Do you like to ride a hot air balloon? Do you spend your free time playing strategy games? Or maybe you are a fan ofanimeAnd you can’t find someone to share your hobby with? Scientists from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) have developedGeonick, asocial network that allows users to find people who share the same interests, hobbies or concerns. This “affinity search engine”, as its creators describe it, aims to show the path of what will be? The next generation of social networks ?, defending the existence of a private space, and committing not to trade with the personal data of users .
The application, an idea of the Catalan entrepreneur Pau Jené, incorporates the latest technology in geolocation, dynamic maps and semantic web, a task that has been developed in collaboration with two teams from the UPC: the inLab of the Faculty of Informatics of Barcelona (FIB ) and the Security Team for the coordination of emergencies in telematic networks (esCERT-UPC). Standard programming tools have been used, together with applications developed by the DAta MAnagement group (DAMA-UPC), such as the DEX software, an information exploration system in the form of a network or graph.
Geonick se define como “an independent social network”, which is not connected to Facebook or Twitter or any other social network, and the data of the users and the content they generate cannot be tracked by search engines such as Google. The applicationhas started working in beta phaseTherefore, the first 5,000 people to register will be able to enjoy all the services for one year. In a first stage, geolocation services will be active only in Spain, but the company’s business plan contemplates being able to open up to other countries shortly.
