‘techTribe’~ A Professional version of Orkut!

The increasing popularity of social networking have reached to the level of specialization, and now we have networking sites dedicated separately for cricket enthusiasts, Bollywood buffs, Hindi music lovers, professionals and so on…
The techTribe headed by Rohit Agarwal is one such professional version of Orkut meant for IT/BPO/KPO Professionals, enabling them to use social networking for innovation through ideas, networking and mentorship...
Launched few months back, this site is based on the premise that we can develop a network of professional buddies, colleagues etc who can be a source of help throughout our career. The site can help technology professionals establish their identity¬ based on their background, their achievements, their abilities and specially their network of friends and colleagues (The conception that ‘You are judged by the company you keep’ works here!).
Comparing it with an already available professional networking site ’LinkedIn’ we find that LinkedIn is a place to find professionals we don’t know, while techTribe is a place where we build a network and utilize that network for counseling, guidance or mentorship.
techTribe, works similar to other networking sites, but with a professional look and feel.
We can create an account and start a tribe or join one created by others. The names of these tribes are limited only by our own imagination. Eg. BlackBeltTechies, JackofallTrades, VirtualTeamforSoftwareDev. You can create a blog, add photographs, upload/write articles etc.
The revenue model will be based on corporates who are interested in sponsoring relevant parts of the sites (or maybe relevant tribes), premium membership for paid users or from unobstrusive advertising.
Given the fact that the user base is likely to have a very strong technology orientation, it is possible that many tech companies would pay to capture eyeballs on this site. techTribe is looking forward to get mass membership through corporate alliances with IT companies. They have an early success story with Zensar Technologies, which has announced a partnership to help foster innovation within its developer base.
Moreover, TechTribe isn’t just about social networking, but it moves a step further to leverage the concept of social networking to provide an innovation platform.
“We’re looking to provide India’s innovation platform. We didn’t start techTribe as a social networking venture, we started it and are running it as an innovation platform”, says the CEO Mr. Rohit Agarwal.