CollectiveX, a bootstrapped startup located in Maryland, will roll out version 2 of it’s year old social network collaboration platform today. Full disclosure: the company is a TechCrunch50 Exhibitor (which is a sponsor).
We first wrote about CollectiveX, founded by serial entrepreneur Clarence Wooten, back in 2005 when it first went into private beta. In May 2006 the service launched, and a year ago (at TechCrunch40) they launched Groupsites, which, among other things, let users create separate profiles for personal and business interactions.
In a nutshell, think of CollectiveX as a sort of LinkedIn-type professional social network, with collaboration tools for groups (companies, boards of directors, whatever). Calendaring, blogging, file sharing, photos, etc. Robert Scoble calls them “social websites.”
Groups create shared websites for members. In this new version pages are customizable and modularized (think Netvibes). users can also take any module on a page and embed it on a third party site, or pull any third party widgets or code into their CollectiveX site. There’s a free option for groups, or they can buy things like a more white label experience (see top image above), extra storage, etc. for a monthly fee.
Here’s why I like CollectiveX: It serves a need that a lot of small and medium sized organizations really have. A place to keep themselves organized online, share contact information (and contacts for introductions), and generally get their work done.
Once a user joins with a group, they can add any other group to their profile. That means the service can grow virally. If someone gets sucked into a charitable organization where they donate time or money, they may soon see the value in using it at work, or for their kid’s soccer team. That sucks in other users over time.
The service is still relatively small with 18,000 groups. But 8% of those groups eventually start to buy premium features, says Wooten, and the company is near break even. CollectiveX isn’t the sexiest startup we’ve covered, but it uses a lot of the really cool collaboration features we see on the more fluffy sites to really help groups get organized. See the overview video below showing the new features:
Comments
Would it be overly optimistic to call this NING for Business?
Considering registration appears to be bombing out against postal code checks…
“Postal code could not be verified”
It might be having a case of the Mondays…
Thx. We’re on it. I think we had a slight case of the new launchies. We’ll have it fixed in 2 minutes and 2 seconds
… or even faster.
Thanks for pointing this out Jay. Remind your friendly neighborhood Rails developers to use bulk inserts for things like zip code databases - we loaded almost a million records in less than 10 seconds.
Rock on guys… don’t forget to save room for beers.
You might want to check your Add additional email context for profiles
1) /my/prefs (click Add)
2) posts to /my/email/new&email[email] as a 404 with the argument value
Okay… sleepytime - no more QA/QC
I was able to create a reasonable company intranet in about 3 minutes… slick stuff.
Thx. There is nothing like real-time QA for a new product launch from a TechCrunch reader. This is what happens when you instantly convert 18,000+ Groupsites over to a major new release and completely new user-interface.
We should have all major bugs squashed by morning
If you’re at TechCrunch50, stop past and see us at exhibitor table #4.
Clarence — Not a problem and good luck to you and your team at TC50.
I have been generally impressed with my experience with Collective X. I belong to a virtual networking group called High Output Networking and the Collective X platform has been serving all 844 members extremely well. I just checked on the new look today and found the site to be somewhat more sluggish than the old design when opened in Internet Explorer. The best browser to use so far for the upgrade is the new Google Chrome browser. I have noticed that my online accounting software has been performing so much better on Google Chrome as well.
Maybe Collective X might need to do some more testing and look into why the application is a bit sluggish in Explorer and somewhat screwed up in Firefox.
Don’t worry, I can be patient, after all, I am in the software development business as well and bugs are our friends
If you’re using Internet Explorer 6, I’d suggest upgrading to version 7 as soon as possible.
I do have internet explorer 7. But I did find things a bit more sluggish than before. Maybe it is my internet connection
Interesting. Looks like a more developed version of http://www.moli.com. Neither are particularly sexy, but serve a need that major social networks don’t and won’t….
You should take a look at Convos (http://www.convos.com). We use Adobe Flex / Flash as our interface for people to create and manage their groups. Plus, we offer group listservs with their own email address for group communication.
Convos
wow, another site that requires another setup and another registration and another profile build? fascinating…
convos actually looks way more interesting - any chance you could use google’s api for doc sharing? or how about tantango for group sms? that would be sweet….
Looks great, Clarence! Keep up the good work!
Thanks,
The ‘Deacons’ @ La Jolla Presbyterian Church
Checking out the new collectivex 2.0 new features
lol - drink coffee, or stretch before you come on camera, you look like you just woke up.
Great Job CollectiveX! I had no problems with the transition from 1.0 to 2.0! The feedback has been amazing. I started the Nextforce group just as a location to share ideas and stories and it has morphed in to more of a launching pad for people to check into to fuel up!
opened an account and started working, what about daily and weekly view in the calendar?
have tried to upgrade to premium feature and only getting a 500 error message. Any tips?
Leave Comment
Commenting Options
Enter your personal information to the left, or sign in with your Facebook account by clicking the button below.
Alternatively, you can create an avatar that will appear whenever you leave a comment on a Gravatar-enabled blog.