Like the title? Its a slogan in progress. I haven’t been posting much because I have been either riding or at work (for those of you who read this blog!). Meanwhile behind the scenes I have been planning a project that I hope to have started in a few months. I have been talking to alot of people around here and we all seem to have the same problem, we dont know whats going on around town. The events calendar on our government site only allows government stuff. Myspace, facebook and other things dont push content to everyone, only friends of friends. The basis of those social sites like myspace and facebook are all essentially the same they want to connect everyone with everyone. Its a great idea but I want to try and connect the town itself in a hassle free manner that doesnt have you add friends just to get event information or get in contact with random people from the same area. I have decided that I am going to develop and promote a social site dedicated to my small city as well as its “suburbs” which are the cities in a 50 mile radius. The city I am refering to is Springfield, IL for those who are interested.
The primary goal of this site is to get people out and doing things together, promoting communication within the city and having meet ups of different types.
The idea sparked from me getting a bike. I found that there were only two bike clubs online in Springfield and they were both limited by way of who was able to join. I knew others existed, they just needed a web presence. The idea got even stronger when I was asked to develop a club site for a local veterans hall. I thought, why have these sites all disconnected from each other. Instead have a way to create pages and events like how facebook has it and be able to aggregate it all together like twitter.
For this to work I would like to start with the following features:
- A forum. Simple enough, Have a general place to discuss things, events ect.
- A chat. At one point someones going to want quick communication
- Personal pages for each user who creates and account. This will include a page like myspace with gallery of images, personal events, ect
- Personal pages for local businesses with the same features as well as an ability to offer coupons ect.
- An events calander that is public and allows anyone to add their event. This is the heart of the entire operation, this allows for people to know whats going on in their community.
- A local weekly spotlight of something to promote activity.
Im sure I will think of other things that need to be on this site but for now I have to think of:
- A domain
- A slogan
- A CMS system to use
- A way to promote it
- A way for it to pay for itself.
Any input would be great, including negative feedback.
