[Air-L] Local content, interactivity, geotagging, donating, advocacy, and more

[Steven Clift]

I am putting together some recommendations this week for a major 
national U.S. foundation and I'd like to be able to cite a few current 
statistics about forms on local online participation.

I am interested in any baseline numbers you've discovered/know about 
related to various local online/participation activities, like:

1. The percentage of adult Internet users who have given their e-mail 
address to a neighbor, sent/received an e-mail with a neighbor
2. The percentage who have e-mailed local elected officials, signed a 
local online petition
3. The percentage who have joined a local online group/forum/e-list
4. The percentage of blogs that post regularly about their local 
community (placeblogs), percent of all "open" blogs that are political 
blogs and at what level of politics they focus on
5. Comparative features on local online news sites - Comparisons of 
reader comment policies/systems
6. Current attitudes of local elected officials about forms of online 
participation, e-mail, participatory democracy generally, etc.
7. Percentage of people who have either located a local charity online 
then volunteered, or have donated online to a local charity/cause
8. Percentage of people who receive an e-mail newsletter or updates from 
the local government, local media site, local religious group, other 
local groups

Also, I am interested in reviews of current trends related to local 
content generation, particularly "user-generated content" of particular 
interest to local communities, as well as local search, the use of 
geotagging, and anything that seems to establish critical mass 
awareness/use of content and interactivity where geography is a primary 
determinate of relevancy. Instead of using the Internet to go to the 
world or simply replicate/enhance private family and personal life 
networks online, how are (can) people use the Internet (and related 
technologies) to "come home" and be part of "real" public life?

In addition to posting on the list if you like, please send any replies 
to: clift at publicus.net

Steven Clift
http://stevenclift.com