Experience Project

Experience Project
Type Private
Founded April 2006 (2006-04)
Headquarters San Francisco, California
Key people Armen Berjikly, Founder & CEO
Neil Sheth, CTO
Erik Darby
Slogan(s) Everything you Ever Wanted to Know About Life
Website ExperienceProject.com
Alexa rank Decrease 9,751 (April 2016)[1]
Type of site Social network service
Advertising Google, Adobe TagManager, ScoreCard Research Beacon, DoubleClick, AdSense, Banner ads, Referral marketing, Cause marketing
Registration Required
Launched April 2007
Current status Suspended

Experience Project was a free social networking website consisting of various online communities. It operated from 2007 until 2016.

Members submitted "experiences"—personal stories, confessions, blogs, groups, photos, and videos. As of April 2014, the company had collected over 37 million of these "experiences".[2] Users could form or join communities based on their experiences and/or interests, and interact with other members with shared experiences, either online or in their physical region.

In March 2016, Experience Project announced that it would suspend operations indefinitely - the existing content of the site would remain publicly available, but members would no longer be able to post new content or access their accounts. The site was suspended on 21 April.

Description

The nodes of the network were "life experiences", such as battling depression or surviving a divorce. Members who listed experiences in common were automatically connected. Reversing the "f.r.i.e.n.d.s." concept of traditional social networks, in which connections are made between known individuals who then may or may not share experiences, on the Experience Project, connections were made based on shared experiences, which may or may not lead to meeting and/or knowing the individuals who've had the experiences. The site emphasized anonymity to promote conversations unhindered by fear of recognition or embarrassment.[3]

Introduced publicly in October 2013, the site featured members sharing stories about their life experiences, which were grouped in general categories (such as "Health" or "Dating and Relationships") and more specifically ("Ageing", "First Love"). As members shared experiences, they were linked with others who have those experiences in common. Themes of the site included the concepts of "You are not Alone" and "Discover New People Like You".[4] Submitted content was also 'policed' by its own users with little monitoring or interference, which, however, could result in heavy censorship.

The site also included blogs, trivia games for helping animals, confessions, surveys, mood and wellness journaling, and a search engine that matched a mood to a particular song. It had a chat available. Experiences posted by others could be commented on too.

Illegal nudity, copyrighted stories or pics were not allowed.

Experience Project was used by 15+ Million People. Members had the ability to purchase items like images or gestures, cards, etc. and send them to other members.

In March 2016 it was announced that Experience Project will be closing for the long term on April 21st 2016. New registrations or the posting of new content was suspended, freezing the current library of experiences. Reasons cited for the closure included difficulties maintaining user privacy, challenges complying with new laws, malicious community members and general trends moving away from long-form content. [5]

Leadership

Armen Berjikly was founder and CEO of the community, with executive leadership including Neil Sheth and Julio Vasconcellos.

Origins

Experience Project was started by Armen Berjikly in late 2004. After a close friend's diagnosis with multiple sclerosis Berjikly created This is MS, an online community for MS patients and caregivers focused on inspiring hope in patients through knowledge of current research. As This is MS grew, Berjikly identified that the key benefit to patients was not the editorialized content, but the relationships that formed between people who understood each other through the shared experience of having multiple sclerosis. Experience Project extended the ability to connect with people who understood each other to all experiences, and thus, all people.

General media coverage

Notes

  1. ↑ "Experienceproject.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2016-04-08.
  2. ↑ "Experience Project Database". Experience Project. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  3. ↑ "Deep Dark Secrets on the World Wide Web". UCLA Daily Bruin. Retrieved 2007-10-09.
  4. ↑ "Anonymity on the Net". Forbes. Retrieved 2007-10-09.
  5. ↑ "Until We Meet Again...". Experience Project. Retrieved 2016-04-08.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, May 01, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.