As we’ve mentioned before, Central District News is a beta testing site for the Neighborlogs software that we’re building here at Instivate (is that enough brand names for ya?).  Our goal is to make it easy for anyone to set up a similar site for their own neighborhood, with all the same features and tools that you see here.

So far we’ve been in a private beta, and have brought other sites onto the platform slowly as we’ve worked to finish up the self-service advertising system and other core features.   And with the end of the private beta period in sight, it was time to expand our team and bring on some new talent that can help drive the business side of things.

So today we’re very excited to announce that we’ve hired Justin Carder of Capitol Hill Seattle fame as our new VP of Business Development.  As you may have noticed, he switched CHS to our platform back in May, and he was such a great beta tester and giving us so much great feedback, we basically had no other choice than to hire him so that we could take full advantage of his talents.

Justin’s experience goes back to the stone ages of the neighborhood blogging world when he first started CHS way back in 2006.   And most recently he used his knowledge of the space to spearhead a similar effort at Marchex.   And he has many other talents too, having previously served as a Product Manager at Microsoft and having been on the ground floor of the internet news world when MSNBC first got started back in 1996.

One of Justin’s primary responsibilities will be to get more bloggers signed up on the platform.  So if you live outside the CD and have been wishing your neighborhood had one of these, send us a note and Justin will be in touch.   Or maybe you’ve already got a placeblog and want to  stop worrying about the technical issues of your platform or you want an upgrade to our custom mapping, video, and advertising features.   Either way, we’d love to have you join us.

And for everyone else, stay tuned in coming weeks as we leverage Justin’s horsepower to allow us to roll out new features and other associated coolness.