“It’s wildly speculative to wonder if a true peer-to-peer Craigslist for service — one that connected people together, creating new social opportunities, not just plugging people into existing ones — could work, but that’s the fun part.

“Without carrying the metaphor too far, let’s consider how a service model inspired by Craigslist could succeed, and why it might not:”

Read the rest here.

Her love of Fluevogs demonstrates her excellent fashion sense.

Drop by and say hi!

It turns out these committees are real and happening across Tampa to deal with the lawns of abandoned homes. Rodney Thrash at the St. Pete Times looks at how neighbors are coming together to maintain their neighborhoods.

“Folks in New Tampa’s Heritage Isles and Wesley Chapel’s Bridgewater are bypassing their homeowner groups and cleaning things up themselves.”

…

Two months ago, stay-at-home mom Angelina Carter created an online message board for Bridgewater. “And pretty immediately,” she said, “people were saying, ‘Hey, let’s get together. This property’s a jungle.’ “

As the gifting season approaches this is a handy guide to keep nearby so you can help support local businesses.

This issue also reflects New Heights Magazine’s one-year anniversary. Congratulations! Over the last year they have made tremendous strides, every issue is a marked improvement, and their website is developing into a wonderful resource for Tampa.

There’s a lot more here, including knitted street signs, and scarves for statuary.

Today I checked out the site only to learn that they require RealPlayer to watch the webcasts.

Unfortunately, I’m not about to download any RealMedia players. RealPlayer has a long, long history of installing adware and spyware. I don’t even know if they still do it, but my experience with their player has been so unpleasant I’m not even going to give them another try.

Dear Hillsborough County Government IT. Please do not make citizens rely on crappy adware-infested media players to watch your webcasts. Thank you.

“Sometimes seemingly small acts have an impact bigger than you ever imagined. Take family spending. You may think you’re merely fulfilling your family’s wants or needs when you shop or dine out. Think again. The choice of where you spend your money makes a big difference to your community. Spending your money with locally-owned independent businesses puts it to work directly helping your local economy - just one way your community benefits from its independent businesses. They use goods and services of other locally-owned independent businesses–re-circulating your money about 3.5 times longer locally than if you spend it at a chain store. This creates greater community health and prosperity.

“Now imagine the impact on your community if everyone shopped locally owned. You can stop imagining and help make it a reality. On November 22, communities around America will be urged to “unchain” for just that one day-to maximize the impact of their dollars and inject potentially millions more into the local economy through joining other residents to do their shopping, dining out and other
business only with locally-owned independent businesses.”

At Sticks of Fire Tommy takes a look at the incredible shrinking Tampa Tribune. Should we start taking bets on how long before the Trib shutters its doors?

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LitBrit posts a letter the Organic Consumers Association is sending to President-elect Obama about the importance of organic farming. (In related news, but not from this post, it turns out that Obama reads Michael Pollan.)

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Wade Tatangelo points to 20 Great Concert Venues in the Tampa Bay area.

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Alex Sink looks to be setting the stage for a run for Florida Governor. But, the Buzz reports that her Facebook page has been posted by a fan, and not by her.

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And for those of you still craving more political horseracing - Who will challenge Senator Mel Martinez? Betty Castor? Robert Wexler? Chris Korge? Could he face a Republican challenge in the primary?

Thanks to everyone who continues reading and sending in suggestions.