One of the best things about a community like Lawrence – home to a big university, some tech businesses of note and a pretty strong DIY ethic in general – is the number of tech-savvy folks who enjoy playing with new toys, tools and media just because they can. As regards the social sphere, this means we’ve got great town assets in the form of Social Media Club of Lawrence and its on-campus sibling, Social Media Club at KU.

Both clubs meet on a regular basis to discuss new trends in social media, ways that individuals and businesses can integrate up-and-coming technologies and, in the case of Social Media Club of Lawrence, specifics on how local nonprofits and other key players in the area can boost their presence in the social realm. (If you’re interested in learning more, weekly breakfasts are held Wednesdays at 7:30 at Mirth Café in downtown Lawrence.)

The club also features regular presentations by area social media-oriented businesses, and last week a few of us from The World Company and Mediaphormedia – the development arm behind our online technologies – had the privilege of discussing our Marketplace local business directory sites. This came on the heels of another presentation regarding location-based media – that one from the Kansas City area director from Yelp – and it was really interesting to see the areas in which our services overlapped, complemented each other or went in different directions.

Another nice thing about the Lawrence Social Media Club is that everyone’s got an opinion, and isn’t afraid to share it. We definitely didn’t go in to our presentation with an agenda of talking up Marketplace – if we’ve done our jobs right, the site speaks for itself – and even if we had, folks would have told us what they think of our work anyway, good, bad or otherwise. When our hour was up, we had (in addition to bellies full of Mirth’s coffee) brains full of ideas about what Marketplace does well and what it can do better.

Only trouble was, we only had an hour – so while we’ve got Marketplace on the brain, we’d like to ask for your thoughts. What do you use Marketplace for? Anything you like? Anything you’d like to see done differently? Drop me an [email][6] or let us know in the comments below. As with everything we do, it’s a work continuously in progress – and your input helps us steer that progress in the right direction!

[6]: mailto:jschilling@ljworld.com