All Forums from NeighborGoods

We're Hiring!

2010-07-28T07:11:15-07:00

We're looking for a web developer in Los Angeles! It's a part time position with lots of potential to grow. See details on our jobs page.

Welcome NPR Listeners!

2010-07-27T08:59:38-07:00

We love public radio! Because it's broadcast locally, it goes a long way to fostering a sense of local community. So we were very excited when Alex Cohen from LA's NPR station KPCC said she was interested in doing a segment on NeighborGoods for Morning Edition. The segment aired this morning and we'd like to take this moment to welcome all the new members who discovered us through Alex's news segment! If you missed it, listen online here.

Try something new this weekend with NeighborGoods

2010-07-23T12:31:31-07:00

Got big plans this weekend? Maybe a beach picnic or a hike in the woods? Whatever your plans, you can borrow what you need to have an awesome summer weekend on NeighborGoods. Consider borrowing something you've never tried before. Ever want to take up surfing? We have 6 surfboards currently listed on NeighborGoods including this sweet long board. If you can't find one near you, add it to your wishlist so your neighbors can hook you up. You can borrow tennis rackets and even tennis partners! How about rock climbing? You can borrow gear for that too! Maybe you're feeling a little less adventurous and you'd like to get crafty this weekend. We've got 40 sewing machines in the inventory to choose from! There's probably one near you! Not sure what you want to do? Browse the inventory near you. I'm sure you'll find something fun to try. Have a great weekend!

NeighborGoods on KPIX TV in San Francisco!

2010-07-22T03:25:35-07:00

Check out this awesome news piece about us on KPIX in San Francisco! Many thanks to super neighbor mjmontagne for doing such a great job as an interview subject! Watch the video here.

NeighborGoods on Digital Village

2010-07-19T12:51:57-07:00

In case you missed it, I did my first LIVE radio interview on Saturday on KPFK! It was really great talking with Ric and Doran. They host a great show and they really dug deeply into the meaning and impact of NeighborGoods which was super fun. Plus I got to wear those cool headphones! If you missed it and you'd like to hear, you can listen online at DigitalVillage.org.

Consumer or Citizen?

2010-07-15T02:48:29-07:00

On July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter spoke to the American people about the "Crisis of Confidence" faced by Americans who were losing faith in the government and who increasingly feared that their children would be worse-off than them. In this famous speech, Carter laments the loss of American values in the face of rising consumerism.

Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past. In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next 5 years will be worse than the past 5 years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.

Sound familiar? Setting aside the religion issue for the moment, it's clear that we face many of the same problems Carter discussed in 1979 today - and more. We are no longer a nation at peace everywhere around the world. The energy crisis has worsened. Consumer debt and national debt is out of control. Millions of Americans have been pushed out of their homes and unemployment is reaching record highs. Still, in the face of clear evidence that rampant consumption is unsustainable, we measure the health of our economy by our spending. Still, we measure the quality of American life by our ability to spend. It's like consumerism has practically replaced citizenship. But how did this happen? How did we go from a nation of citizens to a country of consumers? Liberals will argue that rampant de-regulation was the culprit. Conservatives will say that free market capitalism is the purest expression of democracy. Personally, I'm less interested in esoteric discussions about economic theory than I am in conversations about how we, the citizens of America, can impact the future of our own communities. How can we re-build the sense of community and common purpose in our local neighborhoods? How can we restore values of thrift and saving for the future? How can we work together to restore a sense of confidence in the future of America?

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure. All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our Nation and ourselves.

21 years after Jimmy Carter delivered his speech, a movement is growing to take up his mission to "commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit." Neighborhoods across the country are taking their communities into their hands. The number of farmers' markets has more than tripled since the mid-90s. Activists in cities across the country are supporting community projects like urban farming, bicycle lanes, and community art projects. Location-based technologies like Foursquare and Loopt are exploding in popularity as citizens are seeking to be more connected to their local communities. In their upcoming book, What's Mine is Yours, Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers argue, "[I]n the 20th century of hyper-consumption we were defined by credit, advertising, and what we owned, and how in the 21st century of Collaborative Consumption we will be defined by reputation, community, and by what we can access." Collaborative Consumption is an explosive movement of "sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping... that is transforming business, consumerism and the way we live." The authors examine the growth of services like ZipCar, Swaptree, Couchsurfing, and NeighborGoods. As the founder of NeighborGoods, a peer-to-peer lending and borrowing service for local neighborhoods, I'm proud to be a part of this ~~consumer~~ citizen-driven effort to rebuild local communities and restore confidence in America's future. But how can borrowing and lending household goods help restore confidence in America's future? At NeighborGoods, we believe that hidden inside all the stuff you own is a whole bunch of latent value. The items you are not using on a regular basis hold latent monetary value as well as social value. Obviously, when you share objects with others, you are helping your neighbors save money. By getting more use out of your power drill, you are extracting more of its monetary value. By sharing that power drill, you are also creating stronger social bonds with your neighbor, thus extracting the hidden social value in that object. We've spent most of the 20th century buying objects and building fences to protect them. NeighborGoods and other sharing services help us lower those fences as we transition into the more sustainable, less consumer-driven economy of the 21st century. By lowering your fences and sharing with people around you, you are actively participating in the Collaborative Consumption movement. You, my generous and forward-thinking friends, are true citizens. Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, or national community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities. "Active citizenship" is the philosophy that citizens should work towards the betterment of their community through economic participation, public , volunteer work, and other such efforts to improve life for all citizens. In this vein, schools in some countries provide citizenship education. Citizenship was equated by Virginia Leary (1999) as connoting "a bundle of rights -- primarily, political participation in the life of the community, the right to vote, and the right to receive certain protection from the community, as well as obligations." - Wikipedia.org Video and transcript of "Crisis of Confidence" speech via Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia.

A heartfelt thanks for our neighbors!

2010-07-12T01:26:21-07:00

It's been a week and a half since our national launch and I'm writing to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for making it such a huge success. I'm sure you've noticed your neighborhood growing around you! In fact, we've welcomed thousands of new neighbors and inventory items this week! The support from the press has been amazing too! We've been featured on some of our favorite sites including BoingBoing, Lifehacker, TechCrunch and Shareable. We're humbled and amazed by the response from communities across the country. So we thank you, our growing network of neighbors. We thank you for taking a step toward improving your neighborhood by sharing your stuff on NeighborGoods. Speaking of your neighborhood, the more folks sign up around you, the better your sharing experience will be. So if you haven't already, be sure to invite your friends to share with you. That way when you need to borrow a back yard cinema kit or some egg-laying chickens, you'll be able to find them near you. Again, thanks so much for being the awesome neighbors that you are!

Why NeighborGoods matters

2010-07-01T01:30:58-07:00

The idea of NeighborGoods is so simple. Sharing stuff is good for you. It saves you money, it's more sustainable than buying a bunch of crap you don't need, and it creates a reason to meet a friend or a neighbor face to face where you might not have otherwise. Still, this very simple idea has the potential for monumental impact, especially when taken in context of a larger cultural movement. My good friend Sean Bonner wrote a post about our launch yesterday and he summed up our mission so well it brought a tear to my eye. He gushes about NeighborGoods in a way that I couldn't possibly do myself so I want to share it here for you.

I'm not just being exaggeratory here, I firmly believe that Neighborgoods will change the world. This is a world changing service. The best products/services/ideas are the ones that make your life easier - they shave you time, they save you money, they save you hassle. Neighborgoods does those all of those things while at the same time reducing the amount of waste we will generate that will end up in landfills. It saves you from buying things you don't need, and lets the things you already have be put to better use.

But it also allows us to be social within our neighborhoods again. There was a time when people actually walked next door to borrow a cup of sugar from their neighbors. Nowadays most people don't even know what their neighbors names are. Neighborgoods allows you to share your stuff with only your friends, and/or also with people who live near you. Our society is increasingly told not to talk to strangers - but everyone is a stranger until you have a reason to meet them. Neighborgoods makes it OK to be friends with the people who live near you again. It's not just good for your wallet, for your storage problems, for the environment, it's actually good for society as a whole. I whole heartedly believe this, and I'm so excited for and proud of what they are doing and I can't wait to see where it goes from here. People launch sites and products every day, but few of them have the ability to impact your life for the better as much as Neighborgoods does. If you live in SoCal you probably already know this. If you live somewhere else in the US, this just changed your life and you don't even know it yet - go sign up now.

Read the full post and check out how awesome Sean is on his blog here. <3

Holy sh*t! We launched!

2010-06-30T09:35:11-07:00

Holy shit today was intense! I'm sorry but there's just no other way to say it! We've put so much work into NeighborGoods and I've been so honored to work with such amazingly talented people over the past year and finally we all get to celebrate a huge national launch for our tiny startup. And boy did we launch! We launched with a giant bang!

Over 1000 new members in the last 24 hours
We're bringing in revenue for the first time

Here are just a few highlights from all of today's amazing press! Neighborgoods: borrowing, lending, or renting from your neighbors instead of buying new, Boing Boing NeighborGoods is a Location-Based Lending and Borrowing Network,Lifehacker NeighborGoods Comes to Your Neighborhood,Shareable.net NeighborGoods Extends The Sharing Of Actual Things To The National Level, TechCrunch Share Stuff with Friends and Neighbors, Laughing Squid Save Money This Summer with NeighborGoods, Mother Nature News NeighborGoods Launches Across the USA, Wired Blog And wow, I couldn't have expected more love from Twitter. We spent the whole day in a wash of supportive tweets from folks who want to live more sustainably and help strengthen their communities. This is a movement, people! Each and every one of us ~~can play~~ HAS TO PLAY a part in creating the world we want to live in. And we have to start in our own neighborhoods. Thank you sooo much to everyone who's helped in the early days. We are just beginning! Your participation and feedback has been invaluable. This means you, beta testers! Big fat special thanks to my lovely ladies: @crisdobbins, Designer Extraordinaire @jessicasumthing, The Best Intern Ever @spenceke, The better half of @XOXCO And of course our brilliant and talented developer who I am so freaking lucky to work with, Ben Brown at XOXCO. No, he will not build you a copy of NeighborGoods.

NeighborGoods launches nationally today!

2010-06-30T08:45:49-07:00

Big news today, neighbors! We learned a lot during our test run in SoCal. With the help of our members' thoughtful feedback and support, we re-designed the entire service and opened the doors to everyone in the US! Here's what you can expect:

Simpler design with personalized dashboard
Easier process to add items (like one click!)
Improved discovery of people and items near you

Check out our FAQs for more details on what's new. Here's what you can do: The most common bit of feedback we get is, "I wish there were more people near me to share with." Now that NeighborGoods is open nationally, we're counting on you to invite your friends. We've made that easier with the re-design including automatically connecting to your Facebook, Twitter and email accounts if you like. So log in today and invite your friends! We'd like to send a heartfelt thanks to our earliest supporters. You have set the course for this community which we are very proud to launch today. Thank you for supporting our mission to help neighbors live more sustainable and connected lives. Check out the official press release: NeighborGoods Ushers in the Post-Consumer Economy Helping Americans Save Money and Resources by Borrowing, Lending and Renting Instead of Buying New And spread the word!

Dogs Make Great Neighbors

2010-06-22T07:24:58-07:00

re-blogged from Shareable.net Gus and Jack I'm a dog owner. In fact, I spend so much time and energy on my dogs that I have recently taken to calling myself a crazy dog lady. I figure hey, at least it's better than being a crazy cat lady. I work in a shared office space in the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles along with several other dog-lovers. We were overjoyed at the recent news that our neighborhood would soon have a dog park - the very first dog park in downtown LA! If you've spent any time in LA, you are already aware that Downtown has been undergoing a major transformation in recent years. Streets that just a few years ago most people wouldn't dare to tread are now home to the city's hippest bars and restaurants, loft apartments and cultural events. The arrival of Downtown LA's first dog park is a milestone for the area's transformation. So I got to thinking... What impact would the dog park have on the area? How do dog parks, and dogs in general, change neighborhoods? I've already expressed my bias at the outset and my thoughts here are in no way scientifically validated but I've got a hunch that dog parks have a positive impact on neighborhoods. I know from personal experience that dog parks can be social hubs of a community. I've spent hours chatting with my neighbors at the Silverlake dog park. I know all their dogs' names. I know which ones get along best with my dogs. I'm even learning more about their owners, what they do for a living, where they stand on certain political issues... There's lots of time to talk about all sorts of stuff while the dogs run around. The dogs act as a sort of ice breaker. "Hey, my dog really likes to hump your dog. Wanna go out for coffee?" OK, maybe not exactly like that but once your dogs make friends, it's hard not to follow suit. Single guys have known this for ages. In some urban areas, dog walkers are the only pedestrians. Without them, parks and other common spaces can easily devolve into dangerous places. Richard Layman points out that building more dog parks is a much cheaper path to public safety than putting more cops on the streets. The sad truth is that most of us don't know our neighbors anymore. There is a strong movement afoot to change that with the growing popularity of farmers markets, neighborhood potlucks, and yes - dog parks. These shared experiences and events help unite us with our neighbors and pave the way for casual conversation and friendly introductions. A neighborhood that knows one another is a safer, friendlier, happier place to live. Dogs can help create neighborhoods like that. That's more than you can say for cats.

Vote for us in The Beat Waste Startup Challenge!

2010-06-14T12:52:28-07:00

As a bootstrapped startup, we're always on the look out for contests and other ways to bring in some cash. We entered a contest Called the Myoo Create Beat Waste Startup Challenge and we could win up to $15k. Part of the challenge is a voting contest so this is where I ask for your help. All you gotta do is log in (yes log in, sorry) and vote for NeighborGoods! We really appreciate your support! We're in 7th place already let's get to number one! VOTE!

The People Around Me and the Ground Under My Feet

2010-06-09T04:23:24-07:00

Cross-posted from Shareable.net After a long discussion with my ex-boyfriend about his 8 year old son Evan and the perils of a childhood staring at glowing screens, I decided to do my part to encourage Evan to break away from the television to read more. "He loves the Harry Potter movies so surely he would love the books!" I thought. The first Harry Potter book is so popular, I knew for sure that one of my friends would have a copy Evan could read. I searched NeighborGoods and no one near me had it listed so I added the book to my wishlist. Later that day, Jory logged into NeighborGoods and saw that someone in his neighborhood wanted to borrow Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Happy to help out a neighbor, he promptly added his copy to his NeighborGoods inventory. I received an alert email and I logged in to request the book from Jory. We set a time to meet and a couple days later, Jory was ringing my door bell. He delivered the book and a sweet bonus - Jory brought me a bag full of fruit from his avocado tree! Jory and I spent 20 minutes or so chatting in my living room about his family, NeighborGoods, and our Los Angeles neighborhood, Atwater Village. Since that first meeting, Jory and I are now friends on all sorts of social networks. We share stuff on NeighborGoods all the time, we share local news and deals at our favorite taco place with each other on Twitter, and we compete for mayorships on Foursquare. Jory and I are now neighbors in the true sense of the word. Through Jory, I've met several other Atwater Village residents and we all stay in touch online. I returned the book to Jory a few weeks later. I don't think Evan read it. But thanks to the technology on our glowing screens, our neighborhood got a little better. I now feel much more connected to Atwater Village. I feel like I'm a part of the community. I feel connected to the people around me and the ground under my feet. And that's why I created NeighborGoods. --- NeighborGoods.net is the online community where you can save and earn money by sharing stuff with your friends. Need a ladder? Borrow it from your neighbor. Have a bike collecting dust in your closet? Rent it out for some extra cash! NeighborGoods helps you live better and more sustainably by saving resources and strengthening local communities. NeighborGoods is currently in limited beta in Southern California but if you want to check it out before our official launch, join this group just for Shareable readers!

NeighborGoods Success Story

2010-06-07T11:23:03-07:00

As you know, our primary goal is to help neighbors lend and borrow things instead of buying new. Did you know you can also buy and sell stuff on NeighborGoods? Our wishlist tool is a great way to find rare items that you may have been unable to track down on other sites. When you add an item to your wishlist, your neighbors learn what you need so they can add it for you. Cris D recently added Polaroid film to her wishlist. Since Polaroid stopped making the film, Cris has been trying to track some down at an affordable price to use for an art project. Cris's neighbor, GL saw her wishlist item on NeighborGoods and added 30 boxes of Polaroid film to his inventory - available FOR FREE! Cris automatically received a message about the film and she contacted GL who delivered the film to Cris's house a few days later. GL got to help his neighbor while finding a use for film that was just gathering dust and Cris got a whole bunch of film for her art project. Now that's what we call a NeighborGoods success story! Share your success stories with us! Email us your story and we might include your testimonial on our homepage! Happy sharing!

Pack Light. Travel with NeighborGoods

2010-06-01T02:14:21-07:00

By default, when you search for stuff on NeighborGoods, we show you the stuff near you. But did you know you could use NeighborGoods to borrow stuff when you're traveling? It's true! All you have to do is change the zip code you're searching to the one where you'll be visiting and you can see all the stuff nearby! I borrowed a bike in Austin for SXSW this year. Our friend Eric M is trying to track down a bike for his upcoming trip to San Francisco. If you're in SF and you've got a bike, maybe you can add yours to the inventory for him?

Buy Love Here Event in Los Angeles

2010-05-26T11:46:29-07:00

Comedian Russel Brand would like to encourage us to shop less. He's hosting a swap and barter event tomorrow at the Beverly Center in LA.

Buy Love Here is a pop up exchange shop, where for one day, money will have no currency. The idea is to raise debate about the scale of consumer culture and to promote the re-use of products in a surplus society. It is a social experiment to examine shopping habits whilst providing an opportunity for Russell to speak directly with the public and gauge opinion. The day will be filmed as part of an ongoing documentary Russell is currently filming about the pursuit of happiness.

So bring your unwanted items to trade and leave with something more useful. The shop will be pre-stocked with stuff from Russell, his celebrity buddies, and sponsor companies getting rid of out of season items.

Less Is More for Retailers

2010-05-21T09:44:34-07:00

re-blogged from Huffington Post Photo by Jeff Engelhardt I'm always on the lookout for solutions that help me feel a little less commercial. I don't know about you but I don't like being defined as a "consumer." In my daily life, I'd rather spend less time fretting over what to purchase, when, and at what price. There are other things to think about. I wasn't expecting to get a little help in this endeavor from the very people who are constantly trying to sell me things. I was listening to NPR last week and heard this great story on Marketplace about how retailers forced to scale back inventory during recession have found success with a "less is more" approach. Have you ever been in a store and been overwhelmed with all the choices? Have you ever run out of time or been unable to make a decision so that you buy nothing at all? Me too! As an unintended consequence of scaling back in tough times, retailers are finding that they are actually selling more by offering less. Jo-Ann's is a great example of a store that has learned this lesson. As a result, the retailer is completely redesigning 75 of its locations this year to make for a simpler, cleaner shopping experience with fewer options to purchase. Expect to see less stuff at the following stores in the near future as well: Target, Old Navy, 7-Eleven and Wal-Mart. What does this mean for us? Less time in stores! Less buyer's remorse wondering if we made the right choice! Maybe, just maybe, if stores begin offering less stuff, we'll purchase things with more intent. Maybe we'll learn to value our stuff a little more and start making substantive changes to our throw-away culture. All thanks to Wal-Mart. Whodathunkit?

Meet Jessica, our new community intern!

2010-05-18T12:06:01-07:00

Meet Jessica! She's our new community intern. Jessica is a graduate student in the Annenberg Online Communities program. She's working with us out of the LA office for the summer. Her job is to help YOU, our community, make the best use of NeighborGoods. She'll be reaching out to get your feedback and to offer suggestions. She's mostly interested in how we can work better with groups and organizations. So if you've got some ideas how groups can share better on NeighborGoods, feel free to email her at jessica@neighborgoods.net. Welcome to the team, Jessica! We're thrilled to have you!

Mitchum's Hardest Working American

2010-05-17T10:47:55-07:00

A few weeks back, I had the pleasure of working with the legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles and his awesomely talented crew as the subject of a documentary. It's a campaign for Mitchum that profiles the hardest working Americans in several short films. Then people get to submit their own stories for the chance to get a film made about them and a cash prize of $100k! I was excited for the opportunity to participate as a way to promote NeighborGoods and I'm really happy with how the film came out. If you like it too, I hope you'll share it with your friends. And who knows, maybe you are the hardest working American?

Borrow a car on NeighborGoods!

2010-05-14T10:45:24-07:00

Ever wish you could test drive a car before buying it? I don't mean a loop around the neighborhood with a pushy salesperson. I mean really test drive - try the car out for a few weeks - take it to the grocery store, load the kids in and out - really take it for a spin and see how it fits into your real life. Well now you can do that on NeighborGoods! Check out our motor vehicles category! Tara B is renting her Mini Cooper for the Summer. Need some extra space for a road trip? Attulya's friends can borrow her BMW X3 SUV. I've got my car in my inventory for my friends too. It's small but it's got tons of room for cargo and pretty sweet bike racks! Probably one of the most useful inventory items is formalplay's Dodge Cargo Van. He's a good guy to make friends with! Some of you might be thinking, "Why would I put my car on NeighborGoods?" If your friend's car was in the shop and she needed to go grocery shopping, would you let her borrow your car? What if you were lucky enough to own an awesome cargo van like formalplay? You could earn some extra money by renting it out! NeighborGoods was created to help you share things of value with your friends. Instead of lending something out with no accountability, NeighborGoods helps you track your stuff. Most importantly, when you add an item to your inventory, you choose who can share it. For big ticket items like cars, we recommend you limit their availability to just your friends. So go on! Add your ride to your inventory and be sure to share some cool stories of where it's been.