The tiny new website that could give LinkedIn a run for its money

LinkedIn has grown to almost 400 million members by providing a free place to post your résumé. But for many, that’s hardly the most useful or interesting representation of their work experience.

That’s why we’re intrigued by a new site, Makerbase, which just launched as a sort-of “IMDB” for people who make products, ranging from coders and designers to writers and businesspeople. A few good early examples include a list of people who worked on Google Reader and the team behind Bloomberg’s recent “What Is Code?” digital-journalism opus.

The site, created by New York-based startup ThinkUp—run by Lifehacker founder Gina Trapani and blogging pioneer Anil Dash (here’s their Makerbase profile)—looks like any new database. It’s rough and empty, and will take a while to achieve any level of comprehensiveness. (And, to be sure, there are also already plenty of useful creative-portfolio-hosting services, from Dribbble to Squarespace.)

But for creatives who zip between freelance gigs, or just want a better place to list all the cool things they’ve worked on, it seems like a useful concept. And if you’re trying to poach from the team who made that thing you loved on the internet, having a list of who did what seems more powerful than sifting through plain-text résumés.