I'm Dan Donaldson. I live in Toronto. I've been in and out of the web development world for a long time -- more than fifteen years. Everyone in this game thinks about building something of their own, even if it's only for a brief moment, before the lure of decent money and a corporate gig convinces them otherwise. I'm no different.
About 3 years ago, I became interested in the potential for maps on the web, and started dreaming my own dreams. I wasn't very focussed on working on the web at that time: in fact, I was working in real estate. But that's a business that really needs a dose of Web 2.0, and the shift into real estate from web development was a shock.
Over posts to come, I'll talk more about this: about real estate and the web, and about some of the things that motivated me to do what I did back then, which brings us to the point of this blog.
Real Estate, for all its many and terrible failings is still a business that makes you think a lot about communities. There's something about sinking half a million dollars into a particular address that makes you start to think more about where you are, what people do, think, build and value around you. People you don't know, and would never know in a Facebook world end up being the guy across the fence, and you have to deal with it. Out of this, a long-standing passion for communities arose in me, a passion and interest that existed in a space different from the disembodied world of the web.
I started thinking about this, and ideas that at first related to real estate, but soon expanded to encompass the dynamics of communities started to develop. And now, I've become passionate about an idea for changing the way communication works in communities. The success of Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, Flickr, YouTube, FourSquare, RedBeacon, Yelp, and all the others social and Web 2 sites that have changed the way a generation interacts is a total inspiration to me. But I think that they still leave a huge space that needs to be filled.
Every one of these tools has created a new way for all of us to interact with others who share interests with us. But I think there's another part of life that these systems not only bypass, but make more difficult. And that's the idea of physical community, space shared with others who probably don't share many of our interests, but that share a common interest in what can be done in the area they live in.
Out of this came my project, called Urbanistica. It's a way to bring people who don't have a reason to be Facebook friends, or whom you don't follow on Twitter, to join with you in a conversation. The kinds of conversations this produces will be different from the ones that other services facilitate. But these conversations are happening – or trying to happen – all the time, and so far I haven't found the web-based system that makes them possible.
If you're interested in this – in the idea of bringing a new way for people to interact as a community, and the possibilities, ideas and tools that might be needed to make this happen, then maybe you'll want to read more.
This is the first post. In the interests of brevity, I'll end it here. Tune in next to learn about what I propose to create, what's already done, and what I hope people will do to help.
And comment! The comments will be open and unmoderated, until such time as a need arises to moderate them. So please: ideas, reactions, discoveries. Your thoughts are valued.
Last thing: Urbanistica is not just an idea, but something that I've been building, working on, implementing. Here's a video that I've shown to people over the last few months that shows a live demo of one incarnation of Urbanistica:
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