Ecademy

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Ecademy is primarily a subscription-based network or contact organisation used for the building of business contacts between people, and also used to advertise products and services offered or wanted. It is also a social networking site, and runs some events around social gatherings.

Ecademy uses a two-tier subscription model - members have the option of limited status or full membership, depending on their subscription level. As of October 2006, Ecademy has approximately 95,000 registered members, around 10,000 of whom are paying subscribers. Membership is said to represent 130 industries in over 180 countries. These figures are not independently verified.

Ecademy's Chairman is Thomas Power. Ecademy is owned by The Ecademy Ltd, a private limited company, based in the UK. However it is noted that the bulk of the Ecademy shares are actually owned by a company called Routecause Ltd, which according to Companies House has an identical postal address to The Ecademy Ltd.

Contents

[edit] Aims

Ecademy is an online community intended to be used to connect people under the philosophy that it is people first, business second to generate future business opportunities. With the bulk of the membership concentrated in the UK, one of the goals of Ecademy is to have "A Friend in Every City", a slogan coined by Thomas Power and shared with Kirstin Elaine Myers' Globond as part of their symbiotic relationship. [1].

To gain a level of trust, it is expected that members adhere to some rules for a networking environment. The Ecademy management have published these rules and an Ethos document. The main mechanisms for indicating trustworthiness are: members must use their real name and photograph; one's online reputation; removing a user from the site. This being the case the “Trusted Network” slogan is more a marketing device.

In addition to networking with other members, many Ecademy members use the Web site for promoting a professional online presence for themselves and their business. As with most high traffic sites where new content is constantly being added to the site, Ecademy's content typically ranks high in a number of search engines. Many of the members' profile pages appear at the top of search results when someone searches on their name. This is similar in concept to the benefits one can realize through various article marketing websites.

[edit] Clubs

With an ever greater number of people involved, it is important to allow for self organisation. Clubs are one way in which people can express their particular interest. By creating or joining a club, members can focus on similar interests and enjoy discussions with like-minded people. Some clubs are purely online; others offer face-to-face events, typically on a monthly basis.

Ecademy records the speakers at its monthly Ecademy networking event, which are made available for subscribers to watch online a few days later. Ecademy is currently experimenting with broadcasting the events live using Skypecast.

Enhanced Clubs: A range of new enhanced club features have been introduced on February 16, 2007, adding to the functions of Ecademy Clubs, and allowing Ecademy Members running clubs to charge for membership via PayPal, and to make charges for meetings or online events scheduled within the Ecademy Meetings System. Ecademy takes no share of this revenue. Categories have also been added to club forums, to allow forum threads to be assigned a category defined by the club owner, but selected by the person adding the forum thread. International and Regional Clubs will now also have new Ecademy members who are within their geographical area automatically added into the membership of their club.

The enhancement of Ecademy Clubs allows them to be used as an eCommerce mechanism by Ecademy Members, where club membership can be restricted to those who have made payments verified by payPal. The announcement suggests one mechanism for using the Clubs: "You provide a product to your customers. You can set up a user group club on Ecademy with a charge that covers the product and support fees for operating the club. Customers who are not Ecademy members should be sent an invite to join from which they get free membership of Ecademy for a month (and if they subscribe you will make revenue via EAP - Ecademy Associate Program).

[edit] Weblog

There is an active amount of writing done in the format of weblogs. These are given a lot of prominence on the Ecademy website and are also registered on Google; more blog entries leading to increased pageranking in Google. There are no quality constraints placed on blogs. Editing and moderation are done retroactively in response to complaints from other members or Ecademy's management (which has lead to accusations of censorship). Ecademy appears to aim to balance allowing discussions of Members' business ideas & issues in open blogs, with the commercial imperative to encourage paid advertising of those business services.

Ecademy have now hidden the comments to user postings from non members. Since May 2005 Guest members, who have free, temporary membership, can see comments but cannot interact.

[edit] Trusted Networks

Around 2002, Ecademy introduced a number of mini Web sites, which it called "Trusted Networks" (TN). The implication was that there was a form of vetting or ability to trust the members and advice in the TN, although this was never explicitly stated. However after some close questioning the Ecademy management agreed that it was in reality a marketing device rather than a mechanism that implied the ability to trust.

In 2007, the TNs were: A Woman's Place; Asia-Pacific; Beermat Entrepreneur; Benelux; BNI; BRE; India; Japan; Microsoft; USA; Wireless. The Microsoft TN lost its leader after three years, with club leadership taken over by Ecademy's CEO. Other TNs were mooted for a range of consumer products, but these did not appear.

In 2007, Ecademy stated it aimed to simplify the Ecademy interface and rationalise (i.e close) the number of TNs. In January 2007, the leader of A Woman’s Place (one of the longest running TNs) announced it will be closing down, and she would be leaving Ecademy.

[edit] Platform

The Ecademy platform is Drupal software that has been modified by the management over a period of time to meet user requirements. In 2002,Thomas Power stated that the site was available as a white label. When it was pointed out that to do so would involve giving it away free under Drupal's GPL, the offer was withdrawn.

[edit] History

According to their latest book, "A Friend in Every City, “On 7th February, 1998, over pizza in the Surrey town of Farnham, Penny set out her initial idea for a place where the self-employed could support each other and find ways of working together. Ecademy began as a meeting of people from Thomas’s network at a bar in Central London.”

Ecademy claims to have grown without venture capital funding (see following chapters), advertising or PR, thus far. Ecademy has changed its proposition over the years, from an Education Portal to an online and offline Business Networking club:

The notion of the Ecademy being the Powers sole invention and being built up with their own money and revenues is called into question when posts such as this exist:-

"Co-founded Ecademy with two partners, following experience gained implementing an e-commerce system at Datrontech UK and his recognition of the need for continual co-operation, education and information in the e-business arena. Developed business into one of the leading online/offline business networks globally. Full Operational and P&L responsibility, Effectively managed the company ensuring cash flow and profitability, Partnership development and affiliations, raising £1m in private equity for 5% of the company after only 9 months trading, planning, preparing and being accepted for an IPO on AIM, devised sponsorship and networking initiatives to develop a community for I.T. suppliers, corporates, consultants and new media companies and successfully converted to revenue stream."

This is by Steven Clarke and checking on the Waybackwhenmachine for the earliest versions of the Ecademy would seem to corroborate this.

[edit] BlackStar

[BlackStarLifeMembers] is a private club for Ecademy members, founded by Ecademy co-founder and Chairman Thomas Power in November 2004. It offers lifetime membership of Ecademy, plus other benefits, enabling members to interact with other members willing to make a long-term commitment to Ecademy and networking.

BlackStar Life Membership originated when Thomas Power visited Roger Hamilton, the owner and founder of XL Results Foundation Pte. Ltd.,a limited exempt private company based in Singapore, and decided to copy Roger's system. Roger was the original co-leader of the BlackStar club, where members were told: "In effect as a BlackStar you are becoming part of the Thomas Power and Roger Hamilton inner circle.".

XL Results Foundation Pte. Ltd. is registered in Singapore, has an authorised share capital of S$100,000.00 and a paid-up share capital of S$10,000.00. Its registered principal activities are: (1) Technical, vocational and commercial education; (2) Mail order agencies (including sales via telephone and the Internet).

  • The benefits of Blackstar originally included "becoming part of the Thomas Power and Roger Hamilton inner circle.".
  • It was also stated that "There will be a price rise January 1st 2006 to GBP6,000. A maximum of 200 Life Memberships will be made available each year... with a limited quota each month to ensure quality levels, service levels and qualification levels." The actual price rise on January 1st 2006 was from GBP3000 to GBP3600.
  • There has also been a change in the maximum number of Memberships available. The number of Foundation Life Members (who pay a one-time fee) is limited to a maximum of 2,012 members by the time membership closes in 2012. The number of Subscription Life Members (who pay a monthly fee for life) is limited to 1,000 members per year.(The original limit was 200 per year). Both Foundation and Subscription Life members go through the same approval process prior to their application being accepted.
  • On April 26th 2005, Thomas Power stated that "BlackStar IS access to Google". This has been denied by Google.
  • Later in 2005 a long list of "Benefits of BlackStar" appeared on the clubs home page (referenced in this post by Rich Wootten - Rich has only added "Bigger Manhood" to the original list.). These included "Amplify Yourself, Magnify Yourself, Multiply Yourself, Energise Yourself, Expand your mind... Instant Trust, Intrinsic Trust, Friendship , Longevity, Peace of Mind.".
  • On May 2nd 2006, Thomas Power claimed that with BlackStar Life Membership "you get access to 400 major Corporations". A list of which major Corporations and at what level is not publicly available.
  • Membership figures:
    • There were 313 members at the end of December 2006
    • There were 210 members at the end of December 2005
    • There were 52 members at the end of December 2004
    • At least 8 people have left BlackStar since it started, being replaced by others.
  • In June 2006, Ecademy published the results into a survey of BlackStar members. It claimed that, within the first year of membership, over 25% of Blackstars had business referrals in excess of their membership fee, with 2% gaining business worth more than £100,000. When asked to value the intangible benefits of membership, the average value of those surveyed was £7,500 per annum.
  • In September 2006, Ecademy announced prices would rise by 67% on January 1st 2007 and a limit would be applied to UK membership.
  • BlackStar terms and conditions include the following:
    • Existing BlackStar Foundation Life Members cannot advertise the sale within Ecademy, either on its website or directly to members, only to individuals outside the Ecademy membership.
    • BlackStar Subscription Life Membership must be held for a minimum of 72 month contract period and the balance of monthly payments outstanding at any time during this period will become payable in full should the member breach any of the specific or general terms of membership. The legally-binding commitment to 72 monthly payments will only be waived if the member opts for Foundation Membership, or if the member becomes incapacitated.
    • The new BackStar [sic] Foundation Life Member buyer must adhere to the terms & conditions of BlackStar and Ecademy which includes a minimum 12 months membership.
  • An article within Ecademy published by a BlackStar Member on 25th January 2007 describes the benefits of joining BlackStar, as well as the format for one of their private meetings. Inside BlackStar: Belonging, Sharing, Winning (or 25 Days of Attitude). The article follows the 'Chatham House Rule' by not revealing individuals' identities aside from Ecademy Management and the Author, or identifying the individuals making specific statements.

[edit] Criticism of Ecademy

Some former subscribers have been passionately critical of Ecademy (both while they were paying members and after they were excluded), and have created other online networking platforms and discussion groups to express their opinions.

Their criticisms include: management practices, including the complaints process and the reasons for their expulsions (some have vociferously complained that the complaints process did not follow the natural rules of justice); site statistics; the site's ease of use (or lack of it); the products and services offered by some Ecademy members; the value of online networking per se; moderation policy; and the quality of content posted onto the Ecademy site.

According to some former Members, they have been removed from Ecademy for opinions and assessments they have written on other websites in relation to the faults they find with Ecademy as an on-line community. Independent verification of these and other, management- and process-related claims is difficult if not impossible due to their very "he-says-she-says" nature.

Others have complained that, often, Ecademy subscribers will 'double post' content from their own site onto Ecademy's open home page in order to raise their hit rate on Google. As the content doesn't have to pass any rigid standards, it could just be filler with a signature attached resulting in a member's Google capture for search engine visibility.

In 2005, a number of former members of Ecademy formed LastThursday, another social networking site to compete directly with Ecademy, albeit on a different platform. Membership and activities of LastThursday remain largely confined to the United Kingdom. Last Thursday has now changed its name to First Monday, and appears to be managed by at least two BlackStar members of Ecademy.

Roger Hamilton (original co-leader of the BlackStar club)claims that a certain portion of XL Results Foundation membership fees have been donated to charities around the world. The original claim was that 10% of all revenue from XL Results Foundation is contributed to good causes. To date, Roger Hamilton has not been able to produce any financial records since 2004 to substantiate his claims.

In November 2006, approximately 20 members accounts were barred or suspended in an attempt by the Ecademy management to control escalating comments of their ability to manage the site with the necessary level of equanimity. Banned members have complained that the messages they received stated this action was due to them having 'fake accounts' - a claim they strongly dispute. Current members were told by Ecademythat the suspensions were part of a cooling off period. Barred members were reported as feeling very clearly that their expulsions are unreasonable and that they were treated in such a way by the management of Ecademy that trust and goodwill have broken down. None of the suspended members have chosen to return to Ecademy. Some published their reasons in the Social forum at First Monday

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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