Hey phowat, oneplusone and I are currently working on just that! I'm not sure exactly when we are coming out of private beta but the idea is that the application will ultimately be a multi-lingual, open source, professional social network, largely targeting workers that use computers in some way (designers, developers, electronic engineers, project managers, investors, etc).
Companies and recruiters will not be welcome (at least initially) and there will never be advertising or a pay-for-spam model or any other super skeezy business model like individual information or making custom tools for government censors.
We're hoping to not even have Google Analytics or any other 3rd party tracking site once we get out of open beta. Also, no spamming our own users ala LinkedIn. This is the notify me on open beta link:
> professional social network, largely targeting workers that use computers in some way (designers, developers, electronic engineers, project managers, investors, etc).
... and...
> Companies and recruiters will not be welcome (at least initially
So it's not a LinkedIn competitor, then.
It might very well turn out you're onto something great and I'm not saying this as criticism, but from description you're trying to become something fundamentally different from what LinkedIn is. Don't try to sell yourself as a LinkedIn alternative.
LinkedIn is where I go when I want to find someone important in company X that I wouldn't normally have access to, typically in functions that are usually outside of my normal circle. E.g. I got two separate SVP's at DHL to personally interfere to get a package I was waiting for redirected when their local customer service was being useless once.
It's where I go when I want to find recruiters with contacts in the right companies, whether to hire or to be hired.
It's where I go when I want to research companies to see if they're a good fit to work at, or a good fit to partner with etc.
It's where I go when I want to contact someone I've worked with in the past but not closely enough to e.g. have them on facebook or have their current phone number or e-mail. This last one appears to be pretty much the only one that fits your model, except I often want people outside of the techies.
This is why I'm reasonably active (couple of times a month) on LinkedIn, and not at all (once a year at most) on Facebook. For me, you'd fall closer to the Facebook end of the spectrum based on your homepage. That's not necessarily bad (clearly my Facebook usage is crazily atypical), but it's a different niche.
So I understand where you are coming from, but I think we're thinking of different things.
When I say "no recruiters" I don't mean "no recruitment". What I mean is that there shouldn't be these people that spam your inbox with messages like this:
The problem with recruiters is that to them its a numbers game. They don't care if they waste a minute of your time, they aren't really there to help you. They actively try to prevent you from even finding out who the company is so you don't go around them.
A site that helps people find better places to work is a good thing. The way recruiters and companies do it (by spamming people) is not. Ultimately we'll have to have a company profile page, but we want to make sure it is done right.
As for finding companies worth working with, that is something we'd like to tackle, but we're a professional social network for people before we're one for companies. But I agree that it is important to at least present information on a company, even if there isn't company-wide accounts (which we're still thinking about).
But fundamentally, you are right, we aren't a LinkedIn competitor the same way that Pepsi is a Coke competitor. We are building something different, and if you love LinkedIn then that is just fine with us.
Companies and recruiters will not be welcome (at least initially) and there will never be advertising or a pay-for-spam model or any other super skeezy business model like individual information or making custom tools for government censors.
We're hoping to not even have Google Analytics or any other 3rd party tracking site once we get out of open beta. Also, no spamming our own users ala LinkedIn. This is the notify me on open beta link:
http://www.bonjour.is/
(Note the POST to the server is HTTPS, we just haven't bothered setting up the certs for the Ember App hoster yet.)
Feel free to sign up to get notified if you want. Or don't. We'll post it here once we open up the beta anyway :)