About Us
The Right Size
There are lots of websites about big, broad topics, but not all topics are big. And even for big topics, a smaller, focused site is sometimes better than a bigger, more general site. What kind of information do you care about when you look up a movie? It depends on whether you’re a community of horror movie fans or concerned parents.
We allow you to create a site with just the information your community cares about — not more, not less.
Opinionated
Resources like Wikipedia are great for questions where there is one right answer, but in a lot of cases, there is no one right answer. Are the Ramones an important band? It depends on what community you belong to.
Even within a single community, opinions differ, and it can be hard to cut through the noise. We try to help you do that.
Organized
Most people don’t like the idea of organizing stuff, but unless information is organized, you can’t find answers to questions like “what are the best recipes in this cookbook?”.
We allow you to specify how your community’s information should be structured. After that, as people contribute to your site, the information stays organized without everyone constantly thinking about it.
Alive
For a community guide to stay relevant over time, it has to be able to grow and change. But to do that, is has to engage people.
Sites created with Phile are social. Adding to a Phile site is fun, whether you are contributing in a big or a small way. And because everyone is contributing to something that helps the community as a whole, there is a feeling of satisfaction that you don’t get by just chatting.
What next?
That’s our vision for Phile. We’re looking forward to seeing what you create with it. If you find yourself wishing we’d done something differently or if you just want to say hello, drop us a line at feedback [at] phile [dot] com.
Founders
Sho Kuwamoto
Sho has over 15 years of engineering and leadership experience in the software industry, where his career has been focused on giving people the tools to create interesting stuff on the web.
Most of his career was at Macromedia, first as one of the creators of Dreamweaver, eventually becoming VP of product development for the HTML division of Macromedia.
During that whole process, he helped to create / shape a bunch of other products at both Macromedia and Adobe.
Sho is a food-phile, a techno-phile (the music, not “technology”) and a techno-phile (“technology”, not the music).
Mike Schiff
Mike was formerly Director of Engineering at Ingenio (now part of AT&T Interactive), which he joined as one of the first full-time engineers. He has also worked as a Senior Computer Scientist at Adobe Systems.
Mike has a BSE in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University, and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Mike is a poker-phile, foreign and independent film-phile, and electronic music-phile, among many other interests.