So far, it’s been following a fairly predictable and familiar pattern. One person heard about the new site and asked others about it. In this case, the person received a postcard and asked about it in a Facebook group.

The new site is Nextdoor. The about page describes them as

the private social network for you, your neighbors and your community. It's the easiest way for you and your neighbors to talk online and make all of your lives better in the real world. And it's free.

Information was posted about it in a Facebook group focused on my local community. The responses were fairly predictable. One person wrote:

I've heard of it. A new start up. It's pretty much what this group already does. I for one don't need another social site to login to.

My response was to do research on the site and sign up. I later commented about this in the Facebook group. I referred to the Technology adoption lifecycle. I am an innovator/early adopter. I am the sort of person that, when I hear of something new, wants to go out and try it. According to the model, innovators/early adopters make up about 2.5% of the population.

With a population of around 9,000, this would put the number of innovator/early adopters in Woodbridge at about 225. It is worth noting that there are currently 230 members of the Woodbridge – Bethany Residents Forum. It would seem as if the forum still hasn’t crossed the chasm. Trying to attract people from this forum is likely to be challenging. So far, Nextdoor Woodbridge only has 25 members, and only seven have posted photos of themselves. It probably needs to at least double to reach critical mass.

When a new site comes along, those who are not innovators/early adopters start piling on about why it is going to fail. Given the success rates of startups, they are usually right, but when they are wrong, they are often spectacularly wrong. So, on Facebook, people are talking about why Nextdoor is going to fail. The argument typically ends up around what they already have is working fine and why would people want anything new. The standard story that fits in here is of companies missing the opportunity to get into the dry copying business because they didn’t understand the concept, or thought the market wouldn’t be big enough.

When a potential disruption comes along, some people don’t see the use cases for it, and figure it will not make it. Others go in and try to find unexpected use cases. It takes me back to the great old quote from George Bernard Shaw, “Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and say why not.”

Back at the Facebook forum, “For those that have joined what is it that you can do there that you can't in this FB forum?” My response is, “not much”. For that matter, there’s not much on the Facebook forum that couldn’t be done at Woodbridge Gathering either.

Yet there are a few different things in Nextdoor that I find interesting. To get back to how the person mentioning it found out, Nextdoor gives uses the ability for users to send postcards to neighbors inviting them to join. This is something that has been used in political campaigns in the past, and has the potential to reach a different audience than Facebook.

This gets to a second thing that Nextdoor does that I find interesting. It has given me the ability to connect to a bunch of people that I don’t know in Woodbridge. Some people may feel that they know enough people in town. I always like to meet new people. Perhaps that too, is part of the innovator/early adopter mindset.

The site also provides a map, so you can contact people by their location. Again, this reminds me of some of the geomapping aspects of campaign sites.

Of course, this raises an issue. Members don’t want to be spammed. They way to know that the other members of their group are in fact from Woodbridge, or whatever neighborhood. Nextdoor provides verification functionality.

Will this be enough to gain critical mass, to make Nextdoor a success? It was listed in 43 of the best Android apps launched in 2013 by Next Web and it has already received $82 million in two funding rounds.

The questions remain, whether or not it will cross the chasm from the innovators and early adopters to the skeptical early majority, and whether or not it will become profitable. Or, will they have an exit strategy, like so many other startups, which includes cashing in before profitability.

It’s probably too early to say, but as an innovator/early adopter, I’ll play with Nextdoor as long as it keeps my interest.