Helping neighbors with emergencies

Named one of the 60 Genius Brands to watch in 2012, newly launched Nextdoor.com is designed to bring neighbors together in a secure environment that offers simple organization and with functions similar to existing social networks that consumers should easily comprehend. The service is available in 43 states (including the District of Columbia), in over 800 neighborhoods and each user must verify their address – no anonymous users named “JoeMama2009? at NextDoor.

Now, the company is announcing the launch of “Urgent Alerts” wherein users can alert their neighbors of various events. Normally, when a member posts a message on their Nextdoor website, their neighbors are notified by email and the company says that “for especially time-sensitive information, this may not be fast enough,” so there is a special type of post that goes to members via mobile phone text message in addition to email for the “rare cases” where information is extremely time sensitive.

Urgent alerts are used for suspicious activities, missing children, local evacuations, fires, floods and other disasters. It is extremely useful for crime prevention and organization during disasters, especially when some users are at work or away when urgent events need immediate attention.

Users simply click “sent alert” on the top right of the homepage near where users normally add a post, and to receive urgent alerts, users simply add their mobile phone number to their account which the company says is kept private and used only for urgent alerts.

This is one more move the company is making to use technology to bring neighbors together and they tell us that more features are on the way.

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