Today Is #LocalDay: What Are You Where-ing?
May 1, 2009 :: Joe LoongHere’s one of the better, simpler and more doable ideas from eDemocracy Camp 2, as captured in a much-retweeted post: On May 1 (which would be today), post the following two pieces of information to Twitter, Identi.ca, or the other microblogging/social linksharing site of your choice:
* Your ZIP/Postal code
* The tag/hashtag: #LocalDay
Then, on Local Day, search for “localday” and your ZIP code, and you can see what other folks are near you.
Simple, right? Sending your ZIP code allows you to identify yourself geographically, but is still imprecise enough to maintain your privacy (barring other things you’ve posted, or how findable you are in public databases and phone books, of course). Any followups, meetups, or other contacts afterwards are up to you.
You can find more information on LocalDay on the E-Democracy Pages Wiki.
Remember When Online Community Used to Be Local?
The reason for doing something like LocalDay is actually a little paradoxical. Perverse, even. It’s simply because the ability to form connections with people around the world has the potential to weaken connections with the people you’re physically near. (I’m sensing a theme, here.)
Originally, online community was pretty much all locally-based, starting with dialup Bulletin Board Systems and then local Internet Service Providers. Unless you were a phone phreaker or otherwise had money to spend on toll calls, that meant you stayed close to your local exchange.
As the Internet became more ubiquitious, it became easier and cheaper (and then, essentially free) to connect with people all around the world. Outside of the inconveniences of, say, time zones, geography didn’t matter so much as cultural or linguistic barriers.
Still, as many pointed out (Howard Rheingold foremost among them), the strongest types of communities were still the ones based in local, physical presences — communities where people could meet, date, babysit each others’ kids, hang out, get into fights, on so on. Even in national and internationally-based communities, you still saw a lot of self-organization based on geography, especially around things like business reviews and recommendations, complaining about local politics, and of course, personals.
Still, as time marched on and more social media and online community tools became available, and as online presence decentralized and compartmentalized, it’s sometimes hard to keep sight of those local connections, unless you’re specifically looking for them.
With something like Twitter, there’s nothing inherently geographical in the profiles or content (unlike, say, Meetup or other local event-based planning tools), unless your friends / followers, by accident or choice, are all people geographically near you. It’s more about tribe, affinity, or whatever other in-group term you want to use.
So taking a time out and having a day to specifically focus on local connections make sense.
Having said that, I personally still haven’t jumped on location-based services like BrightKite or Google Latitude. That kind of geographic precision makes me a little uncomfortable.
Interestingly, I wonder how much different of a response the #localday idea would have gotten if it had originated in a more marketing-based context, rather than an e-democracy one. “Like, you actually want me to give out my ZIP code so you can better follow me and market to me? Shyeah, right.”
Anyway, I’m in the 20191 (with some connections to the 10010 and 07066); if you’ve got thoughts on Localday or local community in general, please leave a comment.
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