Ivan Tay and Soh Ching Boon have created Hiitch, a desktop software that helps you create an online social network. Create a profile, similar to the profiles from other social networks, and
Hiitch will notify you when there is another user that complements your profile. Hitch connects you with people that you are interested in meeting. Hiitch does not only notify you of other users that would interest you but events and any change in your social circle. There is
a board where you can discuss topics of interest. You have the choice of making the board private so only your contacts can participate on the discussion. Hiitch is very secure, only friends and family can see your contact information, keeping your data private to users you do not know. Using Hiitch is free, but there is a premium service with additional features that will be available shortly that you can purchase.
Hiitch.com In Their Own Words
“Hiitch is a desktop software that notifies you of people and things that interest you. It is also a social networking software that provides you with an array of features that securely connect you from your desktop to the community.
Hiitch is about personalizing your community. It offers you an entire open sourced desktop social networking platform that allows and encourages you to spin off your own personal community just for your family and friends.”
Why Hiitch.com It Might Be A Killer
Hiitch lets you know whenever there is a match or change in your social circle, you are notified on your desktop so you to receive the news. Hiitch is also good for social networks that cater to
businesses and schools because of its secure format. You will always know what is going on in your social network with the Hiitch alerts.
Some Questions About Hiitch.com
There are many popular social networks, MySpace, Facebook, etc..
Will Hiitch be able to compete with such popular networks? Hiitch is a secure social community, but such security could inhibit getting to know different people.
Updates
Hiitch is not about starting a huge social network of people. It is about personalizing your community. Numbers are not important in our solution to social networking, its the quality of your contacts that we are focusing on. Hiitch offers many of the features that existing social networks do, except that Hiitch also allows and encourages you to spin off your own personal community just for your family and friends. In short, it is to grow your own private networks without letting the whole world in. In most instances, many people only have a few contacts that they socialize with on a regular basis. A smaller community also means everyone gets to know each other better through invitation of close friends that we trust.
We want to break the strong hold idea that everyone must hang out in one main service like the many IM applications around (eg. MSN, Yahoo, facebook, etc). We view each individual social network in Hiitch as a socially self sufficient group. Think of Hiitch as a tool to allow you to build your own personal network like Ning except that it is on the desktop. Hiitch does not offer you just a client software to some proprietary server but a complete open sourced social networking platform. One that you can hack on your own to suit your needs (if you desire) or build new features to contribute back to the community. You can grow your community through an initial trusted network of family and friends, then open that up to your peers, family’s friends, friend’s friend and etc. Building a social network using this approach is safer because the community is link to each other in some way. And chances are, in those settings you will get to know these people in your network on a more personal level. Also, your private and personal data such as pictures, profiles, journals and etc don’t end up in the hands of people you don’t even know because in Hiitch we encourage you to host your own server and network from home or your private network. 
