New Social Network, Owned By It's Members - Zurker

Ok so this is not entirely to do with brewing but as brewers like to share on forums, twitter etc there is some relevance especially as social networks are becoming increasingly greedy and spammy.

Social Network Owned By It's Members

Having become very tired of the spam and bloat of facebook and constant battery of advertising, personal data use and other less obvious concerns, I have decided to keep a very close eye on new social networking site Zurker. Since the name first started cropping up on blogs, Tweets and stumbles earlier this year, there has been growing speculation and interest in the startup and it's continuing to grow.

The name Zurker at first struck me as a bit crap really but having now had a look around I can safely say that I am fascinated by it. Here’s why:

Zurker is owned by the members - me and, if you accept my invite and invite your friends,  you!

Here's your invite to Zurker.

To begin with, you have to be invited to become a member which gives it an element of exclusiveness and this in itself is not a new idea (Pinterest for example) but this does show you that Zurker wants their members to be serious about signing up.

They promise that all investment will come from the members in the form of vShares.

By inviting friends to join the network you earn a vShare. These don’t count as real shares until Zurker becomes a publicly traded company but it’s still a pretty good start and further incentive for members to put some time and effort into treating Zurker as a serious but still fun way to share with the important people in your life. You can also build networks with other people who share interests, hobbies etc - very similar to Google+ circles.

It's obvious Zurker wants you to refer as many friends as you can so that you get more shares, they don't hide this fact and there's a reward for doing so. How many friends invite people to use apps on FB for example, only to get nothing other than useless farmville credits but by doing that, send more revenue to the app developers.

On the subject of openess, Zurker also publishes it's revenue and out goings etc as Open Books for all to see, another bold move.

Encouraging people to invite new members allows the social network to expand, the bigger the better. You can also purchase vShares from as little as 1 euro (in my case) which at the moment is about £0.80 GBP or $1.29 (at today's exchange rates)... Not a lot considering the potential returns.

I am captivated by the idea of this startup and already set up my account.  I'm sick of social networks getting richer and richer by using our personal information and not giving a hoot about our privacy. It’s time for a big change in social networking and this could be just that.

You can find me on Zurker, sign up and say hi :)