The Wilmington, NC newspaper Star News is greatly expanding the local offerings on its MyBackyardNC.com site. The site (which, I will add, looks nothing like the newspaper site – so good for them) has a lot going for it. The main page is a searchable database that enables users to get relevant information by zip code. According to Products Manager Jim Ware:
MyBackyardNC.com added information about foreclosures near where you live to its stable of news and data about real estate sales, crimes and traffic accidents. That information is now available for Carolina Beach, Wrightsville Beach and Kure Beach, in addition to 33 other New Hanover County communities.
Facebook users now have the opportunity to exchange comments with their neighbors on MyBackyardNC.com pages and, if they choose, have those comments appear on their personal Facebook profile pages.
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All smart stuff. Rather than insisting the site be a brand extension of the Star News, the company has a distinctive neighborhood offering. And having users enter their Zip Code is a bit of genius – it allows the company to build a database of who is visiting, neighborhood by neighborhood. (See below for clarification on this.)
CLARIFICATION: In the comments section, StarNews Web Development Manager Vaughn Hagerty writes “We aren’t recording who is visiting each neighborhood by the addresses they’re entering. Although it might be something to consider, we tried to make the site as respectful as possible of users’ desire for privacy to encourage participation.” Vaughn’s absolutely right to point this out. When I wrote the last sentence of this entry, I was noting the possibility of building a database, but didn’t mean to report that StarNews was doing so.