Spoke (website)
Spoke is a business directory and social networking site founded in 2002 and launched in 2003 mainly used for professional networking. The site collects and aggregates information from public sources, private databases and member uploads . Based in San Mateo, California, Spoke is a privately held company with investment from Sierra Ventures, Partech International and DCM.
Features
The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Coworkers. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a Coworkers.
This list of Coworkers can then be used in a number of ways:
- A Contact network is built up consisting of their direct Coworkers, the Coworkers of each of their Coworkers (termed second-degree Coworkers) and also the Coworkers of second-degree Coworkers (termed third-degree Coworkers). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone you wish to know through a mutual, trusted contact.
- It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network.
- Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
- Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.
Removal of Pages
Concerns have been raised AbOUT Spoke's policies on the rentention of personal information
Sites with comparable features
- BoardEx
- CareerBuilder.com
- Facebook.com
- Monster.com
- Ryze
- Yahoo! HotJobs
See also
- Business network
- Reputation systems
- Social network
- Social software
- List of social networking websites
- Information Routing Group