A New Social Network for the Entertainment Industry
Posted in Articles, Social Networks | Posted on 01-11-2008 | 260 views
CEO of MaxxoMedia
Lately, my inbox has been inundated with invitations to join new online social networking sites. Unlike early entrants to the social networking market like MySpace and Friendster, these new services are more focused on helping people do business. The largest and seemingly most popular business network is named Linkedin. A little over four years old, it boasts over 17 million members.
New social nets seem to be popping up daily.Many just duplicate features and functions of the leaders. They simply offer a network of people from many different walks of life the opportunity to connect with each other. However, one recent entrant is making waves by focusing the power of social networking software into a marketplace that has always been insulated and inefficient – the entertainment industry.
Nextcat.com aims to be THE business social networking hub of the entertainment industry. Based outside of Boston, the company was founded by two serial entrepreneurs, Jeff Pucci and Richard Viard. Though they both attended the Berklee College of Music, they didn’t meet up until 1988.
Since then, armed with a love of music and the entrepreneurial spirit, the two have collaborated on a number of projects, including the development of computer-generated music software, CD-roms that teach the history of music and Smarterkids.com, a website that evaluated educational toys and matched them with children based on their educational needs. They took Smarterkids.com public in 1999, riding the dotcom wave, and sold the company in 2001.
The vision for Nextcat.com would come in 2004 when Pucci first encountered Linkedin. Viewing the service from the eyes of a musician, he quickly saw how the online social network could help transform the highly fragmented world of the music industry. He was also looking for a more professional experience than on other networking sites like MySpace.
The tag line for Nextcat is so true when it comes to this industry – “It’s all about who you know.” But until these online networks came into play. “who you know” was limited by “who you knew,” if you know what I mean. Let’s say you need to find an engineer for an upcoming session. You probably have a list of three to five people you know who you can call. With a service like Nextcat, you now have potentially hundreds of engineers you can connect with. You can also see how those people are connected to you or other people you know, and listen to samples of their work. That can give you more comfort in reaching out to someone you don’t know.
Currently the service caters to five broad sections of the entertainment industry: Music, Film/TV/Stage, Modeling, Arts & Literature and Gaming. Each section focuses on the talent — actors, producers, screenwriters, DJs, engineers, composers, models, game developers — and the supporting service providers. The site also features job boards and forums where members can find work and discuss industry specific issues.
Signing up to Nexcat is easy. The first step is to get a free account and set up your personal profile page. On it, depending on your discipline or talent, you can fill in information about your career experience. Then add people you have worked with and your interests. You can even add samples of your work, complete with photos, music files, slide shows or video demo reels. You can put as much or as little information on your profile as you wish. However you should think of your profile as a database. Meaning, you never know what keywords someone may search on, so more information is better. Connecting to someone is easy. Click on the Request Connection button, add a personal message and hit “Send.”
It’s also really easy to find other people you know who are already members and to invite people you think would benefit from the service. You can have the service scan your e-mail address book from many of the top e-mail services and Linkedin. You can then choose which people to invite, draft an invitation message and Nextcat does the rest. The site is free to sign up for the basic service.
New members have been signing up in droves, prompted by word-of-mouth only … and they like the service so much that they are inviting their friends. Lately they have been attracting bigger names to the service who are willing to help others aspiring to achieve their career dreams. Much like the vision for their previous successful company, Smarterkids.com, Pucci and Viard plan to add specialty subscription services specific to each market which, will keep members coming back again and again.
Check it out at http://www.nextcat.com
