One company unites millions

One company unites millions
By Vladimir Shvorin , the jewish Advocate Staff
People often use online dating
and friend-finding services when
they don’t have the time or interest
to meet people the old-fashioned
way. A new website,
www.copenda.com, is improving
on this time-saving idea by providing
a comprehensive search
agent that encompasses many social
websites, and allows users to
avoid the inherent shortcomings
of having to plod through those
sites one-by-one.
But don’t mistake Copenda for
another social network. It’s a social
index search website. Users don’t
upload pictures and manage their
pictures through the site. Instead,
Copenda operates much like
“Google” for example, by searching
through their database of preexisting
profiles of people from various
social networks.
Currently, Copenda users are
able to search for any person on
several networks including: Facebook,
MySpace, Hi5, Plentyoffish,
Match and Friendster.
Copenda is the first search engine
that allows people to view profiles
from multiple social networking
and dating sites in one
place. Members can filter through
general preferences, such as gender,
interests, age, as well as location,
and the profiles are aggregated
into one location.
While Copenda is still in beta
form, the site has gone through numerous
refinements since it was
launched as a novel tool in December
2007 by co-founders David
Kariv, Tal Cohen and Gadi Richman.
The duo of Kariv and Cohen
came up with the idea behind the
website while brainstorming one
day. After their plan was conceived,
they contacted Richman to provide
funding for development.
“Through discussions between
me and Tal [Cohen], the idea of
Copenda was born,” explained
Kariv. “We thought, ‘There is nothing
like this on the Web.’ We decided
that we should create something
to fill this void. Then we
called Gadi, who we thought could
financially support us so we could
get off the ground. He liked the
idea and decided to support us. Before
Copenda, you couldn’t find
anything like it.”
Aside from the large-scale
changes planned for the site,
Copenda has been steadily finetuning
and adding features. The
newly added “Contact me” feature
enables users to connect with social
networking users directly from
Copenda. With the “Claim my profile”
feature, users can manually
add and associate existing profiles
with Copenda’s search engine,
centralizing all of their relevant social
networking accounts in one location
called “My Copenda.” In addition
to these recently added features,
the website is developing
other unique features.
“We’re still looking to incorporate
a mobile device version of
Copenda, which will be very useful
for people that are looking to
search anywhere, anytime,” Kariv
said. “People could use it, not only
in the dating field, but to find
friends, gamers, businesses, etc.
For example, if you wanted to find
somebody to play a videogame online
with you, you could find the
type of gamer you’re searching
for.”
The benefits of Copenda are
especially apparent to those interested
in finding people with certain
features. For instance, if a
person was interested in dating
on the internet, but only wanted
to seek-out Jewish candidates,
they could do so.
“If you wanted to, you could
search strictly by religion to find
people who are just Jewish,” Kariv
explained. “You can search for all
of the Jewish people across the
networks that are included in
Copenda’s index. And you will
find the exact type of person
you’re looking for.”
Copenda is currently looking
for partnerships in the U.S. to better
establish and develop the business.
Still, without any funds budgeted
for marketing or public relations,
the website is growing strictly
through word-of-mouth. Each
week, thousands of users frequent
the site, and this number is rapidly
growing.
“I met somebody in the States
a few months ago, and he actually
started talking to me about
Copenda,” said Kariv. “He didn’t
know I was a founder. He sent me
links to our website, praising it. It
was a funny and special moment
when it happened.”
To visit Copenda, go to
http://www.copenda.com/.
To contact David Kariv, e-mail info[at]copenda.com.