Beyond The Net
Online Networking Sites Compete to Build Personal and Professional Connections
By Janine Warner
Most people agree that online networking is a growing business. What they don't agree on is which new site offers the best way to build a network over the Internet.
Online networking sites -- which include LinkedIn, ZeroDegrees, Ryze, and Friendster -- represent one of the fastest growing categories of Web sites. And they are attracting millions of dollars in venture capital and millions of members eager to help each other find services, business partners, and jobs.
NETWORK BUILDING
When you register at a site like ZeroDegrees, you are encouraged to invite your friends and they in turn are encouraged to invite their friends. As you link to members you already know, you become connected to other members through your mutual friends, and you become part of a growing network.
''The idea -- and it's not really a secret -- is that a lot of business gets done by trusted connections,'' said Konstantin Guericke, co-founder and vice president of marketing at LinkedIn.com. ''When you're looking for a good lawyer, you tend to look to someone you know, not the Yellow Pages.''
Most of these sites let you search across the network for keywords, such as ''CEO + Disney'' or ''Venture Capital,'' and then show you how you are connected to the person who matches your search. How you make contact varies from site to site.
LinkedIn is one of the strictest about privacy, requiring a system of introductions before you can reach someone you don't already know. In contrast, Ryze is designed to let anyone in the network browse through anyone else's profile. (They recently added a privacy setting, but most users keep their profiles public.)
All of these sites offer a basic level of membership for free and then charge -- or plan to charge -- for premium services.
LinkedIn launched in May 2003 and reports some 200,000 active members. They are funded by the same venture capital group (Sequoia Capital) that backed Yahoo! and Google. ZeroDegrees, which reports no venture funding, launched in August 2003 and also reports about 200,000 members.
The only online networking site that is making a profit so far is Ryze.com, which launched in 2001 and has about 120,000 members. Ryze is also the only company that combines online networking with real world events.
Founder Adrian Scott said he created Ryze to complement networking events he was hosting in San Francisco . ''For me, one of the challenges was I'd see people and I wouldn't remember their names, even though I knew I'd met them at a previous event and they'd told me all about what they'd been up to.''
At Ryze.com, members create profiles with personal and professional information and photos. Profiles can be searched or browsed, and members can post messages and testimonials on each other's pages.
The other sites are purely for online networking and because they limit you to connections with other people you already know on the site, they can be very lonely places when you first join.
To help you build connections faster LinkedIn and ZeroDegrees offer the ability to upload your contacts from Outlook, Palm and other common contact managers and then compare your personal contact list with members who are already on their sites.
UPLOADING OPTIONS
When you upload your contacts to ZeroDegrees, they are automatically checked and you are matched with anyone who is already a member (unless you opt out of automatic connections). The system is also synchronized, so if someone on ZeroDegrees changes their e-mail address, it's automatically updated in your Outlook system.
In contrast, LinkedIn reviews your personal contact database to find matches on their site, but they require that you make a formal request before you are linked to each other.
There are lots of people on LinkedIn with whom I might not want to be connected even if they are in my address book, Guericke said. ''There's nothing wrong with them, I just don't know them well and don't want to be asked to forward introductions on their behalf.''
ZeroDegrees has a more open policy, but they do differentiate levels of connection and assign different access based on your relationship. ''If you and I are really good contacts, we may simply choose to open our Rolodexes to each other,'' said Mark Jeffrey, vice president of product development at ZeroDegrees.
If you're looking for more personal connections, try Friendster.com. With more than 5 million members, Friendster has dominated online networking since it launched last year, but its focus is on social connections and dating, not business. Friendster faces new competition at Tickle.com (formerly Emode), and online dating site that started offering online networking features late last year. The newest member of the game is Orkut.com, launched in January by the famous search engine company, Google.
And if that's not enough action in the world of online networking, check out Dogster.com. That's right, any dog can register at this site. A friend of mine told me she spent more time writing the profiles for her pups at Dogster than for herself at Ryze, and she's already found two other dogs they know from the local dog park.
Like other categories on the Web, it's hard to imagine that all of these online networking sites will survive. The jury is still out on who will win in the categories of business and personal networking on the Web, but something tells me Dogster will always find a place in the pack.
First publication, The Miami Herald, Mon, Feb. 16, 2004
