From the beginning, rBlock realized that our email inboxes were inundated with too much to handle, leave alone read and digest. And this trend has only further deteriorated.

So despite the tens of thousands of block postings and comments generated by residents over the last 3 years, we have continually fine-tuned rBlock’s email update system under the principle that less is more. As a result, during the first two years residents on rBlock received an average of two scheduled updates per week, and only one per week during the third year.

Under our current default setting, residents receive a Daily Update email if there are new postings nearby within the last 24 hours. They can change the default to receive a Weekly Update (on Fridays) if they prefer to receive updates once per week. Most have kept the default setting and receive about two updates per week. Recently our block participation rates (views, postings and comments) improved significantly. This has increased the value of these updates, and is perhaps the reason for their slightly higher frequency compared to last year.