Social Collecting — A new way to collect in a digital environment

Hunting and collecting is one of the oldest instincts of mankind. An instinct that ensured the survival since 15,000 B.C. and also one of the oldest traditional forms of economy that is known to us. Today, hunting and collecting is only limited to a few clans in Africa, Asia and South America (to ensure food procurement.) Nevertheless, we note that our modern society maintains this primal instinct, we “hunt” the latest trends and deals, we collect diligently the things that we like and love.

89% of the people all over the world collect photos of friends and family (the classical stamp album lasts 21%.) Women collect admittedly shoes and men collect the women ;-) This is what happened to us former hunters and collectors: for the preservation of life we run to the supermarket and collecting is shifted to other areas.

But the “how” in this passion has changed enormously with the age of digitalization. Who is still printing out his photos then taping them carefully in a photo album? Almost no one (or at least only for a few events in life that do not necessarily belong to the classical “collecting photos” moments.)

We take a snapshot with the smartphone, upload it to the cloud, maybe share it with one or more friends. But that is the end of the digital collecting trip. But what’s the reason?

We all collect something and we all live social, but we can never really conduct social collecting: Sharing Collections with each other, evaluating, discussing, recommending.

Let’s take a very simple example:

4 girlfriends want to buy a special birthday gift for a mutual friend. They all live in different cities and cannot meet each other. How are they supposed to organize, evaluate and discuss the snapshot of the trendy shoulder bag from the hip store? Or a link to a cool e-shop with the latest trends?

Whatsapp….? It’s like scrolling yourself to death if you like to search a photo again. Facebook Messenger — the same problem. A Facebook group? Too awkward. There should be a secret place, which every girlfriend can access simultaneously, on the road and at home, where everyone can upload images and comment them in real-time:

This is real Social Collecting.