CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Do you love to talk "Lost," but your friends just don’t follow? Want to show off the giant fish you caught, but your family doesn’t give a hoot? Zaang.com lets you connect with people who understand just how you feel.

Zaang is a new social networking site, like Facebook and Twitter, that lets users post pictures and talk to people, but instead of connecting with friends and relatives, Zaang is about connecting with strangers who share your interests.

"I was always intrigued with connecting people, not based on who you are, but what you know," said Mike Markarian, co-founder of Zaang.com.

The site, launched last week, began when creators Markarian and Alex Kravets were still living in the Babson College dorms together in 2007. The original site the two developed was an electronic retailer proving discounts to students, where they amassed thousands of users.

Markarian and Kravets didn’t want to stop with electronics, so they expanded the site that became zaang, based in Cambridge. They had the idea of creating "worlds," forums on Zaang where users can post back and forth about any specific topic.

Zaang is about showing expertise in any topic area. As a user posts more and more about a topic, that person will become certified in the topic by earning badges, which are awarded on the quality of the content the user posts. If a user earns enough badges, they are then called an expert in that topic.

"The badge system leads to this level of addict-ability," said Markarian, who expects this is what will keep users coming back for more. "It's about proving your expertise in as many areas as possible."

Zaang is hoping to grow its community in the coming weeks by reaching out to personal friends and networks as well as launching an iPhone application.

"We had a great response," said Kravets, who said the site's membership sparked the first two days the site was launched.

Web site start-ups like zaang need a lot of people using the site to be successful, said Alex Moazed, CEO of his own start-up, Applica. Moazed said the only way to make a profit from Web sites that are free to users is to have a large amount of users.

"That is the hardest part," Moazed said. "Until you can get a good user base, you are going to be running in the red for a while."

Markarian and Kravets hope that more and more people will join Zaang and they can begin concentrating on more specific, local topics.

"The users on Zaang have an average of 130 Facebook friends," Alexy Ossikine, founder of Convasis Consulting, a Web site consulting firm. "These could be very important to them in the next week or so, as it has the potential to go viral."