Tribe.net

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.

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 churchgoerFact|date=May 2008, and somewhat socially conservativeFact|date=May 2008. This move disappointed many usersFact|date=May 2008, 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 siteFact|date=May 2008. 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. [cite news | title=A letter to the community from the employees of Tribe.net | year= 2006| month = September | url =http://www.tribe.net/template/pub,interstitial,RebootLetter.vm | accessdate = 2007-12-05 ] By September 22, 2006 the site was accessible as usual.

In late 2007, at the request of many members, 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. It also promised free t-shirts to annual members, a benefit that has never fully been disbursed.

In the first week of September 2008, the tribe.net website was offline. A scheduled transition onto more stable servers was delayed by a missing hardware component and a failed SAN, following hardware issues that took tribe's Image server offline for several days in August of the same year.

On September 11th, 2008, Darren Mckeeman, the only paid full-time developer for Tribe.net, twittered: "Mark Pincus just cursed at me in email and I sent him back my resignation. My 40th birthday resolution was to stop tolerating verbal abuse."

Pincus reported on his blog that Mckeeman had submitted his resignation and that Tribe.net hoped to hire another system administrator. [http://markpincus.typepad.com/markpincus/2008/09/update-on-tribe.html Update on Tribe] , "markpincus.typepad.com," September 14, 2008] .

A September 24, 2008 article in the San Francisco Weekly quoted Pincus as saying that the site would continue. "I feel a commitment to the community of people who have made the decision to post themselves on Tribe," the Weekly quoted Pincus. "We've kept Tribe going not because we believed it would turn into a phenomenal business success like Bebo or Facebook, but because I think it serves a really valuable role for the community." [http://sfweekly.com/2008-09-24/news/tribe-net-going-the-way-of-friendster Tribe.Net Going the Way of Friendster] , "San Francisco Weekly," September 24, 2008]

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).

tability

In the summer of 2008, Tribe experienced frequent down time and technical difficulties making it inaccessible to their users, sometimes for periods as long as three or four days. Tribe promised a full redesign of their site which will alleviate these problems, scheduled to launch in August or September 2008. As of October 8, 2008 such stability has not materialized.

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 2007, Cisco Systems announced their acquisition of Tribe Networks' technology assets. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/03/technology/03social.html?ex=1330578000&en=f718f182170673a4&ei=5088 New York Times article] ]

References

ee also

* List of social networking websites

External links

* [http://www.tribe.net/ tribe.net website]
* [http://sanfrancisco.tribe.net/listing/weve-taken-tribe-back/san-francisco-ca/36bbc4a2-00b0-4ae9-a7dc-9a61ff3cd937 tribe listing] in which Marc Pincus announces he is "taking back tribe"
*A screenshot of the "under construction" page from September 21, 2006 [http://www.flickr.com/photos/65196239@N00/249437312/]
* [http://brainstorm.tribe.net/thread/e570a12c-5a4f-4838-a243-e6d8f288a545 Statement from Brian Lawler (Chief Architect) regarding tribe.net's current stance on mature content] , posted September 27, 2006