Been hearing a lot about social sharing networks like Facebook and Pinterest lately? There is a new kid in town to help in making your socially shared content more relevant and targeted at the folks who are more interested into your genre of products/content.
 
According to the creators of CircleMe - "Rather than catching dust, the likes users “shelve” on CircleMe help them connect with like-minded people, track related news and trade curated recommendations and future plans with their social circles. The service lets you import your favorites from other services, add or remove items from your library, and feature all your interests in a visually compelling way."











 









Users can start "Trusting" people who have shared some content on the website and in future the user will be shown all items shared by the "Trusted" users. You can curate any content from a website directly through a javascript based "Circle It" bookmarklet directly from your browser or use CircleMe iPhone app which is available on the iTunes app store for free. The shared content can be "Liked" or added as a "ToDo" by other users. Users can also add suggestions and comments to the content shared by you.

A special feature that CircleMe has introduced is the "Plant This" feature wherein users can Plant an item at a location based on the GPS data on the mobile phone or using a map in a web browser. This could be anything from a song in a music shop that you want to share with a friend or a book you like at a bookstore that you again would like other like minded people to know about; that said the possibilities are just infinite. All this makes for a very engaging sharing experience.

Giuseppe who is one of the co-founders at CircleMe was good enough to talk to us about their beliefs in the concept and where they see it going in the future. Read on to find out more.



Giuseppe, please introduce yourself to our readers.

Hello. I am the CEO of CircleMe, and came up with the idea of creating CircleMe a bit more than a year ago with my business partner Erik Lumer.


What was the inspiration to come up with CircleMe? What is the concept behind CircleMe? 

CircleMe is an inspirational way to collect all the things a person is passionate about, and discover new interesting ones. The idea behind it is to leverage today’s available technology and the power of the social Internet to create an incredibly powerful engine for serendipic discovery of interests. We realized that today people express often “likes” and similar intentions, but do not get real benefits from these interactions: we wanted to offer something more meaningful to them.


What intrigues me most about CircleMe is the 'Planting' feature, can you please elaborate more on it?

Yes, absolutely. On CircleMe people not only can express what they like or what they would like to discover as their next interest (which we define as a “ToDo”), but then can also ‘plant’ any item of interest, in any physical place, for anyone to discover. Some examples: you could plant your favorite novel for everyone to discover when they enter the library around the corner of your house; someone could plant a romantic song to be received only by his girlfriend, which she would discover when nearing the specific location, etc. The applications are actually infinite. This opens up incredible opportunities for people to discover interesting topics or content when they least expected, but somehow pertinent because these are dedicated to them, and to the specific place where they are.

Furthermore, what is extremely exciting about this, if we think at the long-term vision, is that fact that we have created a system to associate real (and interesting) content to any physical location in the world. We believe that this could be very disruptive for the industry.


















From an attractive layout to interesting features, CircleMe is a complete package in itself. What benefits does it offer its users as compared to other social networking websites? 

Well, it is really a different play compared to other social networks (and should not even be considered a substitute). To give you a clear example, we focus on the connection between an individual and his or her passions as opposed to the people he or she knows. Of course, as a consequence of the engagement on the site users might establish connections with like-minded people, but the focus remains on connecting people to the things they are passionate about

Apart from the web-based platform, CircleMe is also available as an Iphone app; are you planning to support other mobile platforms, for e.g. Android?

Absolutely, and many people are waiting for it. We have in our plans to develop an Android app as soon as we feel certain that what we have done with the iPhone app is up to the standard of quality that our users expect and deserve. We see great usage coming from the iPhone app, and so it is clear Circlers are starting to see the great potential of serendipic discovery when in a mobile state.



























What are your future plans for CircleMe? Are you working on integrating any cool new features? 

The future of CircleMe will certainly be very much focused on boosting features that help people find out about cool and unexpected new interests that relate (directly or not) to the ones that a person has. Furthermore, we certainly want to provide valuable services to people who have expressed their likes on the platform, and this often is done by working on integration with other content sources or by having the community help each other, through crowd-sourcing. You can expect continuous improvement on both feature-sets.


What is the fondest memory that the co-founder(s) have of the process of conceiving CircleMe to having it up and running ?

Personally, I have so many memorable moments that will always treasure. The days we brainstormed about all the potential that such a platform would have; the first time I read a tweet of a user who discovered a new singer thanks to CircleMe; the night at a restaurant a random person (who did not know what I did) told me about CircleMe and how it helped him be in touch with other people passionate about his favorite video-game; and many more. Selecting one would really be impossible.


When not working on your start-up ideas, what activities do you personally enjoy doing? What do you find most relaxing?

I keep myself very active and busy, but I have a strong passion which grew on me in the last years, and that now is filling many hours of my free time: acting (in theatre). In the last years I have taken it more seriously, and currently I put up 2 to 3 shows per year (as an amateur, of course). Even though acting cannot be defined exactly as a “relaxing activity”, it is so involving and intense that it allows me to disconnect from the day-to-day work, and this helps to relax at the end.











































What are on the top shelves of your inspiration library right now? This can be anything from blogs, books and magazines to vintage catalogues/manuals, etc.

I would mention three, even though the list could go for a while. As a site, I find TheNextWeb insightful, balanced and adjourned. As a blog, I would certainly include AVC by Fred Wilson. As a book, I continuously refer back to some books that helped me a lot in my profession (and not always relating to online) which are TheGoal, TheTippingPoint and TheWisdomOfCrowds. As a final (fun) mention, I brought to the office a book I bought many years ago (1994) called Rider’s Official Internet Yellow Pages: I think this book represents in a way what we are trying to do with CircleMe, which is helping people discover valuable services and content without having to be aware of their existence, like a Yellow Pages book would imply.


What advice would you like to offer to aspiring/budding entrepreneurs?

First and foremost, if you want to innovate, do not believe entirely people who give you advise: if they do that, often it cannot lead to true innovation, as such a thing is not predictable. ☺


Thank you Giuseppe for taking the time for this interview. We wish you and Circle Me the very best for the future. 


You can learn more at: CircleMe