LifeBrixx: What Bricks Build Your Life?
When social networking first arrived on the web it was all about connecting with people you know, in order to share interesting content and experiences with each other. This form of networking encouraged the growth of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, enabling them to become ways in which people could easily interact on mass with their families, friends and followers.
However, before the birth of web 2.0 and the social media revolution, online communities used to be formed around a common set of interests or goals. This worked well in terms of fostering tight knit web based social groups, which in turn helped a great many people explore interests they may not otherwise have had the opportunity to delve into with their real life friends.
LifeBrixx.com are hoping to recapture some of that community driven spirit, by introducing a social networking platform which revolves around hobbies and interests, instead of people.
The way it works is that LifeBrixx ask members to identify what hobbies or interests they have through the use of ‘life bricks’. Each brick represents a mini-info page for the particular product, providing links to more in-depth information, with members able to leave comments as to how they feel about the subject. The life bricks themselves are created by the community, allowing members to promote any subject they feel has merit.
The life bricks members choose to subscribe to, show up in their profiles as graphic orientated lists, providing a quick glance visual map that lets other people see what kind of interests they have. When users find other members who share similar interests, getting in contact is as easy as sending a message or friends request through LifeBrixx to get the ball rolling.
Users can register for the site as a standalone application, or alternatively, people can connect to LifeBrixx using either their Facebook or Twitter accounts. No matter how you choose to access the site, your personal information is kept hidden away from the eyes of other users (apart from your name and selected life bricks), so you don’t need to worry about people being able to hunt you down on other social platforms without you having given them your details.
Its a nice idea, but is it too late? Facebook has Fan Pages, Twitter has hash-tags and specific topic driven forum communities still exist. It certainly isn’t that difficult to use existing social media platforms to find other people with similar interests, so is there really a need for a service like LifeBrixx? Personally I’m not entirely convinced. However, it may well prove to be popular amongst people who don’t want to publicly acknowledge their hobbies on Facebook or Twitter, so it will be interesting to see how LifeBrixx develops as a business over the coming months.
Post image by gualtiero
