Have you been invited to the Rosebank Community Blog?
My Rosebank is a new social networking blog ‘for the residents and workers of Rosebank, Johannesburg.’ If you’re part of the Rosebank community blog you’re in good company. South Africa’s blogging heavyweights Jon Cherry, Matthew Buckland, Mike Stopforth and many other opinion leaders in the blogging community have been invited.
Why Rosebank?
The blog itself states that ‘Rosebank attracts some of the most well heeled visitors, online as well as off. This is the intellectual cutting edge of online South Africa…It's also a place that's not difficult to get excited about.’
Stylish, secure, with numerous eclectic restaurants, Rosebank’s sophisticated cosmopolitan community is in many ways a test case for where South Africa may be headed.
What is the blog for?
The blog describes its function as establishing a community consciousness that can make a difference to the community it represents. It says: ‘At a time when we are at the mercy of government…volunteer networks become not only useful, but essential and vital. ..To the extent that communities develop strong relationships (through regional virtual and real networks) communities can wrest back control of their own environments...’
What's in it?
My Rosebank contains photographic and textual references to Rosebank’s urbanity, with brief mention made, for example, of Cinema Nouveau and The Grace Hotel. It has an image menu intended to guide contributors towards commenting, measuring and rating various aspects of their experience living and working in Rosebank. Would-be contributors are emailed these images to maintain ‘standards and consistency’ to allow them to blog freely on the site in a so-called ‘wall-less garden’.
Created by a Marketing and Communications Specialist at AVUSA in Rosebank, the My Rosebank blog is likely to be a virtual template for other brick and mortar communities such as Melrose Arch and Century City. Another new AVUSA product, www.mybackyard.co.za has created suburban sites such as www.mynorthcliff.co.za and www.mymelville.co.za. It is possible that the blogging community will soon embrace and integrate with these hyper local networks.
My Rosebank and similar blogs stimulate their communities to become increasingly self aware. This community consciousness improves the lives not only of neighbours, but also potentially the lives of non-human neighbours living in the organic systems around homes and businesses.
My Rosebank hopes to cultivate a strong sense of community by inculcating in particular the sense of the human being as gardener and life giver. The blog asserts optimistically: ‘It can start right here, with you, and with me.’
To join My Rosebank email vanderleekn@avusa.co.za or go to http://myrosebank.blogspot.com leaving your email address in the comment field
No comments:
Post a Comment