mysociety.org = Wow

Man , the internet is big.. I've been trying to find every major player and attempt at what we are doing. Everytime I think I think I've seen everything I find another project that has been alive for years and is thriving with it's own collection of tools and users.

However, this is the closest that I have found to the ideas that interest me:

• mysociety.org
  

Some of the political sites they have created are amazing, allowing things like:

• GroupsNearYou helps you find local blogs/groups with 
  
• TheyWorkForYou gives you info on local MPs and officials, then you can WriteToThem
  
• FixMyStreet Report, view, or discuss local problems (eg. graffiti, fly tipping, broken paving slabs, or street lighting)
  

For a more in-depth introduction, watch this lecture (45mins)

Existing Sites

There are a number of sites out there that do parts of what we want to do, but nothing that really ties them together.

Here are some older examples :

neighbournet

communitykit

my neighbourhoods

Here are some cool Facebook widgets:

meet your neighbours

friend plotter

We can use these to integrate peoples friends from facebook enabling 'weak-linked' friends to discover each other in the community and encourage involvement.

Corporate Style:

everyblock.com

This is by far the most informative community portal I have yet to see, but is clearly aimed at the commercial market. We should investigate getting local information feeds, but our focus is on community projects and engaging the youth.

SDBackyard.com

..this looks interesting. I like the idea of working 2-way with local papers (eg. let them add and publish content back into their papers)

http://streetsize.com/

..shouldn't take much effort to do this better!

Rizwan from the Urban Survival Project is keeping an online-volunteering list of links 

Most local websites focus on business searches, as they pay to be in search results. There are lots of good examples and we should get some good ideas from their features!

Please let us know if you know other sites ...

Welcome

Welcome to the the 'NextDoorButOne' project.

The idea is to create a social network and set of tools to overlay and improve existing community projects in association with The Syndenham and Forest Hill Youth Forum