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Local community app OurHood reaches 1 000 neighbourhoods

OurHood is a very unique app in its focus: a social network that is focused entirely on residents of neighbourhoods in South Africa, allowing them to communicate and better their area, and it now encompasses 1 000 different neighbourhoods.

The app, available on iOS and Android has only been live since March this year, but has taken off incredibly fast. In the app you’ll find a community noticeboard, crime reports, local events and deals, contact details for important organisations, and direct communication with neighbours.

ourhood
Some screens from the app

Ourhood was created to let community members communicate when other platforms such as Facebook and Whatsapp are far too unfocused and scattered. The problem with this hyper-specialised method of communication is adoption rates, but OurHood now covers 1 000 neighbourhoods, which you can browse at your leisure.

If you find that your little slice of the country is not yet covered, you can request that it is added in immediately. After that you can get involved and sign up.

Co-Founder and Managing Director, Bruce Good, gave us some interesting facts about the app:

  • Gauteng is surging ahead of Western Cape in terms of signups, even though the concept was soft launched in Green Point, Cape Town back in May 2014.
  • Gauteng also has the most active user base once signed up.
  • Ourhood is even finding success in less populated and affluent areas, such as Onrus and George.

Good also commented on the future of the app:

[We will be] adding a business classifieds section soon, [including] the ability for users to post [and] receive information from surrounding neighbourhoods (if they choose to). We’ve added a questionnaire, [including] the ability for verified users to ‘invite friends and neighbours’ – so in effect, once you’ve gone through the process of becoming a verified member, you can then get your known neighbours though this process.

We do love apps like OurHood that use the internet to bring back the values of community. A vast majority of our readers have probably never printed up posters or adverts they were involved with and made the trip to the local rec centre, tacks and staple gun in hand, to put them up on the (physical) noticeboard and wait for a reply. It’s also great for local business as the app is entirely financed by targeted local advertising, which means that the adverts you see will be far more relevant that even the collated efforts of Facebook and Google.

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