Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
A Quiet 10th Birthday for Harringay Online
10 years ago this week, I launched Harringay Online as a way of helping neighbours connect more easily. This was in a time when social media hadn't really happened and the internet hadn't yet come of age. Twitter was just getting going and it was less than a year after Facebook was opened to everyone over 13. The local press was contracting into a shadow of its former self.
So something like Harringay Online seemed like a pretty good idea. When I set it up I thought that we might even grow to as many as 200 members!
With nothing else like it locally, and little like it anywhere else in the country, HoL quickly proved much more successful than I ever imagined. It now has over 12,000 registered users. So successful was HoL in its first years that by 2008 Liz and I were handed an award by the Prime Minister and I was a guest on the Daily Politics Show alongside Ken Livingstone.
The site managed to make some great connections between neighbours and it was instrumental in helping Harringay move in the right direction, including several successful change campaigns. For the first few years we had regular socials at The Salisbury and by 2012, it had also become a hyperlocal news hub. HoL's Twitter account was even the go-to destination for national news channels during the Haringey riots.
Another change that I'm delighted to have been part of was the strengthening of the identity of Harringay. In 2007, few people knew what Harringay was and how it differed from Haringey. Even fewer had any sense of where it began and ended. I dare to hope that we've come a long way since then, due both to HoL, a dedication to getting Harringay on Google maps and perhaps the ridiculous number articles I've written on Wikipedia about Harringay. These both clarified what and where Harringay is and for the first time ever told Harringay's previously untold history.
A lot has changed over the past ten years. The internet and social media has come to dominate our lives in a way few of us imagined. HoL has developed into a more sedate middle age and now sits alongside younger social media hubs backed by multi-million dollar investments. Most of the community-run local websites that were set up around the country after HoL are long gone (though most of the Haringey ones that modelled themselves closely on HoL are proving pretty resilient).
Both Liz and I certainly spend a lot less time on HoL than we used to. Every now and again I wonder if it's time to rethink or move on, but each time I suggest it, people convince me that the site still serves a valuable purpose.
So here we are moving into our 11th year with all the advantages and disadvantages of any forum-based website. If anyone has any low cost, minimal effort ideas about how we can zhjush things up for the next few years, I'm all ears.
In the meantime, here are some links to some established HoL pages about HoL:
The Story of Harringay's History
Before I go, a big thanks to Liz, whose help in running the site is warmly appreciated each and every week!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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Obviously, the " Internet " means different things to different people but I would say that the Internet came of age in the 1990s with the popularisation of open chatrooms, such as MSN Chat, when it became possible to " talk " to others either singly or in groups in real time.
Prior to this, the internet was mainly used for emails and for uni-directional information retrieval.
Chatrooms, despite their sometimes sleazy reputations, allowed individuals genuinely to interact on line for the first time. For better or worse, chatrooms helped to keep me awake during solitary night shifts. I vote for 1998
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Permalink Reply by JoeW on
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Coming of age implies a certain maturity and responsibility. So I think we're still waiting...
2007 did see the launch of the iPhone though, that was a fairly significant turning point.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Yup, there's a good case to argue that the web's coming of age is just around the corner.
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Permalink Reply by Richard Woods on
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The assumption that coming of age has any connection with maturity seems to me to be wishful thinking in many cases....
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Permalink Reply by Ian on
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As this is a 10th birthday post, I have to congratulate yourself Hugh and Liz for the work behind the scenes to make it happen and more importantly keeping it going. It has provided valve to me and I hope some of my post has provided value to others. In terms of the giant internet sites with large numbers of users the formulae for success appears to be about self and entertainment the new pillars of societies. If you can combine those within a site, you will be providing the formulae for the youth and others=success in site numbers.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Definitely 2009. That's when Angry Birds came out.
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Must view it from the global position - the US in particular was a decade ahead of us in numbers and usage. The issue is that it was MOBILE internet that changed usage in the way you describe. The internet is simply the underpinning technology on to which our mobile chums bolted their gizmos; very badly at first. The internet was of age when mobile finally got the message. Now it is ANYWHERE/ANYTIME internet usage that is 'coming of age'. Problem is that too will be overtaken by quantum computing, usable AI and body comms systems allied to a real internet of things, as Vint Cerf puts it. Have you heard his story about the day when the 'lost sock' calls home, gets the wife an tells her which hotel room it has been left in....
IPV6 will change the world and already is from the periphery inwards....
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Even then I would have to say that a lot of what we have seen in the 21st century is little more than fancy usage of web sites - Facebook is an interactive web site more akin to HOL than they would admit! Twitter depends on a web site at its core although the platform is utilising SMS rather than SMTP. All these had ealoier mogrifications in AOL's perfumed garden idea, WAYN (where are you now) Friends Reunited and more. When I was at UUNET Henry Ritson said in about 1997 that he was thinking how to create a web site across which people could communicate with each other. The WWW was about 4 years old! We giggled but hey.... It is a fascinating debate since if you took the internet away the mobile information/ messaging environment (outside of texting) would fail instantly, whereas if you took mobile out the internet would crunch happily onward.
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Permalink Reply by Lyn Weber on
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Very useful site which I dip in and out of. It's a great way to keep up with local views, news and initiatives. Credit must go to Hugh and Liz who moderate when needed. This helps to keep the site true. Of course there are others in the community who also speak out to keep the site's topics balanced and counter inappropriate or out of order behaviour. Long may the site continue as a voice for local people, opinions and open communities. Happy 10th birthday.
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Permalink Reply by Jemma on
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This is such a great site. It really makes me feels part of a community and on a practical level is just so useful in many ways. Long live HOL!
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