What's wrong with Ning?

Well Ning is kind of a mess from time to time, but honestly in this case, I'm thinking bigger. Over time you can begin to connect the buildings. Making it easier to evaluate new apartments as you get ready to more. Or you could even find out when there are vacancies in friends apartments or if friends ever lived or live in or near the building you are moving to.

Do you have product plan?

To be honest, it is very broad. I just know that when I was working with my old building's board that there was no elegant solution that just about anyone could easily use. I also think there is a real opportunity for monetization on the real estate side of things once you start linking the pieces together.

Managing the day to day of the building for the board
Communicating to the residents
Sharing thoughts on the building and the neighborhood with friends
Sharing availability of new apartments
Help new tenants connect with the people they live with.

Just think there is a big opportunity to leverage these tools in a space where there are no good options.

Hey, what we are doing at Kohort might be able help you out. If you wanna speak further email me at Benji@kohort.com

Oof, I wouldn't want to "poke" my neighbor. :p

Seriously though, it is an interesting idea. I thought about this once a few years ago and I think that frpm the management side of things, it can get pretty cool, like a white-label service (e.g., Blackboard at universities) that handles general bulletins for residents, mailing lists, Tweets on updates in your building, maybe even rent payment processing...

We should probably leave poking to a very distant future update :). I actually think it could be cool to think of it from the standpoint of individual buildings and then from interconnecting the city a bit more. Obviously you start small with the apartments, but it could have some interesting real estate implications once you let your imagination get carried away!

http://here.st has been doing this in a closed beta for over a year with great success. Sign up to be notified when it launches for the rest of NYC. - Sean