Make it "Corporate"

As was probably inevitable, social-networking has been going corporate. To fuel the fire, a company called Visible Path has just received US$17m in venture capital to develope social networking... corporate social networking.

Visible Path isn't the first social networking site to target Corporate America. LinkedIn also courts the business and professional market. But Visible Path is taking a different approach. While LinkedIn is aimed mostly at individuals who pay fees depending on the level of service, Visible Path sees companies as its main market. "Our business model is different because the enterprise pays, not the individual," says Brydon. "The value in our case accrues to the enterprise, although it also accrues to individuals who comprise the enterprise." Visible Path looks different from other social-networking sites. Users don't create home pages or profiles on Visible Path. The site instead keeps tabs on whom its users communicate with by e-mail or through other means. And it ranks the strengths of those relationships based on how often people communicate. Then it helps users find common sources and contacts so they can approach one another to do business.

We don't doubt that value can be created, human organizations within large companies are surely rife with inefficiencies. Nevertheless, we feel that hot internet themes plus the word "corporate" go down very well with venture capitalists these days. Just cross the latest buzzwords over and over again with the word corporate, screen it down a little, and you'd probably be able to create a marketable business plan.

In fact, while it's just in the preliminary stages, we here at the Stalwart are working on a new Corporate Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.  It will involve employees getting to know each other over long periods of time, teaming up into small businessparties, and then mugging new entrants for treasure. We feel that actual departments could then be assembled without the need for human resources staff... though we warn that the average age of successful staff tends to be about 13.

Comments

[Daniel]

I'm still in shock that nobody's thought of doing a myspace.com for the business world, calling it officespace.com--it's not like the movie writers can bitch too much; the whole plotline is stolen from a Superman movie.

[Andrew Schmitt]

Already exists. linkedin.com. Very popular in the engineering/software realm.