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Nextdoor Inc.
Company typePrivately held company
IndustrySocial networking service
Founded2008; 16 years ago (2008)
FoundersNirav Tolia, Sarah Leary, Prakash Janakiraman, David Wiesen
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California, U.S.
Area served
United States, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, France
ProductsMobile app, website

Nextdoor is a hyperlocal private social networking service for neighborhoods, available in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and France.[1] It is active in about 170,000 communities, as of April 2018.[2]

Platform

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Nextdoor is organized by separate sites for different neighborhoods. A map for each community enables members to see which of their neighbors have joined. Users can also find neighbors in a resident directory.[3]

To join Nextdoor, an individual must use their real name and verify their home addresses.[4] Neighborhood conversations are accessible exclusively to verified neighbors. Sites are password protected and content and member information is excluded from Google and other search engines.[5]

Members can post messages about their neighborhood, such as local service provider recommendations,[6][7] real estate issues,[8] and crime and safety updates.[9][10] Local police departments are allowed to post notices in neighborhoods, such as closed roads, a spike in burglaries, warnings about a suspect or requests for help solving a crime. Officers who aren't verified residents of a neighborhood can only see response to their crime and safety posts.[11]

Other features offered by the product include tools for organizing events, such a block parties, clubs or volunteer days; official city government pages to make announcements and answer questions; and real estate listings.[12]

The Nextdoor City Platform allows police departments, transit systems and other public agencies to send real-time alerts to specific neighborhoods.[11] The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency has access to the platform to provide emergency alerts about natural disasters, such as flooding, hurricanes and major snowstorms.[13] The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also sends out emergency hyperlocal weather alerts via the platform.[14]

Neighborhood sites are also organized by interests. Examples include carpooling, harvest sharing, wine tasting, and caring for aging parents. Members can also add their own interests.[15]

Nextdoor is free for members and supported by advertising and sponsorships.[15]

History

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The company started out in 2008 as Fanbase, a social network for sports fans, pivoting to become Nextdoor in the summer of 2010.[16][17] The Nextdoor founding team was Nirav Tolia, Sarah Leary, Prakash Janakiraman and David Wiesen.[18] Tolia, who became CEO, had previously helped start Epinions.[3]

By 2014, about 25% of American neighborhoods were represented on Nextdoor.[19][20]

As of February 2014 Nextdoor had 80 to 100 employees and had hired Dan Clancy (formerly of Google) as VP of engineering.[21]

About 650 local government agencies has signed up by 2015 to send out alerts on topics such as utility shutdowns, crimes or emergency-preparedness.[4]

The service became available in the Netherlands in February 2016,[22] in Germany in June 2017,[23] and France in February 2018.[24]

By 2017, about 75% of U.S. neighborhoods were signed up on Nextdoor, double from the previous year.[23] It introduced advertising in 2017, its first efforts at monetization.[23] Advertising includes posts inside of user's feeds about business services and products, such as high speed internet and insurance. CEO Toila said the company brought in several million dollars in ad revenue in 2017.[25]

The platform introduced paid real estate advertising in 2017. Agents and brokers are able to create pages for their business. When a member searches for homes in a neighborhood's real estate section, the agents can pay for their business pages to show up. They can also pay to sponsor a neighborhood section.[26]

In February 2017, Nextdoor acquired the UK local social network service Streetlife, in a "multimillion pound deal." Streetlife was discontinued with users encouraged to join Nextdoor. Nextdoor was significantly more rigorous than Streetlife in requiring that members verify their identity and address.[27] Nextdoor's use of full name and address directories within neighborhood sites led to anger amongst some former Streetlife users, accustomed to having only their first names revealed. Unlike, Streetlife, however, Nextdoor data is not searchable by Google and other search engines.[28][29]

Nextdoor has been reported to have been in wide use by neighbors during natural disasters such as Hurricane Harvey[30] and Hurricane Irma,[31] as well as public crisis, such as the string of bombings in Austin, Texas.[32][33]

In February 2018, about 165,000 neighborhoods were signed up and each neighborhood has an average of 1,200 households as members.[1]

Nextdoor started to be used in March 2018 by the state of California to send out election-related information, such as polling station locations.[34]

Racial profiling

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The site has been accused of supporting racial profiling on numerous accounts. On the site's about page it states "We're for neighborhood watch."[35] However, people have complained that the neighborhood watch page has become a magnet for posts that read prejudice towards minority community members.[36] For example, author Pendarvis Harashaw accused Nextdoor's members of engaging in racial profiling: "While Nextdoor's ability to assist in crime-spotting has been celebrated as its 'killer feature' by tech pundits, the app is also facilitating some of the same racial profiling we see playing out in cities across the country. Rather than bridging gaps between neighbors, Nextdoor can become a forum for paranoid racialism — the equivalent of the nosy Neighborhood Watch appointee in a gated community."[37] Sam Levin of the East Bay Express wrote a detailed story on the harm caused by racial profiling and problems with moderators on Nextdoor in Oakland, California.[38] Some are concerned that the social media platform gives neighbors the chance to express their racism from behind a computer screen, without facing any real world repercussions. Monica Bien, an Oakland resident and user of the site, said "It was like the bias was so insidious, and somehow the online community allows them to say what they have been thinking all along but not saying."[39] Nick Wingfield of The New York Times worried that the site may "be used to publicly shame" neighbors or lead to "snarky messages" between residents.[40] However, Nextdoor has guidelines against postings that are discriminatory or engage in profiling.[41]

Nextdoor announced in August 2016 that it will try to curb profiling on the app by requiring suspicious activity reports to have more information than just race.[42] The feature was rolled out to the public in May 2017.[3] Nextdoor acknowledged that this change would not entirely eliminate profiling in the app and that the company would rely on its local neighborhood leads (group moderators) to identify and report uncaught instances of profiling.[3]

Founder

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In June 2014 Nirav Tolia pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor, after being charged with felony hit-and-run, and was sentenced to 30 days in county jail and a fine of $239 for fleeing a crash that left a woman injured on U.S. Route 101 in Brisbane, California.[43][44][45] "It's ironic that the CEO of a company that is holding itself out as trying to promote neighborliness, crime watch and things like that flees the scene of an accident that he caused and doesn't bother to call 911 or stay around to exchange information or see if he caused any injuries," said the woman's attorney, Joseph Brent.[44] Tolia said, "I am relieved that after further examination of the facts, the DA reduced the charge to a misdemeanor and that Thursday's hearing brought the matter to a close."[46]

Denial of service to sex offenders and members of their households

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Unlike some social media platforms that prevent registered sex offenders from creating an account, Nextdoor.com prevents anyone in the same household as a sex offender from creating an account. This includes, spouses, children, roommates or anyone else who shares the same address as an individual on a state sex offender registry.[47] Nextdoor claims that this policy is a condition of the public entities (law enforcement, municipalities, etc.) that it partners with.[48]018-04-12|language=en-US}}</ref>


Finances

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Nextdoor had raised $285 million in financing, as of December, 2017.[49] A $75 million round announced that month put its valuation at $1.5 billion. The investor was not disclosed by the company.[50] A German magazine said German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE became an investor in October 2017. [51]

A previous round of $110 million in funding in 2015 valued Nextdoor at $1.1 billion. Benchmark, Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Insight Venture Partners are among the company's investors.[52]

The company raised $60 million in 2013[53] and $18.6 million in 2012.[54]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Nextdoor is expanding to France to connect neighbors – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  2. ^ Hrenchir, Tim. "City of Topeka wraps truck in Nextdoor logo design, encourages residents to sign up for service". The Topeka Capital. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  3. ^ a b c d "Benchmark-Backed Nextdoor Launches As A Private Social Network For Neighborhoods – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2018-04-11. Cite error: The named reference ":0" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Isaac, Mike (2015-03-03). "Nextdoor Social Network Digs Deep Into Neighborhoods". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  5. ^ "Local social network platform Nextdoor announces major expansion - RealtyBizNews: Real Estate News". RealtyBizNews: Real Estate News. 2017-06-27. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  6. ^ "Nextdoor and More: The Good, Bad and Ugly of Neighborhood Social Networks". HowStuffWorks. 2018-02-27. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  7. ^ "Nextdoor's Neighborhood Favorites Will Let Customers Rank Your Local Business – Small Business Trends". smallbiztrends.com. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  8. ^ "Nextdoor expands real estate arm into three new markets". Inman. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  9. ^ "Nextdoor offers online forum for neighborhoods". SFGate. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  10. ^ "Nextdoor's unexpected killer use case: Crime and safety". Pando. 2013-01-22. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  11. ^ a b "A Facebook for crime fighters". Fortune. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  12. ^ Yamada-Hosley, Heather. "How to Use Nextdoor to Get to Know Your Neighbors". Lifehacker. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  13. ^ "FEMA Emergency Messaging to Start on Nextdoor App | EfficientGov". EfficientGov. 2017-05-24. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  14. ^ "Nextdoor and NOAA Partner to Better Prepare Americans for Severe Weather". www.govtech.com. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  15. ^ a b "With new feature, Nextdoor encourages users to share 'interests'". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  16. ^ "Full transcript: Nextdoor co-founder and CEO Nirav Tolia on Recode Decode". Recode. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  17. ^ "Fanbase Co-Founders Discuss Their Pivot To Nextdoor – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  18. ^ Giles, Chris. "15 women who founded $1 billion startups". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  19. ^ "The anti-Facebook: one in four American neighborhoods are now using this private social network". The Verge. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  20. ^ "Exclusive neighborhood-based social network 'Nextdoor' on the rise in U.S." PBS NewsHour. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  21. ^ Isaac, Mike (February 4, 2014). "Nextdoor Taps Google Vet Dan Clancy for VP of Engineering Post". Re/code. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
  22. ^ "facebook voor buren gelanceerd in nederland". Volkskrant. February 16, 2016. Retrieved February 20, 2016.
  23. ^ a b c "Nextdoor, now in 160,000 neighborhoods globally, expands to Germany – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  24. ^ "Nextdoor is expanding to France to connect neighbors – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2018-03-16.
  25. ^ "Nextdoor Says It Will Make Tens of Millions In Revenue This Year". Fortune. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  26. ^ Kolodny, Lora (2017-08-08). "Billion-dollar neighborhood social network Nextdoor moves against Zillow, Redfin". CNBC. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  27. ^ Cellan-Jones, Rory (6 February 2017). "US neighbours' network Nextdoor buys UK's Streetlife". BBC News.
  28. ^ Cellan-Jones, Rory (9 February 2017). "Streetlife users in Nextdoor privacy row". BBC News.
  29. ^ Streetlife users urged to consider privacy & safety Get Safe Online 17 Feb 2017
  30. ^ "Nextdoor helps neighbors connect during Harvey". KHOU. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  31. ^ "Facebook, Nextdoor become digital lifelines in hurricanes". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  32. ^ Samuels, Alex (2018-03-22). "Austin residents shared their fears and their info on Nextdoor during bombings". The Texas Tribune. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  33. ^ TRIBUNE, ALEX SAMUELS | THE TEXAS. "Austin area residents shared fears, info on social media during bombings". Temple Daily Telegram. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  34. ^ "California will send residents election information through Nextdoor". Engadget.
  35. ^ "We are for neighbors". Retrieved April 28, 2017.
  36. ^ "Website Meant to Connect Neighbors Hears Complaints of Racial Profiling". The New York Times. Retrieved April 28, 2017.
  37. ^ Harashaw, Pendarvis (March 24, 2015). "Nextdoor, the social network for neighbors, is becoming a home for racial profiling". Splinter. Retrieved August 16, 2017.
  38. ^ Levin, Sam (October 7, 2015). "Racial Profiling Via Nextdoor.com". East Bay Express. Retrieved August 16, 2017.
  39. ^ "Website Meant to Connect Neighbors Hears Complaints of Racial Profiling". The New York Times. Retrieved April 28, 2017.
  40. ^ Wingfield, Nick (October 26, 2011). "There Posts the Neighborhood". The New York Times. Retrieved August 16, 2017.
  41. ^ "Be helpful, not hurtful". Nextdoor.com. February 22, 2017. Retrieved August 16, 2017.
  42. ^ Shahani, Aarti (August 23, 2016). "Social Network Nextdoor Moves To Block Racial Profiling Online". National Public Radio. Retrieved August 16, 2017.
  43. ^ Ellen Huet (June 13, 2014). "Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia Pleads No Contest To Reduced Charge In Hit-And-Run". Forbes. Retrieved June 22, 2014.
  44. ^ a b Lee, Henry K (May 14, 2014) "Police-friendly tech CEO charged with hit-and-run". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 4-17-2014.
  45. ^ Huet, Ellen (May 14, 2014), "Nextdoor Hit-and-Run: Yet Another Tech CEO Faces Criminal Charges", Forbes
  46. ^ Rosenblatt, Joel; Frier, Sarah (June 14, 2014), "Nextdoor's Tolia to Serve in Work Program for Hit and Run", Bloomberg News
  47. ^ "FAC Letter to Nextdoor.com". Florida Action Committee. 2018-04-12. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  48. ^ "FAC Letter to Nextdoor.com". Florida Action Committee. 2018-04-12. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  49. ^ "Nextdoor Raises $75M Funding Round, Easily One of Gov Tech's Largest Deals of the Year". www.govtech.com. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  50. ^ "Nextdoor raised about $75 million to connect neighbors – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  51. ^ Rodriguez, Kate. "Axel Springer invests in Nextdoor - ManagerMagazin - AIM Group". aimgroup.com. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  52. ^ "Neighborhood-based app Nextdoor raises $75M in latest round". The Real Deal Los Angeles. 2017-12-11. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  53. ^ Koh, Yoree (2013-10-29). "Well-Heeled Neighbors: Nextdoor Raises $60 Million". WSJ. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  54. ^ "Nextdoor, the social network for neighbors, raises $18.6 million to help Americans stop bowling alone". The Verge. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
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