Social Professional Limited is a private company set up to develop the world's best social professional networking platform. No pressure then. But we do have a tech team second to none in this space, if we do say so ourselves, with a fair insight into the machinations of community dynamics. So fingers crossed.
Social networks have garnered a lot of attention, participation and buzz in recent times. Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Del.icio.us, LinkedIn. We believe most everyone online will participate in three or four different social networks in a few years. There will be the generic, fashionable one of the day; just as the buzz moved from Friendster to MySpace to Bebo and Facebook, it will continue to move around to wherever the 'tipping point' people decide is cool. There will be one related to the members' common health concerns (eg, a social network for diabetics). There will be one aimed squarely at a hobby (eg, wine, golf). And there will be one centred around your profession; and that's where we come in.
A social professional network demands a different sort of user interface and feature set than the generic networks you'll most likely know well. There are as many features of generic networks that don't translate into the professional environment, as there are features required in the professional environment that don't currently exist on generic networks. Examples of the former are the ability to send a hug and buy someone a fish for their virtual aquarium! An example of the latter is the duality of maintaining a professional profile on a network and an anonymous alter ego. This feature means the social professional network is populated with people you know in real life, yet enables members to contribute content and comment that they would rather not have associated with themselves or their employer.
The first execution of our platform is for the marketing communications profession and is called MarCom Professional. We intend to launch social professional networks for other professions, and we would be delighted to talk to anyone with an existing network or readership sharing a common profession, online or off, who wants to learn more about applying our platform.
Regards.