Social Strata

Social Strata, Inc.
Private
Industry Internet software
Founded 1996
Headquarters Seattle, Washington
Products Online communities, Internet forums
Website Social Strata, Inc.
LiveCloud
Hoop.la
Groupee

Social Strata, Inc., formerly known as Groupee, Inc. (and before that, Infopop Corporation and Madrona Park), is an internet software firm based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1996, it moved to Seattle in 1999. It is privately held.

Products

Current products

Past products

Product naming

The OpenTopic product was the initial hosted solution by Infopop. It was largely replaced by UBB.x, a separate product that was an update to the OpenTopic software. UBB.x was more targeted to small to mid-sized businesses and communities who wanted a hosted solution at a premium price.

UBB.x then went through four major versions. In early 2004, UBB.x was integrated into the Eve Community platform. The module system of Eve Community was introduced with the announcement that many modules would be made available; UBB.x was one of the initial modules. Since the initial Eve Alpha testing in late 2003 the number of modules increased from two to four and no third party modules have been announced by Social Strata or integrated with the software as originally planned. As of January 2008, the forums module remains at the same version numbering it did in late 2003.

In 2005, along with a planned corporate rebranding, Eve was renamed Groupee Community.

A new Groupee Community "2.0" product was announced in January 2005 with an initial beta test announced for September/October 2005. It was originally meant to end-of-life the current Groupee Community upon its release. The initial beta period was missed and the product evolved into a completely new service behind the scenes.

In May 2006, Groupee Community was renamed back to Eve Community and will remain an available product, now targeted to large enterprises. The new Groupee Network has no relation to the previous Groupee Community, now Eve Community, or the defunct Groupee Community replacement.

The last major general update to Eve Community, as of December 2009, was in January 2005.

Future development

Social Strata's major focus is on the hosted community service Hoop.la and the LiveCloud social network.

History

Social Strata, Inc. was originally known as Madrona Park, an internet software firm, founded in 1996. Its first software internet programs included the widely popular UBB Message board (now known as UBB.classic ). Madrona Park became Infopop in 1999, while moving its headquarters to Seattle, where many other software and internet companies had relocated to, including Microsoft. In 2001, the company acquired WWWThreads, and renamed the product UBB.threads. In 2005, the firm became known as Groupee, Inc. In December 2009, the firm became known as Social Strata, Inc. On January 1, 2010, UBB.threads was spun off and sold to Mindraven, Inc., with developer Rick Baker assuming full management of the product.

Management team

External links