Comments on: Does Your Building Need A Social Network? Why Not.

By: lawton apartments

lawton apartments — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:10:57 +0000

this article was posted 2 years ago, and not much has happened with this issue since then. can we get an update, please?

By: Christian Solomon

Christian Solomon — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 02:06:25 +0000

I think it will fly!

I have started a company in Beijing China based on this concept. So far we have setup 3 major properties in Beijing with a e-Community system. We focus on an eServices idea… Adding a new level of service and convenience to Tenants.

We are currently in negotiations with all of the major Property Management Services companies and all are very interested in the idea. One of the main reasons, is here it adds a lot of value for foreign tenants.

I would have thought the US would have been running with a system like this

Check us out platinumc.com.cn

By: Library clips :: Roundup : EveryBlock, Nouri.sh, Twiddla, LinkBunch, PdfMeNot :: June :: 2008

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:32:39 +0000

[...] – hyperlocal news, similar to Outside.In, StreetAdvisor, LifeAt, and YourStreet…see more. [via [...]

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:58:15 +0000

A recently launched site beneighbor.com provides a free service for condo owners in the Pacific Northwest (currently only Portland and Seattle). People can connect with others who live in the same building, neighborhood, or city. The site is primarily focused on disucssion and could use more community building features, but it seems like a step in the right direction.

By: Fred

Fred — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:57:40 +0000

I think these micro-communities will eventually become dead because no one wants to JUST connect with their neighbors. There is another website that launched recently neighborology.com that offers many of the same features but makes it possible to connect to people in your region as well as your nearest neighbors.

By: Zvi Band

Zvi Band — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 19:36:34 +0000

DC Startup Weekend Going Really Well, It Seems…

…

By: Lawrence Salberg

Lawrence Salberg — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:38:09 +0000

Is Social Networking Finally Breaking Down?…

I’m done. With social networking. I canceled both my Facebook and MySpace accounts last week. Why? It’s over. The dream of social networking. I’m convinced that people just don’t “get it”.
TechCrunch reports on a rid…

By: rb.trends» Blog Archive » Building networks

rb.trends» Blog Archive » Building networks — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:09:04 +0000

[...] Does Your Building Need A Social Network? Why Not.“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.” TechCrunch [...]

By: Mike Whaling

Mike Whaling — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:09:10 +0000

This will likely be hit-or-miss for each property. It may be more appealing if it combined the hyperlocal info (building events, local dry cleaners) with broader info that could be searched across any of the LifeAt sites (items selling in the marketplace, certain resident profile info). Otherwise, your network is only as good as the 400 people or so that live on top of each other.

Another similar site, AptConnect (http://www.aptconnect.com) is trying to sell the same concept to apartment managers — their angle is to add communication features between property staff and residents (maintenance requests, online rent payment, staff contact info). It will be interesting to watch the two to see if social networks for condos catch on substantially more than those for apartments, where the annual turnover is typically 50-60% of the residents in a given community. In general, the multifamily industry is very slow to adopt ideas like this.

By: Geek And Poke

Geek And Poke — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:02:39 +0000

A Real Community…

See TechCrunch about networks around residential buildings….

By: Alan Seideman

Alan Seideman — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:34:40 +0000

I really like this idea. Location-based anything is the next thing. I checked out their site and in general, I like it. There’s been tools out there for a while that are online groups that HOA people can setup for the community but I don’t know if they got much traction – they didn’t in my building (about 50 units). If they’re going to succeed at this I think it comes down to usability and focus of the product.

At Brightkite, we’ve looked at a lot of services in the location-based social networking space and see a lot of things that could be done better – especially around those two areas: usability and focus. Check us out and sign up for an invite!

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:23:35 +0000

Still, our offer is good. We have great experience with inexpensive microcontroller chipsets, and can hammer this out for you on a low cost ARM architecture or lower. We have connections with CAD design for the cases, and a local plastic molding company to produce them. We can do the hardware design for foreign production and assembly.

BeerCo Software Corporation

Toll Free: 1-877-372-5378
Phone: 418-210-3575
Fax: 418-210-3575

Ask for Chris

Having us create the hardware design and firmware for a Social networking appliance means you have something physical to sell stores like Wal-mart and others. Real goods to exchange for real money. We have firmware experience and would be happy to work on this venture with your company.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:02:37 +0000

Silly Rabbit,

Social networking is becoming way too diluted. What is the next thing?

By: Wes

Wes — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 04:42:44 +0000

One social network too many I think. For this to be success, I think it will take a long time.

By: Zafar

Zafar — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 04:35:18 +0000

Great.. Now all we need are the mailing addresses of all the people in our condo to send out the site link to? Ooops.. How am I supposed to find that?

By: Robert Dewey

Robert Dewey — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:06:15 +0000

Lasse Vikonen;

You don’t need the network effect if you have a product that sells itself (in other words, a very useful product). This is usually the case in enterprise software; you need a kickass product, not one that necessarily spreads virally.

The problem with LifeAt is that its value isn’t immediately seen, therefore it requires a lot of pitching.

By: Alvin

Alvin — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 02:36:25 +0000

Pretty cool, but I will stick with http://www.citypixel.com for now to get my social netwokring fix. This site already did their own spin on the traditional apartment. Very cool!

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:59:59 +0000

This reminda me of the Seinfeld episode when they have the bulletin board with the pictures and the names.

But seriously, a pretty cool idea. Problem is is that I don’t know many people who use social networks to meet new people. Most people I know just use it to communicate with people that they already know.

By: Michael Wood-Lewis

Michael Wood-Lewis — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:41:01 +0000

Front Porch Forum has been doing this at the neighborhood level for one year in its pilot city (Burlington, VT)... 25% of households have signed on.

By: Lasse Vikonen

Lasse Vikonen — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:20:15 +0000

This will fail simply because the local market is a tough sell. You do well in one building and it doesn’t help you at all in the next building. There is no network effect. So essentially you have to sell the proposition a million times.

aka… FAIL.

By: Rune W. Ecklon

Rune W. Ecklon — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:14:02 +0000

Shit!!! I wanted to build this. I got this idea around 2½ months ago when I moved into this new cool apartment building but failed to gain any friends here.
Well as always its not just about the idea its about how you do it…

By: LifeAt: ‘Private Social Network’ « Screenwerk

LifeAt: ‘Private Social Network’ « Screenwerk — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:08:11 +0000

[...] community tools for individual apartment buildings, condos and residential complexes. TechCrunch alerted me to the site. There are others taking this approach as [...]

By: Building dude

Building dude — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:59:37 +0000

There’s already a service that covers all of the needs mentioning here – check it out at mybuilding dot org – it has a portal for the residents and a management console to allow better communication between management and residents for maintenance requests, packages alerts, etc etc. – very cool stuff.

By: EM

EM — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:51:15 +0000

try getting my building to do anything is impossible.

By: Sanjiv

Sanjiv — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:35:52 +0000

We, at Zirana, are already doing this in the Bay Area. We’ve been building communities around Apartments in various Bay Area cities. We have seen a lot of interest from residents, of these apartments, who want to find nearby services as well as connect with other residents in their community. Our site is very resident focused and lets them post whatever they want. The site is absolutely free .

Further, we are also bringing local news, merchant reviews and events to the various local communities. Our website is: http://www.zirana.com

Please check it out and we would love to get feedback from everyone.