Xen Launches the World's First Interest Exchange

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- They say "you can't take it with you" but now you can with Xen Inc.'s new interest exchange that launches in beta today. Additionally, Xen is unveiling a suite of products including its online site (xen.com) and three apps (Interesting, Meedar and TalkTopic), to illustrate how fluidly your interest graph can travel with you.  Xen enables you to take control of your online persona and take it wherever you go online.

Interests connect everybody and everything across the open web.  Today's announcement is the first of a multi-part strategy to turn interests into a currency that engages people, developers, publishers and brands. By creating a standard for expressing interests and a platform to take ownership of them, the Xen interest exchange becomes a standard for personalization across applications, sites and social networks.

Xen gathers your existing online preferences from social networks and across the open web, allowing you to build a custom interest graph to reflect who you truly are. Xen's semantic powered search can be used to fine-tune your profile – what you like and what you don't (i.e. you love Justin Bieber, BBQ, bulldogs and your alma mater, but you can do without sushi, rollerblades and Lady Gaga).  The resulting interest graph becomes an accurate and up-to-date expression of your persona that's portable, for the first time. 

Armed with your Xen interest graph, you can now share interests with whomever you want, whether on Xen's site, across the open web and via mobile, to enhance your ability to identify and connect with people who share your interests.  Xen was built so that you can also use your Xen interest graph to give publishers and brands the opportunity to customize their content to you, for a more targeted, meaningful and engaging relationship.  

The first three Xen powered mobile apps,  "Interesting", "Meedar" and "TalkTopic," demonstrate the interoperability of the Xen account, and how it seamlessly personalizes any associated experience.

• "Interesting" is a 30-seconds-or-less "insight experience" for discovering new topics based on recent or trending topics, and adding them to your account. 
• "Meedar" uses your Xen account in conjunction with your smartphone's GPS to discover fascinating people around you with shared interests.
• "TalkTopic" uses voice recognition to search and quickly gauge the Xen community's pulse on a topic. 

"Most of us are surprised to find what their favorite sites actually know about them, they are often surprised that it's not an accurate reflection of who they really are," said Brooks Martin, Co-Founder of Xen.  "We've found that only a fraction of the information aggregated from social networks is accurate and ends up being added to a Xen user's profile."

Once signed up, Xen users can immediately take an active role in "curating" their interest data, to ensure that it's a more accurate representation of their persona. Then they can share their persona directly with others, or on other apps, sites and services they already use.

By leveraging insights about its communities, without divulging any personally identifiable information including aggregated affinity on interest topics, Xen becomes a valuable, multifaceted and actionable resource for brands, publishers and ecommerce sites seeking to increase, enhance and monetize engagement with their users.

"We're creating something quite different from a social network; we've created an interest exchange. In a world where identity is becoming a commodity, we wanted to give people a chance to own theirs and to interact with brands securely and responsibly", said Martin. At launch, Xen connects with Facebook and GetGlue, with many more connections to popular platforms and services coming soon and new features every week.

Next month Xen plans to open up its platform to third-party developers globally and also intends to reveal details of projects already underway with partners, publishers and charter developers.

Please visit www.xen.com to sign up and take the first step towards Making You, Yours.

About Xen:
Xen is a technology platform that simplifies, standardizes and facilitates understanding between people and brands through a global "interest exchange". Using a Xen account, people can liberate their interests and take charge of experiences, making them more personal, relevant and engaging. Xen's portable interest graph and semantic engine allows users to efficiently communicate their interests and context with whomever they choose including publishers, brands and other Xen users, ensuring that every experience is unique to them.  

Xen is a privately funded company based in Los Angeles, California. For more information, please visit us at www.xen.com, or visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/socialxen and Twitter @socialxen.

SOURCE Xen