Webjam, a London-based B2B interpretation of Ning, has raised €1.9 million dollar in series A, led by I-Source. The start-up offers companies a simple – iWeb-like – way to build a social network. Although the BBC once wrote about them as “particularly useful for those who want to create a webpage for a society, club or hobby but don’t know how to do it”, I’d recommend that these entrepreneurs focus on businesses. Since the D.I.Y social network market for fraternities and clubs seems saturated with players like Ning and newcomer Neeetz (review here).
Go for the companies
The British, Spanish and French founders (see picture) seem to realize this, as they call their market B2B2C – yet with the BBC calling them better than Facebook, Webjam seems to be tempted to try to conquer this market as well. Don’t do it guys, just offer ready-to-go social network packages to companies. The product is good enough, with the well-functioning drag ‘n drop interface and the clean look. And the result looks ok, as you can tell by this Webjam-powered site. Go get the cash Webjam, then think about threatening Facebook.
I had to evaluate platforms like this as part of a project I was on and after spending 3 months evaluating them (including ning), the winner by a long way in terms of functionality was http://www.sharedbase.com which powers the award winning community site mentioned here:
http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=7561
It cost *98%* less than the previous solution we had used, was far more secure and offers forums, user profiles, instant messaging chat, search for people by interest, private forums, mailing lists, user groups.
Certainly blew me away and it’s surprising such a product gets so little mention – it’s not the size of funding that matters it’s the quality of the product that end users get.
Well, what is it? Euros or dollars? €1.9 million dollar is ambiguous. Actually “dollar” is also ambiguous. There are several countries which call their currency “dollar”.
dollars, euros, those calculations all day mess up one’s sharpness Lou, thanks for pointing it out.
Some information about our funding dedicated to launching Webjam Branded Services : Our vision is that the market is going to shift from herding members into one single network to providing tools to your clients/readers/members so that they can lead/contribute to various networks based on their affinities. It is about harnessing groups of groups . Once you have outsourced to your clients/members the creation and management of the networks, not just the content, you have a much bigger chance to scale even quicker. More on this trend and how companies can use it for them and their clients on
http://about.webjam.com/webjam/blog/$webjam_blog/2008/07/09/webjam_gets_additional_funding_announces_new_offering_for_organisations_and_businesses
Yann motte, webjam CEO