Book-loving sisters in Maryland have created Phictly, a new platform for book, film, and culture-lovers for people who want to talk about a single book title, movie, TV series, or cultural phenomenon.
Nyleena Aiken and her sisters and co-founders share a common love of storytelling and a desire to create quick clubs based on their best book club experiences.
Phictly ensures users are always interested in the club they join. The sisters tapped into their creative side to design a platform that makes it easy to engage with others about whichever book, movie, or storyline they like in an online club experience. The sisters have launched a Kickstarter campaign to help finance working out the technical bugs of the app.
“Our premise is that people want to gather online to discuss a particular title that they are excited about right now,” Aiken said. “We thought, ‘Perhaps we are not alone in joining a book club and finding that it has been ghosted or is no longer true to its original topic of interest?’ That was the birth of Phictly. We are at the threshold of an exciting new chapter where people connect through stories, the stories they love, and create a quality community.”
Aiken wants to provide a platform where the user’s love of stories can be transformed into an engaging, social interaction. She hopes it might fill a gap in people’s online lives.
“Today’s fast-paced world makes it challenging to find genuine connections with people who love the same things,” Aiken said. “Books, films, and the emotions they evoke, bring us together in ways nothing else can.”
As users log on to the Phictly app, they choose a book, movie, or show. Next, they select the timeline for the club, as in how fast they would like the club to progress. Then they can choose preferences and tags so that if they want others on the app to find them, they can. Finally, they can invite friends or other Phictly users to join their group for discussing that book, show, or movie.
“No more ghosted discussions, unfocused themes, or oversized clubs where your voice gets lost,” Aiken said. “Say goodbye to burnout and boredom. We chose Kickstarter because it is an innovative destination hub, where people interested in everything new and unique look for products that meet their needs.”
The flexibility of the app makes it highly customizable. If a user likes to binge, they can join a one-day club. If they prefer to take things more slowly, they can set the club timeline for 30 days. The clubs can be kept private or made public. They are spoiler free – the creators included spoiler prevention, so that each post to a club is blurred. Users can tap to show the post’s topic or question after they reach that same point in the story or show whenever they are ready.
The idea began as Aiken and her three sisters started their own book club as they’re all avid readers.
“We imagined evenings filled with fun discussions, laughter, and the joy of discovering new stories together,” Aiken wrote on Kickstarter. “The first club reading went well, and a hilarious group call ensued to close it out with a bang!”
They found that over time, if books didn’t interest all four of them, the discussions weren’t as engaging or enjoyable. Their differences in taste and style became too much of an obstacle to what they were hoping would be a fun and unifying experience.
“This sparked a conversation about the importance of shared interest as a building block for engaging and meaningful discussions,” Aikin wrote on Kickstarter. “We realized that one of the keys to a successful book club—or any community for that matter—lies in connecting people with compatible interests, lifestyles, and preferences. With this realization, our idea for Phictly was born.”
To learn more, click the Kickstarter link here, or the Phictly app link here.
