CollectiveX does lack certain things like Polls, Image Gallery, but ROX!

I am also a member in many organizations. The advantages of using this tool are very obvious to me. What would be interesting to me is the ability to use this type of social network within my company where groups = departments (also for cross-department working groups). In this sense, it starts to look like Sharepoint, only much easier to deal with.

And the revenue model has perverse incentives. Instead of being rewarded for building a big group and introducing many people to CollectiveX, you are charged for it.

So people will actively try to keep groups small, unless they are specifically business related and can cover their own expenses.

Unless they tweak their biz model to offer no charge access to any non-business groups, they’re never going to get the church, alumnni, volunteer, and charity organizations where many people get their first intro to these kinds of collaborative tools, and decide to form one themselves. If they are counting on viral growth without that–zzzzzt! Sorry. Ain’t gonna happen.

Having said that, I hope they tweak accordingly, because there is a real need for good, collaborative and relationship-building tools in group space. And as Stanley also said, Yahoo ain’t doin’ squat with it. And I can’t say Google is doing much better, either.

Whether it is financially a viable concept or not will be determined by the users that do create groups and in turn how well those groups are received and leveraged by invitees.

Will there be cross-group collaboration? How well will the groups mature if they are in isolated vacuums?