Type of business Private Available in English Headquarters Chattanooga, Tennessee | Type of site Social network service Founded Chattanooga, Tennessee Area served Worldwide | |
Spire, formerly known as LifeKraze, is a web-based social networking service founded in April 2010. Members share "real-world" personal accomplishments with their friends, and are rewarded by other members. Members can award each other points for each accomplishment. Members can use the points they've collected to buy rewards from brand partners.
Contents
Spire was founded by two Covenant College alumni, Ben Wagner and David Nielson, as the brainchild of their senior project in 2010. The site quickly developed into an expanding social media platform, gaining significant traction at South by Southwest in 2011, and continues to grow. On October 29, 2013 the named was changed from LifeKraze to Spire. With these changes was an updated logo, colors, and minor changes to the website and apps.
The site's membership is open to the general public, and is currently associated with dozens of brands. Spire launched an iOS app on the App Store on July 24, 2012, and an Android app on the Google Play store on January 23, 2013.
Purpose
Spire was founded to encourage and reward an active lifestyle among its members. It is intended as a tool to promote productive, healthy, active living through using social media. The company's mission "is to connect the world through healthy competition, to focus current passions and to inspire new exploration."
Structure
When members sign up, they are encouraged to build their network of followers in a similar way to other social media like Facebook or Twitter. They then post their activities online in status updates, and then their followers reward them points as they see fit. These points can be redeemed for rewards from companies that encourage an active lifestyle (e.g. health food stores and outdoor equipment outfitters).
Members can post in two categories of status updates: accomplishments and thoughts. Accomplishments are intended to record a user's active lifestyle, and thus are eligible to receive points from followers. Thoughts however, are intended only to foster community among followers, and thus they are not eligible to receive points.
Awards
In 2011, LifeKraze was recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the 100 Brilliant Companies of the year. In 2012, LifeKraze was recognized by CNN as one of the "10 Great Mobile Health Apps"