YouNoodle - Your startup social and university networking site

Well, here's a Vator.tv competitor. YouNoodle.com has started with a bang taking off recently. YouNoodle has put together a nice social networking platform, easy classification of your social data. Not that obvious though in some cases where the information you provide will be displayed once you get to view your profile. I think getting the text from the "short bio" used as tag line to your name was not obvious to me at least. But I guess brand new beta services, you have to put up with some odd things.

Since I have recently covered and used for a little while Vator.tv, I have to conclude that from a social networking point of view, YouNoodle is better, I like the ease with which you can go from following company, contact and network and also join groups. Vator has somewhat stricter distinctions between startups, service providers and contributors on their site. I do like Vator's company information better though plus the push they have that you should provide a video pitch and/or demo. I guess time will tell which one that will grab the major share of users. One thing to consider is also, what's the key benefit each site is going for? What I am actually looking for is, do you provide a service just to facilitate and hoook up people and then leave it up to them to figure out what to do, or do you intend to enable and encourage an efficient exchange of needed services between all parties involved?

So far, most social networking sites fail to do the latter. The big danger in easy to use for everybody netwoking sites is the same all the time. You get way too many people that are somehow going to find the few that will make sense to communicate and do business with.

YouNoodle does have an interesting approach in trying to provide analytical tools to help your startup business. See the startup predictive tool, http://younoodle.com/predictor that will help you analyze what will your startup be worth in three years.

See home page of YouNoodle below and feel free to explore my page, http://younoodle.com/people/thomas_lidforss




Also, contact Thomas Lidforss International for your startup business services needs.

Vator for your startup company- Use TV style networking

Here's a tip for all of you working with startup companies and have not found the Silicon Valley startup company, Vator.tv. You are missing an important opportunity to present, demo and get a following of people (investor and service providers) who are interested in your company. You can also find possible partner companies buy browsing other companies' video presentations and profiles.

See a snapshot of the home page below;


And, also see myVator page, and as you can tell from the right side of the page, I have not made my own video presentation yet. This post is just another reminder that I have to add this.



See, http://www.vator.tv/user/show/ThomasLidforss

Squace Launch - The MyStuff way for Mobile Phones

Mobile Monday (MoMo Sweden http://www.mobilemonday.se/) is arranging a meeting a the mobile start up company Squace this Monday June 16 at 5pm. If you are not aware of this but you will be in town, use this opportunity to come and see Squace in action and listen to the CEO Aage Reerslev. Squace is a cool new service that lets you design your stuff as a mobile site, tag info, network with others.

As a part of MoMo meeting, you will also get an opportunity to listen to Rebtel 's CEO, Hjalmar Winbladhand their interesting mobile international calling by replacing (depending on your country location) the international phone number with a local number.

I also want to point out, please feel free to contact me for a discussion about your company needs. Contact me, see http://www.lidforss.com/ for details.

PS. Also, remember to register for this MoMo event, space is limited!

More on networking sites, Kaneva, Twinity, Spoke, Jigsaw,..

The social networking services are morphing with the virtual worlds from gaming. Two good examples are;

Kaneva a US based company in Atlanta where you can design your own world and mix it with facts and real people you network with. Try it out here. A German based counterpart exaple is Twinity which is in private beta right now by the Berlin based company, Metaversum.
I have only tried Kaneva so far, unfortunately, their business model seems to be based right away on paying for building up our virtual world.

AlwasOn Network is among other things a networking service. AO is mainly known in Silicon Valley for their extensive coverage of start-up companies, inventions, new technologies, Venture Capital coverage (including arranging briefings, conferences and seminars). Bigger events are often done jointly or sponsored by KPMG. Take a look at my profile and try out the services and good access to information and personal contacts you get from AO.

Spoke has transformed itself from being just another networking site into a serious business database resource of 40M+ business contacts. You can easily search (though site response is slow sometimes) for all levels of business people. After renewed use of Spoke recently, they can be viewed as a premium version of Jigsaw (more about Jigsaw later in this post). This service though comes at a premium price, $50/month for an invidual user. Well worth the price if you are a serious corporate marketing user.

SiliconIndia is a relatively new networking and information site in India that is still in beta and allows free access to all members. Good portal to access the booming Indian/Asian continent. Worth keeping an eye on.

WirelessFactors is a niche networking site mainly addressing wireless professionals. The site is still small though but with useful info for wireless.

Jigsaw is a more open (free option in addition to premium services) business contact service than Spoke. Jigsaw works like a tradingpost for business cards. Good contact database, though limited to about half a dozen countries, you can e.g. only access or trade contacts in UK for the EU countries. Jigsaw also gives you free access to Anagram, (register at Jigsaw and dowload from Jigsaw) a useful software tool for easy drag and drop of contact information into Jigsaw.

Staffingforce is an interesting networking site entirely focused on recruiting networks. Read before you do something about this site, George Vasu's blog, there you will get all you need to know before registering. See, http://vasutown.blogspot.com/ A very interesting approach to business building and social networking.

This is the networking update for now.

Happy reading,/Thomas

Review and opinions about business and social networking sites

Social networking services has become the latest hot thing to have and participate within the last couple of years.

Here's a list of sites and services I have used the last 2-4 years with mixed results.

LinkedIn

The first site I started using was LinkedIn. LinkedIn started as a networking site where you could only become a member by being invited by somebody already a member. LinkedIn started growing quickly in 2004, becoming one thing on the net you had to be a member of. LinkedIn has evolved, adding more web 2.0 type services, become open and has more than 17M users.

LinkedIn is based on the concept of how many degrees away you are from a person. People you are connected with are your 1st degree of contacts. You can get introduced to others through your network or become a premium subscriber and (depending on your subscription level) get access directly to people not in your network. LinkedIn also allows you to create groups and join groups others create. LinkedIn has a job search and listing service for those of you looking for a new job. Many listings are also unique.

LinkedIn has some restrictions by default, no blind mass introductions using find colleagues or mass introductions resulting in a high percentage of refusals. You are also allowed max 3000 invitations to be sent out. After that you have to ask for more, 300-500 at a time.

Check it out if you are not a user, http://www.lidforss.com/in/tlidforss (my public profile) and send me an invitation.

Facebook

This was a service started by university students to keep in touch with friends. Facebook is a lot more of a social networking site than LinkedIn. Facebook also publishes an application developer API allowing 3rd party applications to work as plug-ins on Facebook. This has resulted in scores of applications available for almost any service. This is both good and bad, you have to be careful about not accepting too many applications, if you do, you will get bombarded with messages and notification requests. The good thing, YOU CAN LEAVE and REMOVE your appllicatios. The same goes for groups. Facebook is a good site when you want to experiment and try new services. Facebook has a restriction for max 5000 users.

Facebook has nowadays more than 60M users.

Connect with me and send a friend request to tlidforss at yahoo.com and check out my profile;

http://www.facebook.com/people/Thomas_Lidforss/511158599

Ecademy

Ecademy is a boutique style UK based site that has worked as an "exclusive club". Ecademy is the oldest networking site, celebrating its 10th year of operation now. Ecademy has a lot of quality contacts, with clubs, local (geograpically speaking) clubs, news, blogs, marketplace. Ecademy is very interntional, the only restriction being English language only on the site. For people who are used to US based sites, I can recommend Ecademy as an excellent English speaking alternative. Try it out, you have nothing to loose, view my profile to see what kind of infomation Ecademy provides;

Ecademy has 300K+ users.

http://www.ecademy.com/account.php?id=60379&xref=60379

Plaxo (Pulse)

Plaxo is for most people known as the MS Outlook contact and address book synchrinization service. Plaxo started a very web 2.0 developed service more than one year ago, allowing networking, with RSS feeds, groups and sharing of info. Plaxo Pulse has a very simple and easy to use interface. Unfortunately, Plaxo only allows 1000 connections, then you get a stupid message, you have more than 1000 connections, please delete some so you can connect!!!

So, my question is how do I know which connection to delete just so I can accept a new one? Right now I have probably about 100+ connection request I cannot even reply to. Another restriction is also, max 10k contacts in your address book, after that synchronization stops and Plaxo effectively quits working, so I have not used it a lot lately, even though I still like their services.

Plaxo has 10M+ users.

Spock

Spock is a relatively new site. Spock has based their services on the concept of "tags". You build up a list of tags for yourself and people you connect with. Your connections can also add tags on your profile. Spock has a fast and easy to use userinterface. Try it out; see Spock profile info:

www.spock.com/Thomas-Lidforss-Ik2sF1EW

Spoke

Spoke is a US site that very much looks like the European Viadeo and Xing. I have not used Spoke that much but they have more than 30M users.

See http://center.spoke.com/profiles/ThomasLidforss to view profile data information.

Ryze

Ryze is another US site that has been around the last 5 years. I have not used it very much but if you would like to view type of information in a profile, see

http://www.ryze.com/go/mpnow1

MySpace

Myspace is the world no. 1 site for social networking. Unfortunately you can eaily get too much junk request and info. Very social site though. I use mainly because of relatives of mine.

Myspace has more than 230M users.

See, http://www.myspace.com/tlidforss for profile data sample.

Xing

Xing started using the name OpenBC and changed to Xing. Xing is a German company but with a very interntional approach allowing you to have and choose between different languages. I personally like Xing, very good search functions, matching functions for your haves and wants in your profile. Suggestions on people and business opportunities you should look up based on your profile. Xing is also as a premium user cheaper than most sites, about 6 Euro/month.

See, http://www.xing.com/go/invite/3233530.693c4a for profile data sample.

Viadeo

Viadeo is a French based company to some extent like Xing. Very international with multiple languages and profile languages.

See, http://www.viadeo.com/en/profile/thomas.lidforss for profile data sample.

Doostang

Doostang is a career and job oriented US site where you have to get invited to become a user. See http://www.doostang.com/ for a look.

Naymz

Naymz is a relatively new site building up your network based on a "trust" concept. Once you reach trust level 9, you get power features search wise and Google submissios. One good thing, Naymz sponsor links on Google and cross references your blog, homesite and linkedin profile page which improves your visibility on Google.

See, http://thomas.lidforss.name/ or search directory using

www.naymz.com/directory/thomas+lidforss

GoBigNetwork

GoBigNetwork - This is a network focusing on networking among business people interested in growing their businesses, start one or work for one, little activity though, don't really know
if a lot of people are using this site see, www.gobignetwork.com/profiles/Thomas-Lidforss.aspx

CollectiveX

CollectiveX - semi-active user, this is a site where all sites are open for open networkers. CollectiveX allows you to create or join groups.See, http://www.collectivex.com/

TheMetaNetwork

TheMetaNetwork - this is a site organized by Christian Mayaud in the New York area. Christian is number 2 in the world on LinkedIn, got mad at LinkedIn restrictions and started his own networking site; http://www.themetanetwork.com/

You can register, join the LinkedIn group LIONS and update your "The Lions' Lair" status. You will be listed on the LION's excelfile list over members and your willingness to be more or
less a fully open networker. This is one of the most used services from TheMetaNetwork site.

Ning

Ning - This is the site where you can so far for free create your own networking site, open or closed depending on what you want to do including creating groups for your networking site. I
am an active user in a couple of ning sites just to experiement and see if I would like to create my own site with this service. See one example,

http://pmbcom.ning.com/profile/ThomasLidforss

Konnects

Konnects is a new site with an intersting concept for matching leads based on your profile, creating and managing groups and communities.

See, http://www.konnects.com/profile/mpnow1

ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo is a reverse personal and business networking site. ZoomInfo builds your profile based on public internet site information, you can claim your profile by updating or correcting the information Zoominfo has put together.

See, www.zoominfo.com/people/Lidforss_Thomas_200383525.aspx

Biztribe

Biztribe is like a European version of Ryze with networking and job information. I have not used it very much so I have for the time being no further comments.

Jobster

Jobster is a career oriented website like Doostang but open. You get pretty good matches (based on skills matching and skills keywords you choose)for your profile plus you can network with others.

See, http://www.jobster.com/people/tlidforss

Friendster

Friendster is a mix of Myspace and Facebook, have not played with it much and I am no longer a user.

I will add a new post and come back with comments about SiliconIndia, WirelessFactors, PartnerUp and HireAbility and Vasutown (both for people who actively network for recruiter job purposes).

regards,

/Thomas