subject: LocalBlox, a new social networking site brings the Internet and Main Street Together [print this page] LocalBlox, a new social networking site brings the Internet and Main Street Together
Innovative and highly interactive website LocalBlox puts blocks and neighborhoods on the Internet as it allows neighbors and local businesses to interact with each other online.
Especially in urban areas and with today's busy lifestyles, at times neighbors rarely get a chance to meet with each other, and residents of a local area do not always have a chance to explore the neighborhood and get to know local businesses. A new site has been launched that turns the Internet into a way of meeting neighbors and getting to know a neighborhood, especially as it is often the Internet that has precluded such interaction in the past.
LocalBlox was co-founded by executive Sabira Arefin, who realized the need for such a site when she relocated to Seattle and immersed herself in her career to the point she rarely had a chance to get to know her new locale. She partnered with serial technology entrepreneur Ashfaq Rahman to launch LocalBlox, and the professional team has built a true interactive neighborhood experience online.
The LocalBlox site allows residents or fans to add any neighborhood that is not yet among the 50,000 or so locations which is listed on the site. Whether the user adds the neighborhood or finds it, she is able to volunteer as a neighborhood ambassador by inviting three people to join LocalBlox as she shares her impression of the neighborhood with the site. One Oklahoma neighborhood boasts LocalBlox's youngest ambassador, Sarah, who has volunteered at the tender age of five.
Ambassadors and regular users alike interact with the site and its fellow members by writing on the neighborhood wall and sharing their opinions of the various businesses and other amenities of the actual neighborhood. By doing so, they interact both with fellow area residents and with local business owners and managers, as well as being able to find information such as public transportation schedules and plans for local events ranging from free concerts to sales at area merchants.
In short, LocalBlox brings an entire neighborhood to the computer screen, and enables people to use the Internet to get to know each other, even if they live quite near each other and hitherto have been separated only by their busy schedules or perhaps their relative newness to their residential or work area. And the site also lists career opportunities in the neighborhood, an invaluable service for new residents who have relocated in search of employment or couples where one spouse was relocated by a firm and the other has not yet found work. Opportunities also exist for local ad sales by signing up as a Neighborhood Manager with LocalBlox and as the site grows these positions will prove very rewarding indeed.
LocalBlox is clearly on its way to taking its rightful place at the top of the list of new and innovative social media sites that are springing up to fill vital online niches. It enables residents of a neighborhood to get to know each other and their surroundings from the comfort of their computer screens, and in today's high pressure environment this is a major and much awaited convenience for residents and business owners alike.
