Backfence.com up and running

The latest entry into the hyper-local journalism parade is Backfence.com, the much-talked/written-about startup in suburban Virginia by Mark Potts and Susan DeFife. As they write:

Backfence is all about exploring new ways to exchange information and new ways to bring community members together. The information you see on this site is written by the readers of the site themselves, sharing their knowledge of their community with their neighbors. Citizens media pioneer Dan Gillmor has written, "None of us is as smart as all of us," and that sums up the philosophy behind Backfence.

Backfence is designed to help people find out what's going on around them by providing a public forum for the kind of information that is part of regular neighborhood conversation. Who's the best plumber in town? What's happening with that new development down the street? Who's starring in the next school play? What's the best Thai restaurant in town? When does the community pool open?

It will be interesting to see if, as has happened in some other cases, a print product generates out of this.