May 1, 2007

New social network opens for Willow Glen

By Carol Rosen
Editor

There’s a new network, Willow Glen 2.0, that’s designed specifically for people living in Willow Glen.

Designed to be similar to MySpace or Facebook, it’s a social network for adults living in Willow Glen who want to meet neighbors, plan social events or just connect with people.

It’s a lot different from the e-list, says designer and developer Ryan Kuder. It’s a social network about people where residents can develop profile pages, meet others online and chat or just meet their neighbors and find out their interests and hobbies. Nobody puts pictures of their dogs or pictures of their kids playing in the snow on the e-list, this is a more personal network.

“The people signing up are parents, retirees and professionals. They want to share things as friends. It’s not as crowded or as overwhelming as MySpace,” he added.

Kuder, who works for one of “the top Internet companies,” said he wanted to find a way to communicate online. “It’s a terrific way to create connections with neighbors. Too often in our society we’re too busy to get out and meet our neighbors. This is just another way to connect.

The network began with only four people about two weeks ago and had grown to nearly 30 members by the end of April. There are places for pictures—there are lots of dog, cat and kid photos—as well as blogs and conversations.

Each page offers a profile and pictures as well as discussions and blogs. Kuder’s page also has announcements, including the upcoming homes tour scheduled for the first weekend in May. Some of the things that have found their way to Willow Glen 2.0 are conversations about elementary schools, where to go swimming, good things to do with children on rainy days and pet pictures.

To join, go to Willowglen.ning.com and click on the “join” box in the right-hand corner. The homepage is located at http://willowglen.ning.com. It will allow you to discover people and what the main network conversations are.

If you choose to go to http://willowglen.ning.com/profile/rkuder you will get to the profile page. This is where users create their blogs and post their pictures and see which of their friends have been updating their pages recently. You'll also see here something called “Chatter.” That lets users leave little notes for each other on their pages. This is really the center of the site for each user.

The members’ page is located at http://willowglen.ning.com/profiles/friend/list. This page is where you find out who has joined the network and link to their profile pages.

Finally, there is http://willowglen.ning.com/forum. The forum allows users to post discussion topics. One day last week there were conversations about swimming pools, schools and kids activities. “This page is probably the most similar to the e-list. But the big difference is that if I go to someone’s page, I can see what they have posted on most recently. It's another way that the site is really focused on the people,” Kuder said.