Nextdoor’s Head of Product Kiran Prasad came to his new role last April from LinkedIn. This makes sense to us.
LinkedIn and Nextdoor are markedly different communities with very different goals. Over the years, LinkedIn has built a stable, relatively positive community. And perhaps the folks at Nextdoor wanted some of that no-drama magic.
Nextdoor, despite its popularity, has struggled at times with the positivity part of the community equation. Its reputation as a place where people snipe at each other about wandering pets and unmowed lawns may be exaggerated, but it’s always in the air.
Subtle Acknowledgement
Of course, Nextdoor doesn’t come out and say there is a negative vibe in some of their neighborhood communities. But they are clearly aware of it. Last year we wrote about how Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar acknowledged this challenge.
“We know it’s good for business to build out a platform that’s about kindness, not in a saccharine way but in a bold way. And to support local businesses,” Friar told Axios.
And the framing of Prasad’s first big product announcement refers to it as well, if obliquely.
“Nextdoor’s vision is to inspire active neighbors and organizations to continuously exchange value, utility, and community for all,” Prasad said. “By focusing our product strategy around building an active valued community, we can help create a vibrant, welcoming neighborhood both online and offline.”
So What’s the Strategy?
Yesterday Netdoor rolled out a new suite of features designed to make community-building easier.
Here is how it describes the strategy.
“Research has identified that neighbors primarily turn to Nextdoor to connect to the neighborhoods that matter to them so that they can belong. Nextdoor’s product strategy fulfills this need by enabling neighbors and organizations to build an ‘active valued community’ — an engaged community of neighbors, businesses, and public services that you can trust and depend on to exchange valuable information, goods, and services.”
To achieve this “active valued community” Nextdoor has rolled out several new features and is revamping its news feed. The new features seem designed to encourage people to get to know each other better. And as a result developed more trust, which will lead to value.
For example, it’s rolling out revamped neighbor profiles, including photos, short bios, and so on. And Nextdoor requires users to use their real names.
“Nextdoor ensures you’re connected to real people and requires neighbors to use their real name to foster a trusted environment to meet and learn more about those nearby,” the company said.
Other features include new welcome features and improvements in how it connects neighbors with like interests, a streamlined look and feel, and more.
LinkedIn-esque
The connections tools have a ring of Prashad’s alma mater LinkedIn to them. This is from the description released this week.
“There is also a Neighbors You May Know feature that recommends people that you may want to connect with based on proximity, Connections in common, on-platform interactions, and your personal contacts.”
Nextdoor seems to be trying to get its product right. More transparency among users and more tools to connect them to one another may encourage more of a LinkedIn ethos. On LinkedIn, you want to build a trusted network. And when you do, everyone benefits from being supportive.
If Nextdoor can create something similar, the value of the information passed around on the platform goes up.
LinkedIn, as a professional community, also has a built-in regulator against bad or embarrassing behavior. Nextdoor doesn’t have quite as good a natural social regulator. So it will need to work a little harder to create the community it wants.
