Nextdoor
The app notorious for serving as a bulletin board for neighborhood tattletales is getting an AI-centered redesign, and it's bringing some pretty useful features.
In a post this week, Nextdoor announced its biggest app redesign ever. At the core of the new app, Nextdoor says, are three components: Alerts, News, and Faves.
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Real-time safety alerts: "Neighbors have long turned to Nextdoor in moments of crisis," the company says. New alerts provide information on everything from daily weather and traffic to critical incidents like power outages, severe storms, and wildfires. These alerts will appear on a dynamic neighborhood map that lets you have conversations with neighbors and public agency partners like fire departments.
Local news from trusted sources: Local happenings are at the center of the Nextdoor experience, so the company is making sure you're aware of what's going on. Relevant stories from local vetted publishers will soon appear directly in your feed, tailored to your neighborhood's location. Nextdoor says it's launching with over 3,500 local publications across the US, UK, and Canada. The News feature will be available in more than 75% of the US cities on Nextdoor.
Local recommendations from neighbors: Whether you're looking for details on the best pizza joint or need an emergency plumber, Nextdoor's new "Faves" category can help. Using AI to comb through 14 years of conversations, the app will give you a quick, summarized response to questions like, "What is the best place to hike with kids?" Nextdoor says it's "just like asking a knowledgeable local." This feature is launching first in select US markets. I'm usually not too trusting of AI-generated overviews, but since this is coming from actual conversations, it might be useful. Google Maps has a similar feature that uses AI to compile user restaurant recommendations.
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