Nextdoor reboots app to power daily life
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Nextdoor has launched a redesigned app in an attempt for the 14-year-old neighborhood social network to serve more as a daily utility.
Why it matters: As trust in media erodes and online platforms feel more impersonal, Nextdoor is betting on the value of hyperlocal information.
Driving the news: The relaunch centers on three features — News, Alerts and Faves — that align with Nextdoor's vision to help people stay informed, safe and smart.
- News showcases local stories from more than 3,500 vetted publishers across the U.S., U.K. and Canada, including Axios, The London Standard and The Toronto Star. The app doesn't host full stories but shows headlines and photos and links out to publishers' sites.
- Alerts provide real-time updates on weather, traffic and other local safety concerns and service interruptions from partners like Samdesk and Weather.com. The app color codes risk level (green, yellow, red) and shows neighborhood discussion.
- Faves highlights local recommendations, based on neighborhood conversations and distilled into AI-generated summaries, such as family-friendly hikes and trusted electricians.
- The app also features a cleaner feed, a news carousel and AI-generated prompts to spark discussion.
The big picture: Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia — the co-founder who stepped down as CEO in 2018 and then came back as CEO in 2024 — attributed his return and the relaunch to the company's flagging stock price and the idea that the product's potential was "not being realized."
- Nextdoor's stock price has dropped more than 80% since it went public via a SPAC in 2021 and has traded under $2 for most of 2025. The relaunch aims to deepen engagement among its existing 100 million users and attract more advertisers.
- "There's a gap between how many people have heard of [Nextdoor], use it and rely on it," Tolia told Axios. "We want to be in that rely on it camp, and we identified that the way to do that was to build a better product."
- "This is a new Nextdoor," Tolia added. "We've never had publisher content before. We've never had an alert service. We've never had integration with an AI agent."
What's next: Tolia said this relaunch serves as a foundation for future product updates.
- Potential features include expanding access to Faves beyond local users so that travelers can see tips, and integrating small business more directly by adding actions like book an appointment. Tolia said it could be valuable to add video to Nextdoor.
- Nextdoor plans to launch new ad products later this year, including ads associated with Alerts.
