I can’t say that I’ve particularly analysed the offers that come through in Battersea, but equally can’t say I’ve particularly thought they weren’t relevant (and we’ve used a couple). One of the ways of building that critical mass – and I am guessing at a business model here – is to use those businesses as an incentive for people to sign up and use the site. Of course, that’s reliant on there being an overlap between the (potential) clientele of the businesses doing it and the people signed up for Streetbook.

Spam might be a bit harsh, but as far as I can see the ones who have posted so far aren’t necessarily local.

I understand the critical mass thing. I suppose it is down to luck as much as good design whether a certain critical network catches on or drifts off into the ether.

Yes. There are a lot of offers from businesses (not sure if you’d define them as spam) but a number of residents talking. Like so many things it needs to reach a critical mass, but that seems to be happening. For example there seems to be a fairly lively freecycling thing going on, and a number of others are using it to start a social network. My attempt at a councillor forum hasn’t been that lively, but has a couple of hundred members.