Why We Are Using Geekli.st -- Hyper Community

When I met Reuben Katz, it was during one of my walks through Rocketspace in San Francisco, where I usually go to see what new startups are being worked on by the intelligentsia and the hard-working developers of the world. 

Geekli.st, Katz's project, proved to be something of great interest. It's what I call a hyper community, a community that allows you to assemble in micro-detail content and relationships in categories related to specific tasks, or skills. Basically, it's a very intelligent repository for the conversations and community you need to have to make any impact on the web. 

Here's a screen shot of what Katz and I set up for Microsoft BizSpark, the community that offers startups support in things like software, investor relations, product offers and networking. 

It doesn't look like there is much on it, but that's for two reasons.  

We just started -- you can visit our page and friend us -- and because the action is not just on the main page. It's in the several channels that you can develop to find people you really want to talk to, people you want to hire, all aligned along skills. When you set up a page, you can tag your achievements in software, code, hardware, phone apps, whatever. And then you end up joining communities that are grouped in the database like this: 

You see where this is going, right? If I want to talk to someone who has a specific set of skills, I can dive into these communities and start digging around. But it gets better. You can curate content and post it to your page, attracting people who find it relevant. And you can start chats with people who are friends with you on the site. Give someone a lot of high fives? You might want to be friends with them. They may turn out to be a really great Windows Phone developer, and if the relationship proves copacetic, that Windows Phone developer may offer to make Geekli.st's first Windows Phone apps, for example. 

I like using this, because it helps me communicate very directly with someone about a certain set of skills. Give it a try.