- Citysocialising
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CitySocialising is a UK based socialising network and community based around the social scene of a city.
CitySocialising officially launched with a site and service in London in January 2007 and have a community of over 120,000 users, across 50 citiesin the UK, each overseen by a local Community Manager.
Contents
History
The London-based founder of CitySocialising, Sanchita Saha, first identified a need for a new service to help professional newcomers to the Capital meet new people and integrate more easily into life in the city in 2004, whilst working at the BBC. She saw how difficult it was for her peers, who were first moving to London for work or with partners in their mid-20s and 30s, arriving with little or no social networks in place, to build a new friends circle from scratch.
In 2005, with an R&D loan from the Prince's Trust, Sanchita set up a trial website (called thesocialservice.com) and began developing this idea. CitySocialising officially launched in January 2007 with a site and service in London and over the course of the next 24 months rolled out sites and services to a further 20 major cities in the UK & Scotland. In 2009, the company raised investment from the London Business Angels network to grow the Operational team, expand into further cities and invested in the platform. Today, the CitySocialising network spans 50 cities in the UK & Scotland.
In December 2010 CitySocialising secured a further £1m from Series A round investment which was led by PROfounders Capital[1], the European VC fund backed by some of the UK's most successful tech entrepreneurs, including Brent Hoberman and Michael Birch. The firm has a focus on the next generation of online businesses with previous investments including Made.com, TweetDeck and Keynoir.
In September 2011 CS announced that from 1st October 2011 all users and members could only login to their service through Facebook. As of 27th September, CS reversed this decision and members will be able to login via the "traditional" method and via Facebook, as they have been doing to date.
CitySocialising Website
CitySocialising offers free profiles, allowing registered users to message members, search for friends and Socials in their area and book onto a Social straight away. Subscription packages for premium membership begin at £9.99 per month.
Sanchita Saha (CEO & Founder)
Sanchita, a UCL Maths graduate, enjoyed a 7-year BBC career, predominantly in radio and digital radio operations and production, before leaving to found CitySocialising. Starting in TV Production and Finance, she was hand-selected to work in BBC Radio 1’s Operations department by controller Andy Parfitt via the BBC’s first ever talent scheme and went on to form part of the BBC’s start-up team to launch the corporation’s digital urban music station, BBC 1Xtra. In the past two years, Sanchita has been recognised as a BT Essence of the Entrepreneur winner, in Management Today's ‘35 Women Under 35’ business list published in the Sunday Times [2]; Courvoisier Future 500 list as one of the UK’s 100 brightest business stars of the future and winner of the People's Choice Award voted for by the public, in the Handbag.com Business Awards [3], .
See also
- Yahoo! Groups
- Google groups
- Glocalization
- Virtual community
References
External links
Categories:- Community building
- Social networks
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
