The idea of adding a social network to any site is a compelling one. Currently, most sites do this by creating their own networks using service like Facebook Groups and Ning. But those obviously aren’t actually your own site, they are other sites set up under your site’s name. Stribe’s goal is to move the network back onto your site.
The service, opening to the public today at Techcrunch50, provides a free and easy way to place a social networking layer over any site. This layer exists on your site in the form of a bar at the bottom of the page. This is not unlike the Meebo chat bar that you may have seen on this site and others recently. But Meebo was really only about chat (and sharing), Stribe wants this bar to be a full-fledged social network on your site, including members, comments, and yes, chat.
Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect offer some of this functionality, but again, that’s not actually your social network, it’s Google or Facebook’s social layer laid on top of your site. As such, neither of those are very customizable, at all. Stribe is completely customizable if you know what you’re doing (or have a developer who does). Maybe you don’t want the bar at the bottom of the site — you can move it. Maybe you don’t want it to be the default black — you can change it. But if you just want the defaults, it’s as easy as installing one bit of JavaScript code onto your site to get it working.
People who register to be a member of your site by way of Stribe also become members of the larger Stribe community. This means that if you have a friend who is a member of another Stribe-powered network, you can still chat with them even when you’re on different sites.
Stribe will run on the “freemium” model, offering much of their service for free, but charging a fee to those customers who are of a certain size (according to site traffic). That will range from $10 to $50 a month to use Stribe to create a social network for your site.
CEO Kamel Zeroual and CTO Gael Delalleau presented at the conference today.
Expert Panel Q&A (paraphrased)
The experts: Robert Scoble, Sean Parker, Dick Costolo, Reid Hoffman, Mike Schroepfer, Chamillionaire
MS: No integration with any social network there now? Was that intentional?
KZ: The point is that you just need to control and see what is going on, on YOUR website.
DC: 37Signals says that sometimes products do too much, you should do less. With many product, you can do too many things, and it becomes difficult to figure out what to use it for.
KZ: The low-hanging fruit is the community, but we’re trying to reach out to different markets.
C: Are you saying, if I’m Walgreens, this will turn it into a social network? This is different from Twitter, you are just at a site and you want to interact.
KZ: That’s exactly the point, man.
RS: Enterprises already have tools like this thought. What makes this different?
KZ: There are a lot of sites that don’t want to use someone else to become a social network.
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Other Coverage
Connected communities matter: Introducing Stribe Stribe.
Promising. Just today I was thinking of exactly this service for a new project I’m working on; would very much like to add a Social Layer, but not be tied to the major brands.
wow..amazing..They will make it big..Award them the winners’ money…
Hi Corey and all, suggest you check out http://www.govirtualweb.com first, for a real social network overlay that already works for several European and Israeli websites, and comes with significant additional features.
Very promising. Was thinking of exactly this type service earlier today for a new project of mine. Would very much like to add a Social Layer, without using the big brands.
I’d like to try out a ning replacement following their slowing support n enhancement. But no video or pictures it seems!
Nice easy implementation but the user experience suffers, and the siloed islands stribe creates will limit the appeal and traffic vs. sites that invite the rest of the web in from twitter, facebook, google etc . Crowd Factory directly addresses this problem using easy widgets, social connect, and there are deep APIs available as well as powerful analytics. http://www.Billboard.com is a great example.
Didn’t you get enough press elsewhere in TC this week? Why do you have to spam the comments of articles about other companies?
This seems like a step toward Browser OS… but I wonder about XSS and all the inter-linking JS from 3rd and 4th parties…
Webs.com does the same thing – except Webs provides all of the website building and hosting tools too. But this does sound interesting if you are an existing website and don’t want to recreate it on webs or use ning – which doesn’t really work with your existing site.
Agree .. and I have applied for the one ..lets see.. what all it has got …
Best,
Daina
Robert scoble question is dumb.
I particular agree on “There are a lot of sites that don’t want to use someone else to become a social network”… So true!
Probably the best concept and most innovative service at TC50 addressing a real problem.
If Stribe would have originated from the Bay Area it would have won.
Unfortunately Stribe is French and the ‘Not Invented Here Syndrome’ is apparent: see the remarks of the judges.
Just wondering, how will these drive traffic to the sites that take part in it? Pushing newsfeeds in it would be excellent though…
very impressive, this will probably a real big player in the near future
Check out VirtualWeb’s sociaLAVA, they do basically the same thing and totally for free. http://www.govirtualweb.com
I think that if you look at http://www.govirtualweb.com, which also presented at TC50 this week, you will find a much more mature solution for ’social network on any site’, and one that is already deployed with several EMEA publishers.
Their solution, called SociaLAVA, is brilliantly desiged and comes with additional business value, like community clustering.
Impressive indeed, amazing how easy it is to add to any site. I used Ning to create my site which has been great, but may well consider using Stribe in the future as I want to keep the social network aspect but not really as the central aspect of the whole site.
Very impressive @ first sight, i’m curious how visitors will react at this feature but sure intend to be an pioneer in implementation!
I’m impressed, the UI looks amazing… I would love to try it on my website… but I agree that the lack of integration with facebook connect and twitter might be a problem.
Hi everyone!
Thanks for all your comments and precious feedbacks! It’s very Stribe of you ;o)
Don’t worry, you will be able to use Facebook Connect and Twitter as well to join a “Stribed” community website. We are working on this.
All the Best to @festivalpoint @hotzone_events Fabio, @LEADSExplorer @kurtavish @blogger_au
Coward, Robert Basil Bashar Corey Recvlohe