tribe.net

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (August 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

tribe.net (often shortened to "tribe") is a website that hosts an online community of friends, similar to other social networking sites. The site name is always spelled in all lower case.

1 History
2 Features
3 Ownership
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

Tribe was founded in early 2003. As of March 2004, the population of tribe was skewed heavily towards people living in the San Francisco Bay Area, though the geographic distribution is gradually normalizing as people from other places join. As of September 2006 it had over 500,000 members.

In a controversial move, on December 20, 2005, tribe.net decided to prohibit sexually explicit content, partially in response to the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act. Coincidentally, shortly before the rule change, tribe.net hired a new CEO, who was a regular Christian churchgoer^{[citation needed]}, and somewhat socially conservative^{[citation needed]}. This move disappointed many users^{[citation needed]}, as tribe to that point had been notable for an exceptionally permissive content policy.

On January 19, 2006, tribe.net changed its layout and user interface (UI). The management of tribe.net claimed that they received approximately 40% positive feedback during a small beta phase with 3000 users (a statistically significant sample, if chosen randomly). A large and outspoken group of current members of tribe have repeatedly expressed that the new design, layout, and overall feel of the new website go against many of their original reasons for joining the site^{[citation needed]}. tribe's original "grassroots" approach to member-based forum monitoring and the focus of many tribe.net participants on alternative lifestyles and the arts was appealing to those who found other sites like MySpace or Friendster to be rather broad-based and commercial.

On August 24, 2006, former CEO Mark Pincus announced that he was "taking back tribe." He did this through a public listing on the site.

Under the previous management, tribe.net had repeatedly stated that they had no intention of reverting to the previous look or interface of the site. However, on September 21, 2006 Tribe posted an announcement on their website that the revised interface (AKA the January 2006 release) was suspended in favor of an easier and more customizable user interface. One of the splash pages showed the website's logo dripping blood, and declared that the employee designers were taking over the site.^[1] By September 22, 2006 the site was accessible as usual.

In late 2007, tribe.net announced that it would offer a premium service to members on a subscription basis, at the rate of $5.00 per month. Prospective premium members were told that they would be able to view the website in an ad-free format.

[edit] Features

Anyone may register as a new tribe user, and may then define his or her immediate network of friends, either by choosing from existing members or by inviting new members to join. Each of these users may in turn define their own network of friends. (This process results in a type of user-driven viral marketing on behalf of tribe.net.) As more and more people and their friends join tribe, it results in an elaborate social network with many thousands of members. tribe users leverage the small world phenomenon as a way to enhance their own immediate social network.

tribe.net features many "tribes", loosely based on the theory of urban tribes propounded by Ethan Watters. In practice, these tribes are a kind of topical forum. A new tribe may be created by any registered user. When a user creates a new tribe, that user is the moderator of the tribe. Any user may in principle join any tribe, although some tribes are private or require permission from the moderator to join. In addition to threaded messages, members can use tribes to post photos, announce upcoming parties, concerts, or other events easily and reach select audiences. Currently there are thousands of tribes, with more being added daily.

Tribe content falls into several different categories: Topics (discussion threads), photos (uploaded by users), listings (classified ads), events (scheduled happenings), reviews (of websites), requests (more classified ads), and olx (link to OLX, a separate website of classified ads).

[edit] Ownership

Tribe Networks, the company behind tribe.net, was formerly privately owned, financed largely with venture capital. Tribe has partnered with the Washington Post and Knight Ridder.

In March of 2007, Cisco Systems announced their acquisition of Tribe Networks' technology assets.^[2]