austinchang

We are also building out features to make it much easier to upload single photos, albums, videos, as well as tag users, invite friends from FB into the group, etc... baby steps.

please create one and share the URL!

Really? Post it on the Fridge. Put it on the Fridge. Like the fridge at home growing up where you mom would put gold stars on your homework, shopping list, pictures of weddings, messages? There is a fridge in every house, dorm, frat, apartment and it is usually the one place where stuff is posted and shared for everyone but specifically for that group.

agreed and that is what we are trying to build. something that is a super simple execution of a core notion and build out from there. email is great for direct communication but social conversation naturally branches and add in lots of folks it gets unmanageable to track.

soon we are going to integrate tighter into email so people can have the convenience of replying via email if they want but also to be able to go to the site for a richer experience.

Braintrust seems to be more company and enterprise centric which is a great market to grow in. Dropbox doesn't have the social component, group feed, and conversation around the media. Soon enough we will allow people to upload any media type and share it with the group and perhaps partner with a dropbox or dropio around hosting and serving the files.

However we are going to stay focused on the socialization aspect of groups and try to address this notion of simple, private, and/or temporary. Definitely more to come!

Thanks! This was a preview version to get the site out and bang at it. We have a new version that will address a lot of these interface on ramp issues.

Yes! We actually have a new site in development that will include an API to allow for users to leverage Fridge groups and their applications.

Exactly and thanks for the feedback!

We have tried to make it super easy to start and join a Fridge. Just enter your email to create a group. To invite folks send them the group invite URL. All they have to do to join that group is click on it and enter their email and create a password. Hopefully this is a first step in making it dead simple to bring folks in to join or crate any group that needs a bit more privacy or is just a temporary network around an event so you don't have to friend people on facebook.

That is the cat and mouse problem we are trying to solve. For private networks what is the immediate value if no one is on it?

We have tried to make the sign up and group creation as simple as possible so any event or social gathering can be another use for the fridge. A crazy frat party, potluck dinner, family vacation. anything where you have a temporary social network for people to come together around, start socializing and if it dies ok. but if you make a few new relationships and create a new group or two with them that is the goal...

We know we need better tools to bring people in. But we are noticing once people are in with a few friends and groups they love our platform.

Thanks! We have a few new site coming out soon that "polishes" this up a bit but still keeps it super simple. nothing wrong with a gradient or two?

At this moment it is on the list! We had a file export to download all media by post or by group which we are bringing back to include all posts.

Hopefully we don't go down before we get that up...!

Well the invite links for each group can be reset or killed at anytime and the group owner can kick out anyone that doesn't belong at anytime.

Like i said earlier these groups are like a themed house party or potluck where you only invite your friends you know are interested in the theme and trust them to bring a good dish and not jump on the furniture.

That is a great suggestion and we just hacked one together. When someone wants to leave the demo group (too much spam or tired of the group) anyone can leave a group in Group settings and click leave group.

Thanks for the suggestion!

We aren't changing any privacy settings with a bait and switch approach but in fact every group that someone is part of is something they either were invited to and joined explicitly or started themselves and invited others. every group is still private and you only know about the groups that you are in.

As more of these groups are formed we aren't exposing what groups you are in to other people joining. In fact other people joining don't know who else is on the platform unless they are in a group with them.

So this social graph that is being built isn't based on friend requests that have little inherent value but on the different groups you are part of that are based on specific relationships.

We made it super easy to invite friends into a Fridge group. Every group has a private invite URL that you can distribute via any one of those platforms. User click it, create a password, and they are in. The group can be small for a few friends or large for an event. Context stays within the group.

Why would you use the Fridge instead of what you are doing right now? With Facebook most people don't really know how to customize their privacy settings and you have no idea how all your friends have it set. If someone shares something with you how do you know their settings aren't public?

And using email has it's own set of problems like long reply alls. Subject matter gets lost in branched conversations. People get added or deleted along the way and emails get lost in a sea of email bankruptcy.

We aren't solving that problem but trying to provide a better platform to interact in groups.

Yes. This is how we designed the Fridge. Each group is an intimate circle of people coming together around a shared context. Could be very large like an event or could be small like a family network.

But because each is separate and you can communicate freely within each group and not worry that it might accidentally get shared to another group you start to see more meaningful engagement.

Now no one can prevent someone from taking a screen shot and sending it out but like hosting a house party you trust that your guests won't be jumping on your furniture or tearing down the wallpaper (unless it is that kind of party...)

Yes! we are up and running at www.frid.ge

this is one of the reasons why we build the Fridge. It is hard to filter and organize your friends into lists, keep track of the privacy settings for those lists and then hope that the people you are friends with have done the same thing on Facebook. People are either not posting real content anymore, not using their real name or are just boring on Facebook

The Fridge interface organized not by friend requests but by groups. Each group is completely private from any other group with it's own news feed where everyone can contribute whether it is for a personal and private conversation, common interests of a specific group, or temporary networks that come together for events, parties, or any social gathering.

People are invited to groups and people follow groups. If you get bored of a group you can leave. If the event or activity is over you can start another group around another event or activity based new or on going relationships.

It isn't actually a contraction because people create groups or join groups based on a real relationship whether a common interest, common event, or common context. Each group is silo'd from the others and if you aren't in any other groups you won't know about them.

The connections between groups only happens when people you get to know in one group start to build a real relationship that expands outside of that current group's context and lead to the creation of another group whether for another shared interest, or temporary event.

As people create more and more of these groups and these "mini-Facebooks" start to overlap users a new social graph starts to take shape not based on a 1 to 1 friend request but on real relationships, topics, and events.

it is actually up and open to the public now. you can create a group by simply entering your email and click "get started". Share the invite URL with your friends or input their email addresses to send an invite.

Apologies for the unintentional misdirect. This group is meant for EXACTLY that. A quality group of folks developing apps to let other developers test releases and give feedback. you are right, the community needs something like this to help each other out... (wanted to add this in but the headline was limited to 80 char and ultimately went for a marketing headline instead...)

not sure how many folk have actually reviewed and given feedback to apps yet but i just downloaded an app, tried it out and actually like it... and was worth a rating.

do you have something coming out soon? would love to have a look...