Intersect, the stealthy Seattle startup led by award-winning journalist and former Microsoft vice president Peter Rinearson, is opening the doors today on a new service that attempts to reinvent the way people share personal stories online. A mix between Facebook, Yelp, Classmates.com and personal blogging, Intersect hopes to become the central gathering place where individuals chronicle their daily lives and share stories with friends.

As on Facebook, Intersect users create a personal page complete with bio, photos and so-called "storylines" where individuals share information about everything from a visit to a local restaurant to how they first learned the game of tennis. The big differentiator with Intersect is that stories get matched to a specific time and place, with visitors able to locate a person's story on a map or scroll through an online timeline of a person's life.

"Basically, it gives people the ability to tell stories collaboratively and in a way which we think is going to be really interesting and fun," said Monica Harrington, who joined Intersect earlier this year as chief marketing and business development officer. "It is really about bringing storytelling to the Web."

Harrington

"Stories are how we communicate values, essentially how we connect with one another," Harrington continued. "And, if you think about how things work in the offline world, stories are integrated into every aspect of our lives and in the online world we haven't done a good job of making it easy for people to express themselves through stories and also to connect with other people taking advantage of the medium."

There's certainly no shortage of places where people can share stories on the Web, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and personal blogs. But Harrington said there are limitations with those platforms when it comes to longer form content and when individuals want to collaborate on stories.

"There's no way to tell our stories in a way where we can be connected together," she said.

As an example, Harrington points to how Intersect could be used to power community-oriented journalism. "Think about a world where people can tell stories about what is going on in their community, and other people can find those stories by just going to that given time or place," she said.

Nonetheless, a number of community-oriented Web sites -- including those powered by upstarts such as Next Door Media and more established media companies such as Fisher Communications -- are attempting to fill that void.

Peter Rinearson's personal page on Intersect

Grabbing mind share from more established media companies as well as the online titans like Facebook remains a big challenge. But Harrington believes Facebook and others are missing out on an opportunity since the stream of content disappears shortly after it is created.

With Intersect, that content can be placed in an easy-to-understand timeline. A 35-year-old, for example, could tag stories about her life from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The company also is working on ways to allow individuals to import content from personal blogs as well as services such as Flickr and YouTube.

Intersect plans to drive revenue through online advertising, though Harrington says it's "very, very early" in the company's development. One other possible revenue scenario involves charging businesses or other commercial enterprises to host a page on the site.

"... Whatever we do from a revenue perspective has to work really well for our user base - which is tiny now, but which I hope will grow and which I hope will include a healthy mix of individuals, nonprofits, and small and large businesses over the longer term," said Harrington, who previously worked at Picnik and Valve.

The company plans to learn a lot as they roll the platform out to more users during this expanded beta phase. Intersect is currently accepting applications for writers, with plans to expand the service later this year.

Intersect has raised more than $3 million in angel financing, with Craig Kinzer of Denny Hill Capital among the larger shareholders. Founded in 2007, the company now employs just under 20 people.