Connecting with one another through what we think

In the spring of 2007, we started to fiddle with social networking. We connected with some old friends got “poked a couple times, but after a little while, we wondered “What’s the point?”. We talk to our friends all the time, and if we lost touch with someone, it was for a reason. We had to ask why this “networking” thing had so little to do with meeting new people.

We reminded ourselves that although some friendships are due to circumstance, most good ones allow us to share ideas with like-minds. We started to noodle with the idea of exchanging ideas and forming connections with people who had similar interests. Soon enough, we were up to our eyeballs in ideas and prototypes for an online environment entirely built around conversation and debate.

What this means for MakeFive users

Geography is becoming less consequential. Although your 65 year old neighbor may be friendly, you may have little to share with her. On the other hand, there are people who you've never physically met, who share the same ideas as you.

This is what MakeFive is about: an easy to use venue that gets us all talking with one another and making new connections. Users create simple “top 5” lists for anything that they are interested in, and then share their selections with others. This proves a nice entry point to discussions and connecting with like-minds.

We believe our users to be from many walks of life. Here, you can find like-minds from around the corner, or around the world. Perhaps you'll share some thoughts on a good band, or maybe you'll debate politics. What MakeFive users get out of all of this is a little meaningful fun. We've like to see MakeFive as the "thinking person's social network."

Corporate structure

MakeFive is a smashLAB initiative. We are a privately-held Canadian interactive services firm run by good friends Eric Shelkie and Eric Karjaluoto. We employ less people than your local laundromat, and Eric's mom is still on staff; nevertheless, in the past years, we've have worked on a number of fulfilling projects including Design Can Change (an effort to unify designers to affect climate change), the shiftCMS web management system, and the award winning design blog ideasonideas. We are keen believers in experimenting with new ideas, grounded in pragmatic thinking.

With MakeFive, we want to help you use the web as a truly social tool. This isn't a place to collect friends; it's a way of making real connections. Take five minutes, join up, and make a list. It's easy, albeit somewhat addictive, fun. We look forward to swapping some ideas with you!

Strange fives

(A little trivia about smashLAB and MakeFive)

• The idea for MakeFive came to us in May (fifth month of the year)
• smashLAB has five staff members
• Every staff member has exactly five toes on each of our feet
• MakeFive is our fifth major self-directed project
• We are in suite #405
• The site's initial development process took five months