Cosmunity brings the geek convention experience online

Cosmunity is a new social community for people today who want to retain the encounter of Comic Con (or yet another geek function of your deciding upon) heading all calendar year extended.

Co-founder and CEO Cole Egger recalled attending a Dallas Comic Con (now regarded as Admirer Expo Dallas) and being “blown absent by the size.” Having said that,  he uncovered enthusiasts who ended up “frustrated” by the issues of remaining connected after the function. And similarly, suppliers ended up seeking for a way to “sell products instantly to their goal viewers.”

So commerce is a significant piece of Cosmunity — and the key way it ideas to make income, though the startup is waiving transaction service fees for the relaxation of the calendar year. Suppliers can develop profiles on the services and offer props, costumes, comic publications, artwork and far more.Sure, you could possibly be in a position to get numerous of these products in other places on the Net, but Egger mentioned the distinction is that Cosmunity will be “exclusively geek.”

Even though Egger emphasised that Cosmunity is a peer-to-peer marketplace — which implies the business isn’t vetting all the stores — he mentioned the crew will do its best to confirm retailers who are offering certified products and to take out fraudulent accounts.

Co-founder and COO Zac Cooner mentioned one particular of the other significant goals is to make people today comfortable with “expressing their true selves” — probably by sharing that costume photograph that you are too ashamed to submit on Fb. So there’s a newsfeed combining social updates, product or service listings, function info and other geek content.

Of study course, “geek” is a quite broad term — distinct geeks have distinct interests. Some of us, for case in point, really want to see the newest Star Trek information but could not care a lot less about new toys. Egger mentioned end users can by now handle what they see by selecting which other end users to follow, but there are far more characteristics planned that will “really enable customize that encounter.”

I also puzzled how Cosmunity would cope with challenges like trolling, significantly with the way some geek subcultures have gotten caught up in conservative controversies like Gamergate. Cooner pointed out that just about every user can block other end users, delete any comment on their individual posts and report destructive exercise.

“At this instant, we really don’t necessarily have a stance about guiding the political tone of end users on our platform,” Cooner mentioned. “We do get a potent stance [on tone] — we consider that this is a positivity-driven neighborhood.”

The startup has lifted $300,000 in seed funding and also recruited Ming Chen, one particular of the stars of AMC’s Comic E book Guys, as an advisor.

“Cosmunity is not like any other application on the marketplace for the geek neighborhood,” Chen mentioned in the launch release. “I can go to Cosmunity and discover all the things I will need pals, function info, learn new content and discover my favored conference stores all in one particular position.”

Featured Impression: Cosmunity