West Allis, our western neighbor of roughly 60,000, is made of of 26 neighborhoods. The tech-savvy town announced today that it will be using a social media app called Nextdoor to connect those neighborhoods, with each receiving its own social network. The West Allis networks have been set up, and the city’s staffers will begin using it on Monday to pass on neighborhood-specific information to residents. Other Milwaukee suburban residents and neighborhoods use the Nextdoor app as well.
Each network is password protected and its content isn’t searchable from an outside search engine like Google. Nextdoor’s premise is for community activities – like finding a babysitter, alerting neighbors to a break-in, or finding a home for a used bike – to be shared with the people geographically closest to you in a relatively private way. The app is being used in 36,000 communities around the country, says the Los Angeles Times, and in all 50 states.
I tested it out for my own neighborhood, Olde Hillcrest in Wauwatosa, and found 57 of my “neighbors” also use the app. Users have the option to view posts from their immediate neighbors as well as those in close-by neighborhoods. In my case, I can look at individual posts from 13 nearby ‘hoods like East ‘Tosa. My neighbors have apparently helped each other find roofers, get rid of plywood, and alert others to car break-ins – all of which happened in the last two weeks. The alerts and queries are displayed in a vertical feed, similar to Facebook posts with comments, but with “thanks” instead of “likes.” Because of this, I learned the Hillcrest folks are an appreciative bunch.
The rest is pretty simple. There’s an option to message your neighbors, post events and documents, and filter posts by categories. It’s very similar to Facebook in its functionality and display, but the whittled-form works much better for the strangers and acquaintances you might only occasionally rely on. You can also check out neighborhoods nearby, but you can’t access that neighborhood’s feed, events and names.
