Vostu co-founders Mario Schlosser and Daniel Kafie
Everyone who's anyone has a Facebook or Myspace page these days—and those aspiring to be a someone usually log in to a members-only online network as well, like A Small World or A Private Club. Now Latin American socials will be able to customize their own online social fix, with a new website called Vostu.
The site, which officially launched last week, was founded last May by Daniel Kafie, 25, a recent Harvard grad, with a pioneering network of of 50,000 members (primarily university students and twenty-somethings from Argentina and Mexico). Daniel, who hails from Honduras, is a particularly gregarious friend of mine from college. He's the kind of person who seems to know everybody—his circles ran the gamut from his Harvard Business School cohorts to seemingly every Latin American expat living in Boston.
Vostu members are encouraged to create private "spheres," or mini-networks for themselves and their friends, where they can share photos, inside jokes, and "besos" (or kisses, a sweeter version of the Facebook "poke"). Nightlife is a focus: Buenos Aires' hotspot Jet accepts bottle reservations through a Vostu network, and Argentine partiers can head to gossip page "Rumercito," to anonymously dissect scandals from the night before.
EMI Music Spain president Manolo Diaz and hotelier Ernesto Arguello were among those at Vostu's official launch party in Miami last weekend. The buzz was so hot, apparently, that at the eleventh hour uber-exclusive Mynt Lounge volunteered to host an after-party for Daniel and his pals.
