Who Is Using Popularise? Young Adults on H Street

• February 3, 2012
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by Shilpi Paul

Popularise’s test site at 1351 H Street NE

Popularise recently shared some data with UrbanTurf regarding their user base, which topped 1,000 during the last month.

We wrote about Popularise, the DC-based start-up that aims to be the Wikipedia of real estate development, when it first emerged last year. The site wants to offer a way for residents to decide what retail options to put in their own neighborhoods and give developers the ability to poll the community directly.

Here’s how it works: developers posts vacant and potential projects on the site, then residents log in to contribute ideas, check out the short list of developable buildings, and vote on what they’d like to see there. Popularise founders have been testing their concept in recent months with a property at 1351 H Street NE, which they also own. Right now, the top pick is local clothing designer DURKL’s flagship store.

So, who is using the polling mechanism? So far, Popularise is most “popular” with the younger set. According to their user data, a plurality are in the 25-34 age range, with less than half as many in the 35-44 range. About 25 percent live in the 20002 area code, which includes areas like Capitol Hill, Eckington and H Street Corridor — not surprising, given the current project — with the rest living in places like Shaw, LeDroit Park, Truxton Circle, Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights. You can see Popularise’s analysis of the data here. As far as their favorite hang-outs, Popularise users frequent bars like Little Miss Whiskey’s, The Pug and Rock and Roll Hotel.

The tool wasn’t necessarily designed to be a young adult’s take on development; in order to be persuasive to developers, Popularise at its best will need to be a voice of the full community. We’ll see how the user demographics evolve as they continue to expand.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/who_is_using_popularise_young_adults_on_h_street/5058

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