Take n0tice: The Guardian Launches Online Community Noticeboards

The Guardian, one of the more forward-thinking newspapers today, is about to launch a new product that will be part community noticeboard, part Craigslist, and part local news site. N0tice, as the project is called, draws its inspiration from the early bulletin board systems of the 80s and 90s, as well as the noticeboards you see in your local supermarkets. Once launched, you will be able to “share news, post details about forthcoming events or let people know you have something to sell or share.”

The service is invite-only right now, but you can get on the waiting list here. Users will be able to create their own homepages on n0tice and customize their look and feel. The social features of the site apparently include the ability to follow other users, tags and locations. There will also be a read API. Users will be able to post classifieds and short news reports.

The service will be ad-supported a free to users. Users can buy premium placement for their notices, however, at the cost of £1 per day.

N0tice will also feature some gamification elements, similar to Foursquare. The first person to start a local site will become the editor/mayor, but once other users become more active on the site, they can become the editor themselves.

You can find more information about the philosophy behind n0tice from the Guardian’s director of digital strategy Matt McAlister here.

Which Location-Focused Network Will be the First to Get it Right?

With Nextdoor, of course, another socal network with an emphasis on local communities came out of beta today. Clearly, there is a market for location-focussed social networks and tools like n0tice. Until now, however, few of these have been able to really break through in the market. EveryBlock, which was bought by MSNBC in 2009, for example, is probably the most prominent of these sites, but it, too, has not become a huge mainstream success yet.