Neighborsgo

Neighborsgo is a weekly community newspaper published by The Dallas Morning News. Each Friday, 11 print editions are distributed to more than 340,000 households in the Dallas area. The material in print editions comes primarily from user-submitted material on the Web site, neighborsgo.com[1], where editors interact with community members. Like TribLocal [2] in Chicago and YourHub [3] in Denver, neighborsgo is one of several publications produced by major metropolitan newspapers that integrate user-generated and professionally produced media.

Background

Neighborsgo is owned by the A. H. Belo Corp. Other Dallas-Fort Worth online, print, TV and radio media outlets often use neighborsgo material in their coverage of community news.

Print edition

In April 2005, The Dallas Morning News launched four editions of a weekly newspaper called "Neighbors." The response to the reader-generated newspaper was positive enough that, by the end of 2006, 12 more "Neighbors" were being published.

In 2011, 11 print editions of neighborsgo are published by The Dallas Morning News every Friday and have a combined circulation of more than 340,000 copies. News subscribers receive neighborsgo with their Friday editions, as do subscribers to Briefing, the free newspaper for busy suburban families.

Communities

Print editions currently include these D/FW communities:
Allen/Frisco/McKinney
Best Southwest: Cedar Hill/DeSoto/Duncanville/Lancaster | Oak Cliff | Grand Prairie
Carrollton/Farmers Branch/Addison
Garland/Mesquite
Irving/Coppell
Park Cities/North Dallas
Plano/Murphy/Wylie
Richardson/Lake Highlands/Far North Dallas
Rockwall/Rowlett
Lewisville/Flower Mound
White Rock/M Streets/Lakewood

Website

The website for the publication is neighborsgo.com [4], where Dallas-area residents can post news, videos, photos and blogs about their communities. The stories in print editions of neighborsgo come primarily from submitted material on the Web site, which was launched in April 2007.

Once readers post their content on the site, neighborsgo editors publish the most relevant stories and photos into one of the weekly print editions.

The Web site for neighborsgo allows visitors to create an online profile like they would on Facebook. Users can access content specific to their community, communicate with each other, create or comment on blog posts, and share stories in their own words and images.

As of August 2011, more than 27,000 area residents were members of neighborsgo.com. More than 70,000 stories, 45,000 photos and 2,100 videos had been posted online, and the Web site had been clicked on more than eight million times.

Facebook

The Facebook fan page for neighborsgo[5] is designed to further engage readers and encourage them to share photos and stories about their communities that can be published in print editions.

Twitter

In April 2009, neighborsgo embraced micro-blogging service Twitter as another way to create connections among neighbors. Their main Twitter account is @neighborsgo [6].

Jason Castro

The website was frequently used for Jason Castro coverage in early 2008. Jason Castro was an American Idol contestant who hailed from one of neighborsgo's communities: Rockwall, Texas. The site [7] includes videos from before he was discovered all the way up until his homecoming parade after the season ended.

London Levi

The neighborsgo site also covered London Levi's experience on America's Next Top Model, Cycle 12[8]. Levi, a street preacher from Arlington, Texas, was one of the final seven women on the modeling competition reality show. Site contributors and neighborsgo editors followed Levi through the show, writing blog posts every week and commenting on the events of each episode [9].

Lenny Kravitz

In June 2010, musical artist Lenny Kravitz participated in an impromptu jam session with a church choir in New Orleans that became a popular video on YouTube [10]. neighborsgo.com featured a story[11] about the Voices of Praise choir from Lewisville.

References

• Journalism NEXT and neighborsgo [12]
• Newspaper Trends to Watch in 2008 [13]
• The Cake Bride [14]
• Jason Castro coverage [15]
• State Fair photos [16]

External links

• Neighborsgo.com