TrustWorks: Advice Exchange for Private Communities
Bringing Privacy to Social and Enterprise Networks
Traditional social networks are based on a “broadcast model”, which means that each member transmits messages which can be seen by everyone else in the community. This is a strength for sites like facebook, which enable a large audience of “friends” to choose how much or how little they wish to absorb. However, it fails in two important scenarios:
- Important Messages are often confidential, such as requests for assistance. If you need to know who, within your group, you can look to for a private discussion, then broadcasting doesn’t work. What if you have an embarrassing problem or need assistance with a business-critical function?
- Important People don’t read mass-communications. When I need help with something, I would prefer to ask one of my CEO friends – not one of my unemployed friends. But people whose time is in-demand will only respond to one-on-one messages; they don’t have time to read a “news feed”.
TrustWorks developed social networking software for private communities, including corporations and alumni organizations, which maintained a customizable knowledge base. It allowed community members to identify colleagues for private, secure communications.
The business raised $200k in seed capital, and $200k in debt, launched test products with numerous groups, and closed in 2010 in response to competition in the enterprise social networking software space.
Some description is still online for archival purposes at: http://about.trustworks.com/
