based LifeAt wants to create a social network around your residential building. Do you need one? Nope. But maybe you’ll use it anyway. And perhaps you’ll even get to know some of your neighbors.

The building managers control the network and post information about the building itself. Residents sign up to get news about the building, interact with other users, etc. They’ll provide information about local businesses (dry cleaners, restaurants, delivery services, etc.) and allow residents to post reviews (similar to Yelp, but even more geographically targeted). They’ve also included a marketplace for people to buy and sell goods within the building.

The only thing it’s missing is a dating area; perhaps the LifeAt guys thought that would be too risque. Meetro, a location based instant messaging service, also once had dreams of getting people in the same apartment building to actually talk to each other. Perhaps LifeAt will succeed where they failed.