A new social networking site developed in Vancouver aims to narrow down your online network to people within a 20-minute walk.
Catering to high-density cities, Kinjoe.com – named after the Japanese term for neighbourhood – wants to help people discover neighbours who have common interests.
By plugging in your address, which is never shown publicly, you can even find out who might be living in your apartment building.
"It takes on the problem that online social networking is creating," said Emir Aboulhosn, founder of Kinjoe.com.
"They're creating a sense of loneliness and higher levels of feeling isolated because they're maintaining their social connections through a keyboard.
"Kinjoe, on the other hand, creates an easy way to discover who lives around you and someone who you would potentially want to connect with."
The site opened up to Vancouver and Victoria residents last week after about 500 people in the Yaletown neighbourhood became the test subjects for the new platform.
People used the site during the test run to organize tennis games, reading clubs, neighbourhood get-togethers, and even a place to discuss casino expansion in Yaletown, he said.
So far, about 1,000 people are on the website and Aboulhosn hopes for a few thousand more by the end of the month.
The founder of Kinjoe doesn't expect this technology will replace established networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, but said it's a different type of place to meet online.
"If two people connect through Kinjoe and end up becoming friends on Facebook, for us that's a measure of success, because we actually created a connection."
