Okay, enough YouTube. Now onto online communities, social net, whatnot. This news about Multiply.com getting funding caught our eye.
TechCrunch reported that Multiply closed its first Series A funding round with $5 million from Transcosmos and $1 million from the company’s founders. What’s interesting about Multiply is its Japanese connection. Since launching in March 2004, the system has nearly 3 million registered users and recently expanded with a localized version for Japan.
Among the rash of social nets, Multiply “aims to be distinct by focusing closely on limiting interactions to people who are already connected to each other.” It “filters all networking functions, from highlighted users to visible tag clouds, through a proximity filter with a slider.” In other words, users determine whether they want to view information about people just on their contacts list, who are friends of a friend, etc.
Founder and President Peter Pezaris was previously CBS SportsLine.com’s President of Operations and Product Development and oversaw operations of nfl.com, pgatour.com and cbs.sportsline.com. Transcosmos adds Multiply to a portfolio that includes Ask/Bloglines, RealNetworks, Hipcast/Audioblog, Pheedo, Edgio and others.
With so many social networking sites on the web, “marketing is going to be essential.” And perhaps branching out into international markets? We hear that MSN Spaces is very popular in Asia. We think it’s nothing short of a daunting challenge to compete with MySpace, which has a mighty corporate parent, News Corp.