It's a hated vegetable. Broccoli looks like a delicacy next to it. When your mom tells you to eat them or go to bed without dessert, you get into your pajamas without hesitation. Then why did Jeff Wurtz, founder of the new social and career networking Web site, Lymabean.com, choose to use the name for his business?

"Lymabean was actually a nickname of mine," Wurtz said. "It was a nickname that was very random and out there, and we thought, well, we're doing something random and fun."

Although similar to the social networking sites Facebook and MySpace, Lymabean.com was created for a more specialized niche of people - specifically for college students and the communities they live in. It offers users the chance to create profiles just like Facebook and MySpace, but Lymabean uses Adobe Flex that allows for even more customizable pages and interaction with other users through drag-and-drop capabilities.

"Facebook and MySpace are just so dry," said Roger Pimentel, BYU advertising graduate and member of the Lymabean team. "Lymabean has a personality, it has an attitude, and I think that's something students can relate to."

Wurtz, who graduated from BYU in accounting, said one of the reasons he started the site was because he "just wanted to get out of accounting."

"The real reason we started getting into the site was to kind of change people's impressions of social networking and bring a new level of usefulness and value," Wurtz said.

Instead of having the profile as the hub of the Web site, Wurtz said the team wanted to focus on features that promote the sharing of events, businesses, pictures and other interests in the college community. One of the major features Lymabean will be using for to instigate sharing is the business section. For example, the feature will provide information about shows happening at music venues and clubs, coupons and deals for restaurants, and details on other events happening in the community.

"It's all about finding what's going on and sharing it with other people," Pimentel said.

Many of the Lymanbean features are still under construction, but anyone with an e-mail address ending in .edu is able to sign up as an "insider" and even order a free T-shirt with BYU and Lymabean combined into a unique logo.

Because of the specialized nature of the site, with the local and business sections specifically made for each college town, Wurtz and his team will be launching Lymabean.com one college at a time. BYU students are currently able to sign up on the Web site and look around. According to Pimentel, Lymabean was scheduled to launch first at University of Arizona and Arizona State with BYU as one of the next universities to have the site launched in its full form.

"Social networking shouldn't be so boring," Wurtz said. "It's time to move on and do something different."

Copyright Brigham Young University 9 Apr 2008