Students at Ohio University will be the first to test a new social media website created by two Ohio students.
Shareit.me, a social network based on sharing specific interests, launches on Monday for a beta test, exclusively for students at OU.
Colin Pacelli, a junior studying advertising at OU, and Matt Morris, a junior studying computer science at the University of Akron, founded the website after becoming annoyed by unnecessary content on Facebook and other social media websites.
“It’s all about sharing your life and the things you love to do.” Morris said. “Discovering others with great interests and connecting with the ones you want.”
Morris and Pacelli said they began working on the social network hoping to make it a site for people to create new friendships.
Each user on Shareit will be able to choose five interests that will allow them to connect and share with other users that have similar interests.
“It allows users to be open about their interests and who they are as a person,” Pacelli said.
Shareit features many unique new ways to interact with old and new friends and was designed based on simplicity for mature users.
Like Facebook, users can “friend” others but also have the option to “follow” for certain activities, similar to Twitter, Pacelli said.
For example, if one of your friends went on a summer trip to Hawaii, you could choose to “follow” their Hawaii photo album or event page and get updates on their trip, a feature Pacelli said he hopes will allow people to better control the type of content they see from their friends.
Pacelli said that they already have close to 1,500 users planning join when the site officially opens to the public at a later date.
Amber Crosbie, a sophomore studying forensic chemistry, thinks there might already be too many social networks available to the public.
“I’m already part of three social networks and joining another seems ridiculous,” she said.
Other students feel that it might be time for a change.
“Facebook has been around for a long time,” said Dale Corneliussen, a sophomore studying media studies. “If a new site came about that was amazing it could work.”
Pacelli believes the ease of the site will help it succeed.
“The simplicity of the design and the new features we offer will draw people to the site and hopefully make them want to stay,” he said. “It’s something new to offer people and people are bored with Facebook.”
cs486110@ohiou.edu
