Zurker is still in private beta, which means you can get in only with an invitation.

It is a social network in the making, which will be owned by its users. Being developed on a shoestring budget, the application isn’t your typical social network backed by investors. Yet the people behind it would love to see this grow and overtake both Facebook and Twitter, and who knows … the chemistry of social networks may still have some surprises for us.

Zurker’s books are open and are on line for each one of the currently nine country or regional embodiments of the nascent network.

The users will ‘zurk’ interesting posts and links, instead of ‘liking’ them and the controls of what you see and who can see what you post are right there, where you look at things and post them.

While it’s not a commercial entity yet, the plan is to incorporate each regional and country Zurker in their local area. Members are encouraged to invite others, and they receive credit for that. The credit is in the form of vShares, which are “stakes of ownership in Zurker”. While those stakes aren’t really shares yet, when one million of them have been sold or assigned, the number of shares that members hold will determine their stake in the final incorporated entity. vShares can also be bought, to help finance the early development of the application.

A few Questions answered in the FAQ:

What is Zurker?

Zurker is a third-generation social app released into private alpha testing in December, 2011. It’s special because it’s owned by its members. This unusual DNA will help Zurker develop the best social app available, which in turn will propel Zurker to becoming the dominant social network in the coming decade (and beyond).

Who owns Zurker?

Users like you and me. Here’s a list.

Why hasn’t anyone done something like Zurker before?

The idea of a cooperative isn’t that new. However, it probably hasn’t been implemented on the net yet because enterpreneurs who found startups tend to want to retain as much equity as possible. There probably will be a lot more sites run on the “community equity” principle after Zurker shows that it is a powerful and fast way to build a valuable enterprise.

Is the goal of Zurker to unseat Facebook?

Not specifically, but social networks do work better if they are bigger. If, in ten years from now, Zurker isn’t the biggest and bestest social network in this end of the galaxy, it will probably have failed.