A new social networking site styled after FitFinder has been launched, less than six months after FitFinder’s founder Rich Martell was forced to pull the plug on the original website.
The new website fitradar.co.uk has the same functionality as the original, although it is currently limited to Cardiff, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield and York.
The websites, described by Martell as “localised anonymous microblogging”, allow users to anonymously post both a location and a description of attractive people they have seen.
The original FitFinder website became hugely popular, gaining 2,000 users in its first few hours and 20,000 within a week.
Martell, a student at UCL, was forced to take the website down after the university disciplinary officers fined him £300 and threatened to “take disciplinary action” after accusing him of “bringing the University into disrepute.”
Cherwell contacted Dominic Wroblewski, the man behind Fitradar, to ask him if he thought that Fitradar would share the same fate.
Wroblewski, a Computer Science student at the University of Sheffield, said that he was “a little worried” but hoped that “my University is more lenient when it comes to a website such as Fitradar than UCL.”
Wroblewski said that he wanted “to bring back FitFinder, but hopefully improving on it.”
FitRadar has already drawn conflicting opinions from Oxford students. “I think Fitradar is an abomination,” said Joe Stenson, a second year English student at St John’s.
Wroblewski acknowledged that he has received mixed responses, saying that “the initial feedback has been positive”, but that a number of people have said that his idea was “a little creepy”.
Admitting that while there are currently not many to choose from, Wroblewski said that one of his favourite posts was “St Hilda’s College: Male, Blonde hair. In the bar busting some JLS moves, I had to do a double take, could’ve sworn it was (a pale) Aston.”
“Posts like these actually make me laugh out loud and I hope that the rest of the public can enjoy the fun with me.”
As for FitFinder, Martell previously assured Cherwell readers that “When I’m sure my degree is safe in my hand, then …we’re going to improve the site”.
Protests against the loss of Fitfinder have been coordinated online, with one petition gaining over 3,000 signatures on the first day.
The current homepage for the FitFinder website promises that “something special is coming”. In the meantime, the future of Fitradar remains to be seen.
Fitradar is currently appealing for donations from users to “help the website expand to other locations and universities”. The website pledges to use any paypal donations to “pay for better servers and quicker loading times.”
Wroblewski also added that there are possible plans to create accounts to make the website more acceptable to authorities, assuring that users will still be anonymous, but linked with a registered account.
