I am putting together some recommendations this week for a major national U.S. foundation and I'd like to be able to cite a few current statistics about forms on local online participation. I am interested in any baseline numbers you've discovered/know about related to various local online/participation activities, like: 1. The percentage of adult Internet users who have given their e-mail address to a neighbor, sent/received an e-mail with a neighbor 2. The percentage who have e-mailed local elected officials, signed a local online petition 3. The percentage who have joined a local online group/forum/e-list 4. The percentage of blogs that post regularly about their local community (placeblogs), percent of all "open" blogs that are political blogs and at what level of politics they focus on 5. Comparative features on local online news sites - Comparisons of reader comment policies/systems 6. Current attitudes of local elected officials about forms of online participation, e-mail, participatory democracy generally, etc. 7. Percentage of people who have either located a local charity online then volunteered, or have donated online to a local charity/cause 8. Percentage of people who receive an e-mail newsletter or updates from the local government, local media site, local religious group, other local groups Also, I am interested in reviews of current trends related to local content generation, particularly "user-generated content" of particular interest to local communities, as well as local search, the use of geotagging, and anything that seems to establish critical mass awareness/use of content and interactivity where geography is a primary determinate of relevancy. Instead of using the Internet to go to the world or simply replicate/enhance private family and personal life networks online, how are (can) people use the Internet (and related technologies) to "come home" and be part of "real" public life? In addition to posting on the list if you like, please send any replies to: clift@publicus.net Steven Clift http://stevenclift.com