Block-Sourcing Coming to a Street Near You

When Nirupama Mallavarupu decided to vacation one recent winter for several weeks back to India, she thought nothing of leaving her Summit home behind in frigid temperatures.

Little did she know that 2008 would be one of the coldest winters in some time and that she would return to a home flooded from burst water pipes. 

“It was a tough time,” she recalls. “It took a long time to clean up.”

Once Mallavarupu learned that the flooding occurred, while in India she scrambled to contact friends back in Summit but had little success. She had the email of one of her neighbors but didn’t get very far.

The whole experience capped Mallavarupu’s sense of disconnect from a community that she had tried to nurture but with little initial success.

“People are busy, they are going in and out,” Mallavarupu said. “You never see anyone out on the street.”

Moving to Summit, Mallavarupu said she started out in a townhouse.  After the family decided to buy a home, she figured that her sense of community would grow, but was disappointed.

“We thought we are moving into neighborhood - you buy a house in a nice neighborhood and you start meeting everyone and I’d have lots of friends right? It just didn’t happen. Most of the kids near us go to private schools and I didn’t get a chance to meet anyone, that’s the bottom line.”

A short while later HowdyHood.com was born. A Web developer by trade, Mallavarupu launched HowdyHood.com as an online communications environment for residents on a specific street.

The free site's principle is similar to the concept behind crowd-sourcing or soliciting user contributed content to a large group of people or community through an open call. Mallavarupu calls it a "scalable, private social network." Perhaps neighborhood networking or block sourcing would be applicable as well.

"I thought maybe if your connect online and say ‘hey, I’m your neighbor,’ -- it’s a virtual knock on the door and then users can add their interests to their profile,” she said, for example, mentioning that you have children or have interest in particular hobby. During the login process, users sign up for the communciations environment for their street and see only their neighbors.

The online environment for each street has features similar to Facebook in that residents who live on a particular street can post messages on the street's main message baord, for example, to request a play date, share an experience at a new local restaurant or even ask for house sitting.

Mallavarupu said she is also trying to add small companies to the site for services such as lawn cutting, snow plowing or gardeners. The other thought is to have neighbors who have older children willing to help also answer those calls.

“My neighbors have joined and they are a little more active,” Mallavarupu said. "I’m now connected to the neighbors on the street.” 

Mallavarupu said reception from the community has been very positive, with several hundred signups so far. She recently posted an interview with councilman Mike Vernotico and plans to add more interviews and new features, such as business deals, and offers to the site as membership grows.

Right now she is focusing on the city of Summit and two towns in California where she once lived, however, anyone can sign up

If howdyhood.com had been in existence when her house flooded a few years ago, she might have been spared some of the damages. 

"The site is a way to connect with neighbors in the first place," Mallavarupu said. "If I knew at least 10 (neighbors) there's a chance that one of them would have been home" to help.