Welcome to our blog site for FriendUp.com. The purpose of this blog, is to provide Company updates, as well as to offer some views and banterings on related subjects.
First, to offer a background:
FriendUp is a concept that was conceived back in August of 2010, and went live at the end of April, 2011.
I had spent some time traveling prior to then, and a question came into my mind:
There are approximately 6 billion people in the world. Of these 6 billion people, are there, say, 10 – 20 people that I don’t know, who I should probably meet? Who would these people be? And how would I connect with them? The ultimate goal of FriendUp is to provide an answer this question.
The mechanics behind FriendUp are as follows:
It is a user-defined hierarchy of human interests (Interest Map). Each person using the site selects and rates the interests that are important to them. If an interest doesn’t exist in the hierarchy, a person can suggest it.
Our system then connects people to others, based on the total amount of shared interests + the depth of each interest. The idea being, if there were 1,000,000 people, who would be the 12 people who share the most commonality with you?
When we meet new people, one thing we look at, is common ground. Common ground creates a bridge to the soul of another. The FriendUp Interest Map is meant to be this bridge. And being that it is user-defined, it is a bridge without limits.
That said, just because you share a ton of interests with someone, still doesn’t mean you are going to get along. You will have plenty to talk about, and plenty of perspectives to share. I suspect, your minds might be wired in a similar fashion. As a result – for the connections that do become friends, those friendships should be based on some very deep and substantive components. And in my opinion, being able to forge such connections in a highly efficient manner is currently still a vast, untapped frontier of the evolution of the internet.
While Interests are the core component of connecting people, we also have some filters as well – that provide further contexts to the connections. Currently they can be applied towards age range, gender, and location preference. In the future we plan to add further filters on an as-needed basis.
FriendUp is meant to be a way to meet extremely like-minded people. As we have more and more people who join and map their interests in increasing levels of depth, the results should become more and more interesting and valuable for all who use the site.
It is also important to note, the intention behind this site is not meant to be a dating site. Its simply supposed to be an environment through which you can meet many interesting people.
As time progresses, our ideas and features will as well. We look forward to sharing with you what we have learned, and deeply appreciate feedback that you may have.
Sincerely,
Paul Grossman
CEO, Founder FriendUp.com / Globevision Media LLC
