Need A Referral?…Meet Your NextDoor Neighbor

Today our busy lives and connectivity leave us more reliant on seeking out websites and apps for information on a wide range of daily decisions including referrals for local services. This can especially come in handy when you are new in town. When moving into a Marin neighborhood today, there are endless online tools to help you get your lay of the land and to have you feeling at home in no time- whether you have moved across town or were relocated from the East Coast.

But how do you know which sites to trust for online reviews and referrals?

According to a survey from Consumer Reports, how the sites gather the reviews and compile the ratings determines how reliable they are. While some sites like Angie’s List claim to be customer-driven, they are often compromised by bias as companies can pay to appear higher up in the search results. Other sites such as Yelp were found to be somewhat suspect as anyone can post a fraudulent review. Additionally, businesses can get in touch with a person that writes a negative review to make amends and often those unflattering reviews are then removed.

It is estimated that roughly 30% of online reviews are fake.

 

Anyone can game the system by creating multiple identities and posting fake reviews to bolster bad companies, or sabotage good ones. Consumer Reports research found that the most reliable reviews were linked to a real person with a real name. NextDoor is a platform that has community gatekeepers (Leads) to ensure that only real people who reside in your neighbors can participate.

Today more than one in four U.S. communities has adopted the site Nextdoor to leverage crowdsourcing of local neighbors in a close proximity. Members engage in an online, private social network, which is currently advertisement-free. Nextdoor’s site provides a forum for welcoming neighbors; listing community events; posting items of general interest; classified listings for buying, selling or giving away things; crime tip alerts; and a database for neighbor-recommended local services.

The most dependable NextDoor communities are those led by judicious Leads who monitor and control site input to make sure no businesses or special interests compromise the integrity of the content. When you read a review on NextDoor, you can be confident that the people giving referrals live in your community and generally do not have an ulterior motive. The beauty of NextDoor versus other referral sites is that it is currently unbiased by any advertising revenue. Their mission is to help build local communities through their online platform.

“As you get older, the community that is most valuable to you is the one in which you live,” says Nirav Tolia, chief executive of San Francisco based Nextdoor.

“The neighborhood is where you buy a home, where your kids go to school, where you spend the majority of your physical life.”

While some believe that the Internet has destroyed neighborhood identity, Harvard sociology professor, Robert J. Sampson, disagrees. Sampson says, “There’s a common misreading that technology inevitably leads to the decline of the local community. I don’t believe that. Technology can be harnessed to facilitate local interactions.”

Whether you are a long-term resident or new to Marin, give Nextdoor a try and let me know your thoughts on how it rates at fulfilling its promise of offering close-knit, real life connections and as a useful referral source.