Nextdoor is the new Facebook – for political ads?

Photo: Nextdoor

For Glen residents, Nextdoor is a social network that provides a break from the clutter of Facebook and vitriol of Twitter.

Much of this is due to the company’s emphasis on neighbors talking to neighbors about their neighborhood. Nextdoor is bland – and that’s just how users want it.

Like most Silicon Valley startups, however, Nextdoor needs to make money. And with its door-to-door knowledge of over 100,000 U.S. neighborhoods, the site is a virtual treasure-trove for political advertisers and the candidates who hire them, The Guardian’s Paul Lewis reports.

Mr. Lewis, in a recent interview with Nirav Tolia, chief executive officer of Nextdoor, shed some light on how the company could put "its cache of verified personal data” to use.

Here are some of the highlights:

The key to monetizing Nextdoor is its cache of verified personal data. Tolia claims the company is on the cusp of offering a level of targeting that is even more granular and reliable than that of Google and Facebook...

Nextdoor’s data could be especially useful to the burgeoning and controversial market in political advertising, in which companies are overlaying detailed data about voters to target the most persuasive ads. But political ads will only work on Nextdoor if its users are discussing politics.

That may explain why Nextdoor, in a move that seemed to be contrary to its aversion to conflict, recently started hosting local forums about hot political topics.

“We want to create a kind of area in the service where those conversations can happen, and people can passionately argue one way or another,” Tolia said.

Asked if he could guarantee that Nextdoor would not micro-target political ads, Tolia got a few words in before his PR executive, who was also present, interrupted. “Don’t!” she said. “Don’t guarantee all this.”

He was reluctant to be drawn further. “This is such a theoretical conversation,” he said. “Because we literally have never had any of these conversations.”

You can read the full story here.

Nextdoor CEO sits down with Recode Decode

In a recent post, we wrote about a conversation Nirav Tolia had with Kurt Wagner, senior editor for social media at Recode.net, on a recent episode of the podcast Recode Decode.

During the interview, Mr. Tolia discussed growing up in west Texas, his early years in Silicon Valley, and what motivated him to found Nextdoor. It’s a great listen if you’ve got the time.

Links to the podcast can be found here.

(Full disclosure: The Glen Civic Association does not control or maintain The Glen’s presence on Nextdoor. We do encourage Glen residents to participate in the social network as a way to stay connected with their neighbors. Glen board members are also independently active on Nextdoor.)