Floxx: Future Facebook or a Perverts Paradise?

Founded by ex University College London student Rich Martel, Floxx, "dating" social network Floxx is hitting the headlines. In its first day online the site managed to attract a whopping 6,000 visitors and, over the following few days, over 1,000 posts.

Pretty impressive but could it be the next Facebook?

Floxx officially went live on Jan 10th this year but quietly sneaked online a few days before that on the 3rd. Like its old incarnation Fit Finder, Floxx is aimed at students; letting them post messages online, on a public platform, about an attractive stranger who has caught their eye.

The original Fit Finder was launched on 24th April 2010 and received over five million hits. In the 4 weeks that it was online, over 50,000 posts were left from students from 50 universities. During that time founder, Martell was under increasing pressure from UCL to shut it down. Which he did along with paying a hefty £300 fine.

Regardless of the fine, the site managed to attract  attention in high places - namely erstwhile Dragons Den investor Doug Richard. He brought £20,000 to the table and helped the develop the site for launch this January.

The Floxx Facebook and Twitter pages already have 2,044 likes and 335 followers, repsectively and plans for the future include iPhone, Android and BlackBerry applications.

Unlike Facebook, Floxx doesn't give you access to a stranger's photo album, access to their group of friends, find out where they work or their contact details.

Floxx does not allow profanity, bad or offensive language either. The team are very clear about that. The filter system turns any recognised swear words into funny words.

Users can remove comments immediately by clicking on a link and alerting the development team. Anyone persistently posting offensive comments will then be removed and find themselves banned from the site.

A stranger leaving a comment about you on a public forum, even if they liked what they saw, will never be anything but creepy.

But dig a little deeper and a lot of the comments are fictional and, as one student said, made up by sad internet trolls.

Example (taken directly from the Derwent Computer Room):

"Male, brunette hair. Sexy, tall basketball studs, looks lush. I’d love to be Sellotaped to him."

I'm not sure what's worse: real or made up pervy comments. And...Sellotaped? Really?

Could Floxx be the new, pervy Facebook? Maybe?