Who are the People in Your Neighborhood?

in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood!

So, we've got Facebook to stay in touch with friends, family, and old classmates.  We've got Linkedin to exapand our professional networks to help us find jobs and make sales.  We've even got the Patch to keep up with local happenings and events, but do we really know our neighbors?

It seems like the more electronically in touch we are, the less we are actually connecting with our neighbors in person. Maybe it's because we're always sitting on the computer or connecting to the larger world by watching endless hours of television.

With that in mind, the creators of NextDoor conceived an interesting idea, an online application to help people introduce themselves to their neighbors.

I was pretty leary of it at first.  First off, I'm not shy and tend to go knock at my neighbors door the first sign I'm in need of an egg or a cup of sugar, which I assure you is often.  Also, I'm not sure I want to share my last name and address with the world wide web, oh wait, Dexonline already does that...thanks a lot!  When I logged in, I liked that I didn't have to share my actual address and it lumps me into my neighborhood.  I made contact with a woman just three blocks away who offers piano and guitar lessons out of her home for children...something I've been thinking about doing for awhile, but I'm sick of the whole driving kids here and back for activities. A walk down the street is very doable.

I'm curious to know what readers think of this new application.  Would you use it?  If there isn't a neighborhood set up for the area you live in, would you start one?  I'm grateful to the couple who just moved in down the street who started our neighborhood and provided so many introductions to people I've never met.

Dear reader/neighbor, what do you think?  Is it truly a way to connect or just another way to seperate us andd keep creepy tabs on us for marketing purposes?