By Peter JacksonThe Daily Northwestern

They’re the new kids on Evanston’s cyber block, and they would very much like to make your acquaintance.

Community Web site Evanstonnow.com and the Evanston chapter of Backfence.com are vying for locals’ attention. Their focus is on local stories – down to which stop lights are out – and user-created content, officials at both Web sites said.

As demand for online news grows, the Web sites expect to expand and challenge established Evanston news outlets such as the Evanston Review, the Evanston Roundtable and The Daily for readers and contributors.

Both sites offer news stories, photos and lists of upcoming events. Backfence aims to become entirely community-written, while much of Evanstonnow’s content is written by founder Bill Smith, who also writes for the Evanston Roundtable.

“Ideally, (Evanstonnow) will give people a good, solid briefing on the community and add their own voices to what’s happening,” said Smith, Medill ’71.

The Evanston chapter of Backfence, part of a suburban Chicago push the site undertook last month, is on track to register 10 percent of Evanston residents as users within six months, said Andy Vogel, the Web site’s Chicago general manager.

The Web site has branches in suburban Washington, Chicago and San Francisco.

“We look at media-overserved markets with large suburbs that have unique aspects,” Vogel said, explaining the Web site’s push into the North Shore. “Evanston has a lot of uniqueness.”

The Skokie branch launched last week. Branches in Arlington Heights, Northbrook and Glenview will debut in coming months, Vogel said.

“People are voyeurs – they like to see what others are doing before they dip their toes in,” Vogel said. “For every person that registers, there’s 50 reading what that person writes.”

Vogel won’t say how many registered users or unique visitors the site has, but he said community events will help the site get off the ground.

Last Saturday at the Evanston Farmer’s Market, Backfence representatives handed out reusable carbon-fiber grocery bags emblazoned with the site’s logo.

“We wanted to show (people) we care about the same issues they do,” Vogel said.

Backfence users focus on local concerns such as job fairs and flu shot locations rather than the political and opinion-based discourse Evanstonnow offers.

“We’re trying to get out of the posting (news) business,” Vogel said.

But Smith also wants to cultivate community involvement.

“It’s hard to know what’s going to generate reader response, but some of the issues certainly have,” he said.

Reach Peter Jackson at [email protected].