Can Ning, or even beat blogging for that matter, work at a local level?

Check out Willow Glen 2.0.

The site is built to serve the residents of Willow Glen, a neigborhood of San Jose. At the helm of this network isn’t a reporter – just a local community member. But he does admit that it takes some grooming. The founder, Ryan Kuder, also told me how this site got started: As a community email thread.

But Ryan wanted to take the email to the next level – letting people contact each other instantly and individually – hence the ‘2.0′ part of the name. Ryan also mentioned that this community was rather quite until it hit a threshold: Somewhere around 150-200 people is the tipping point where you get lots of activity – before that you’d end up with general silence with outbursts of activity here and there.

I find Willow Glen a great example of a few things.
1. Ning and community working at a local level.
2. The benefit of making your network open. Having a ‘beat blog’ or a ‘network’ doesn’t necessarily imply you have to horde them.