Best known for canals and cannabis coffee shops, absolute art and the hottest DJs, Amsterdam is arguably one of the coolest cities on the planet. Now, as if emerging through club fog and disco lights comes 20blinks – an Amsterdam-based social discovery site with a young, edgy vibe.
Could 20blinks Be the Next, Big Social Network?
20blinks gives content curation a heady, Dutch twist! If Pinterest opened people’s eyes to the joys of content curation, 20blinks unleashes their souls. It’s a place for sharing and appreciating the finer, funkier things across cultures.
Like an ambient content curation platform, 20blinks is dedicated to sharing all things hip. Many of the collections are a delightful trip. It’s a mind-blowing place for sharing and discovery of:
New music and classic grooves, Contemporary art and photography, Buzz-worthy books, Exotic travel inspiration, Fresh fashion and much more.
Clicking around on 20blinks is like flipping through pages of progressive thought. You’ll find a rich visual and video experience, a social network where personal aesthetics are indulged – a place to go all-out expressing yourself.
Amsterdam Artists, the First to “Blink”
20blinks was founded by three artists in Amsterdam, friends who sought a special space to exchange the compelling images and media clips they discovered. “We just wanted a platform for collecting all the crazy stuff that goes by every day,” says Bastiaan Zwaan, 20blinks co-founder. “But then, you tend to forget about it after a while.” Hence the site’s moniker, a reference to the many remarkable things that “go by in the blink of the eye.”1
But given the founders’ popularity and connections in Dutch art and TV, their little site mushroomed, becoming a full-on social networking site. Now, Zwaan adds, “We have full functionality as a social discovery platform, with many arty, creative users. Still, our mission is to just have fun!”1 This is refreshing at it’s core because they just want to improve on their initial concept, built first for users like themselves, but it has gained a lot of traction in the Amsterdam music, arts and lifestyle scene for reasons, if not apparent already, will be shortly.
Also a 20blinks founder is Barry Hay, a singer in the famous Dutch classic rock band Golden Earring . Still quite active in Europe, Golden Earring’s mega hit in the U.S. was “Radar Love.” That’s a fitting phrase, considering how Hay’s social networking site now targets fans not just in Amsterdam, but far beyond.
Content Curation: Post Cards from the Cutting Edge
What Hay and Zwaan want most is for 20blinks to break ground. They view the site as a unique way to express one’s multimedia identify. According to Zwaan, “No other social platform lets you pull together images, video and more to truly capture and showcase the essence of what makes you who you are.”1 In the process, members also expand their horizons.
Most of the content posted to 20blinks is linked to the original source, making it easy to get more information. This creates traffic to support the creator, and provides the viewer a valuable pathway to further discovery. Examples of popular “blink” collections:
· Ida (House Music DJ) – http://www.20blinks.com/view/9017#30594 · Shani Davis (Olympic skater) – http://www.20blinks.com/view/9600 · Bastiaan Thijssen (fashion industry) – http://www.20blinks.com/view/1202 · Mirjam Griffioen (artist) – http://www.20blinks.com/user/389
The Arty Social Network: Riding the Visual Curation Wave
A fast-growing social network, 20blinks currently has 10,000 members and garners 40,000 page views a day, and this is just the initial growth they are seeing1. Creating many of those visually stunning collections is a culturally progressive crowd, primarily hailing from Amsterdam’s music scene, television, art, and design scenes.
In its first year, Pinterest grew to an impressive 3.2 million members (as of Oct. 2011), despite being by invitation only and in beta testing. Like Pinterest, the Dutch curation platform is still in beta. However, the Amsterdam-based site already has flung the doors wide open: 20blinks is free and welcomes like-minded people everywhere to join.
20blinks could well be the next, big thing – a social discovery site whose time has come. With that possibility in mind, it’s noteworthy that 20blinks is discernibly gender-balanced – has as many male members as it has female1. These are just initial findings as the company is experiencing their first real growth.
That’s may be the attribute that makes 20blinks pop. If content curation is at all a numbers game, this intriguing social networking site serves those whose passions run deeper than the standard fare.
1: Information and quotes from this article were obtained through a phone & follow-up email interview with the 20blinks management including Barry Hay & Bastiaan Zwaan.