I met Tony Stubblebine back in November 2007 actually the same day this Techcrunch article went out. The article announced the launch of Crowdvine‘s new product, a social network creation tool designed specifically for conference organizers.
An increasingly number of companies offer businesses the opportunity to roll out your own social network (good list here). In this pool of colorful competition, Crowdvine stands as the simplest way to connect to each other. The simplicity starts at the creation of the social network. The creation process lasts 5-10 minutes max: Simply pick a name, description, logo and color theme, 3 introductory questions and invite people to join in by email. You can connect from Crowdvine directly to your Facebook profile and invite your friends from there.
To lively up the group, write blog posts to attract attention and launch discussions. If time doesn’t allow you to write blog posts, hook your Crowdvine network up to your external blog’s feed. You can also connect it to your Twitter account for live regular updates. As Tony Stubblebine mentions in the video, Crowdvine’s best use case is for conferences. Conferences are hotspots for meeting existing and new professional contacts. Knowing who’s going to be at the conf helps attendees connect before the event. A little pre-networking makes the event more predictive, therefore less stressful.
At the end of the day, the conference organizer can still use the dedicated social network to communicate post-announcements and invite the members of the group to a new event. For a new event, simply create a new social network in minutes: Crowdvine lets you easily re-connect with the people you already connected with on the platform previously.
Honestly, Crowdvine made creating a social network as easy as creating a personal profile. Plus if you have any trouble finding your way around, Tony himself will assist you. I didn’t ask, but it could be that new features are cooking under Crowdvine’s hood. Recently, the Founder launched a public competition to re-design the company’s logo. Where there’s smoke…
Read more:
Are we simple enough? Are we dead simple? – Crowdvine blog
Crowdvine offers both free and paid versions of their event networks – Web Community Forum
Crowdvine versus SWIFT – Free Range Librarian
Going Solo on Crowdvine – Crowdvine applied to a small event
Crowdvine: The Facebook for conferences – Social Media Research Blog