Befriend a brand on Webjam

So far, London-based Webjam has resisted the temptation of going after the Facebook-kinda audience and remained the focus on B2B. I wrote about this start-up in July, when they closed a €1.9 million round of funding. The BBC once called the iWeb-like community builder “better than Facebook”, and this could have distracted them from their real objective: mobilizing the crowd for companies and organizations. They’ve now released a product that brings this goal closer, called Branded Services.

Brand managers can use the tools and structure of Webjam to give people an opportunity to “befriend” their brand. Sort of like a Facebook company profile, but then with more control for the brand manager. If you look at the page of The Other Side Magazine, only the top bar gives away that we’re dealing with a Webjam page.

Although larger companies won’t feel the need to join Webjam, simply because they have their own outlets, smaller companies might be interested in creating a Webjam-based community. Instead of hiring a developer and designer, The Other Side Magazine only had to subscribe to Webjam’s services and
now their members can write their own blog posts, comment on almost every piece of content, maintain their own profile, publish their own “art”, and have discussions in the forums.

So while many social networks are struggling with their advertisement-based business models, Webjam will happily sell licenses to mid-size companies.