NetHooks Blog

Like we mentioned previously, Brenda McLaren, one of our co-founders was interviewed during the Mashable Open Awards event. In the video, Brenda shared some information on our future plans and our vision for NetHooks. To view the full article on Mashable, click here

Basically we would like to update our users on what we are working on and what they could expect in the next few weeks to months.

Okay, we have been working on our Facebook and Bebo apps recently and we are expecting to test these apps in the next few weeks. We are excited about it especially the user interface of the apps. Well, at least we like it.

Apart from Facebook and Bebo apps, we will also be perfecting the website and adding few new features. We will be including dedicated pages for universities and company. This will allow users to search within NetHooks easily.

We will keep you updated on the releases.

Cheers. 

We will be back at Austin again. We were just there this last Christmas. But this time, we are attending the SXSW Interactive event. We are looking forward to the event since it is the first time for us. So if any of you are attending, let us know, we can meet up and go for a drink or good ol’ Texas brisket. Also this time, we are going to bring Blue Bell Ice Cream home.

NetHooks was invited to attend the Mashable Open Awards on Jan 10th, at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. It was a great event and we met a lot of people. In fact, while we were there, Mashable and Ustream.TV took the opportunity and did a video interview of NetHooks. It is a pretty cool video and should be released on Mashable in coming weeks.

We will keep you posted once the video is released. We will also be posting some pictures soon.

We would like to thank everyone for nominating NetHooks for the Crunchie awards. Even though we did not win, we were flattered that you thought of us and nominated us for the categories of Best User Interface Design and Best New Start-Up for 2007. 

We will work harder next year.

Cheers. 

The last few weeks we have been working on fixing some bugs and design elements. So here is the latest update.

• Profile Image on My Personal page is upgraded to provide editing options. So now, you can cut your head off if you don’t like to show it.
• 2nd Level Connections table is a lot more organized and neat. Also we fixed the bug that was repeating your connections.
• When you roll your mouse over your 2nd Level Connection, you get to see how you got your connection. In other words, you get to see your connection history or source of your connection.

Recently Amit Chowdhry from Pulse2.o wrote on article on NetHooks. In the article, it was interesting how Amit used the term “Yuppies” - Young Urban Professionals to describe (some of) our user base.  

You can check out the article here -  NetHooks Taking on LinkedIn Head-On 

Few of NetHooks users mentioned to us that they have nominated NetHooks for Crunchies Awards. We thought extra publicity will not hurt so we are encouraging others to continue submitting NetHooks nominations so that we can “hopefully” become a finalist and receive some publicity.

The two awards that we were nominated for were the BEST DESIGN and BEST NEW STARTUP for 2007.  You can click on the button above to nominate.

Thanks for all  your support.

Kristen Nicole of Mashable wrote a cool article on NetHooks last week.

Check it out here - Nethooks’ Privacy Features: Enough to Beat LinkedIn?

By now I am sure you are aware that NetHooks provides its users the option to display a My Personal page where you can include a profile photo, pictures and other personal information.

The purpose of the My Personal Page is to include a personal / social touch to your professional profile. The motivation behind this feature is the thought that at some point in your professional networking, your connections might want to know the face behind the profile. They may also be interested to know what social traits you have in common.

Perhaps you are thinking …why do I need a My personal page on NetHooks when I already have a Facebook account? The NetHooks My Personal page is not meant to replace your Facebook account (in the very near future, you will be able to import your Facebook information into NetHooks). For the record, we love Facebook. But Facebook is a social networking site (and NetHooks is a professional networking site). Because of this, sharing all of the personal/social information from your Facebook account may not be appropriate for professional networking. The NetHooks My Personal page allows you to include appropriate photos and information for a social touch while still keeping things professional.

How will it work with HR and hiring managers since looking at photos while making hiring decisions could possibly lead to discrimination lawsuits? We have setup a privacy tool which allows users to decide who gets to see your My Personal profile. This privacy tool gives you 3 options.

Option 1 – Public: Allows you to display your My Personal page publicly to everyone on NetHooks. So when users visit your profile on NetHooks either directly or through the Search Network page, the My Personal tab will be visible.

Option 2 - Private: Allows you to completely shut your My Personal page on NetHooks. Although the page can still be viewed by you through your Member Portal, others will not be able to see this page. Making your my Personal page Private rather than deleting it completely, leaves it open for future use.

Option 3 – Public to select users: This option allows you to decide who gets to see your My Personal page. You will be presented with a list of your connections and from there you can select those who will see your Personal page. Those who are not selected to view your page will not even know that you have a My Personal page. In fact, you can even set a completely different url for your My Personal page than for your Profile page.

So back to the question, why did NetHooks include social elements in Professional Networking? Simple. Not everyone who uses NetHooks is looking for a job. Some are connecting with their professors, some are soliciting business or performing contract work and some are casually looking to connect with other professionals. For all these scenarios and more… social elements within a professional profile may be the icing on the cake for professional networking. Besides, since this feature is optional and can be turned off and on, you have full control on how you want to use it.

We wish you the best in your networking efforts. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or feedback.