Tribe.net
Encyclopedia
tribe.net 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.
, and Valerie Syme. 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
. This move disappointed many users, as Tribe to that point had been notable for a 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 site. 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.
In April, 2006, most of the employees of Tribe.net were laid off, leaving only a skeleton group to maintain and develop the site.
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. This happened due to the financial insolvency of the initial company. Mark formed a new corporation, Utah Street Networks, that bought the distressed assets of the original company, Tribe Networks.
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. 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 US$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.
Pincus reported on his blog that Darren Mckeeman had submitted his resignation and that Tribe.net hoped to hire another system administrator.
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."
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 Michel Maffesoli
and 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).
In Nov. 2008, a group of long-time tribe members formed a partnership called New Systems Associates (NSA) and announced that they would be taking over management of tribe.net as well as provide capital for upgrading the hardware and rewriting the code base.
On Feb. 28th, 2009, NSA made the following announcement on the tribe.net company blog:
"After many thwarted attempts the Tribe servers should move to an enhanced colocation facility today. The process has been underway for two months now and only now, finally, does everything seem aligned for an actual move. We apologize for the late notice, but a seemingly endless chain of unexpected events blocked us previously and made us wary of predicting the Great Transition.
The move will improve service and at the same time gives us an opportunity to lower costs. It is the most significant step thus far in moving Tribe onto a more secure footing.
Please bear with us. This is likely to take most of day."
As of August 16, 2009, Tribe was still having stability issues following the move.
. Tribe has partnered with the Washington Post and Knight Ridder
. In 2006, a new company called Utah Street Networks was formed to buy the assets of Tribe Networks and continue operation of the site. This transition was largely transparent to the users of the site, but largely coincides with the "taking back Tribe" message that was posted by Mr. Pincus.
In March 2007, Cisco Systems
announced their acquisition of Tribe Networks' technology assets.
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
that hosts an online community
Online community
An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. An online community can take the form of an information system where anyone can post content, such as a Bulletin board system or one where only a restricted...
of friends, similar to other social networking sites. The site name is always spelled in all lower case.
History
The "tribe" was founded in early 2003 by Paul Martino, Mark PincusMark Pincus
Mark Jonathan Pincus is an Internet entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of Zynga, which makes online social games. Pincus also founded Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and SupportSoft. Pincus currently serves as CEO of Zynga, which had 232 million monthly active users as of July 1, 2011...
, and Valerie Syme. As of March 2004, the population of tribe was skewed heavily towards people living in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
, 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
Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act
The Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988, title VII, subtitle N of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, , , is part of a United States Act of Congress which places stringent record-keeping requirements on the producers of actual, sexually explicit materials...
. This move disappointed many users, as Tribe to that point had been notable for a 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 site. 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
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
or Friendster to be rather broad-based and commercial.
In April, 2006, most of the employees of Tribe.net were laid off, leaving only a skeleton group to maintain and develop the site.
On August 24, 2006, former CEO Mark Pincus
Mark Pincus
Mark Jonathan Pincus is an Internet entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of Zynga, which makes online social games. Pincus also founded Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and SupportSoft. Pincus currently serves as CEO of Zynga, which had 232 million monthly active users as of July 1, 2011...
announced that he was "taking back tribe." He did this through a public listing on the site. This happened due to the financial insolvency of the initial company. Mark formed a new corporation, Utah Street Networks, that bought the distressed assets of the original company, Tribe Networks.
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. 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 US$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
Storage area network
A storage area network is a dedicated network that provides access to consolidated, block level data storage. SANs are primarily used to make storage devices, such as disk arrays, tape libraries, and optical jukeboxes, accessible to servers so that the devices appear like locally attached devices...
, following hardware issues that took tribe's Image server offline for several days in August of the same year.
Pincus reported on his blog that Darren Mckeeman had submitted his resignation and that Tribe.net hoped to hire another system administrator.
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."
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 marketingViral marketing
Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses...
on behalf of tribe.net.) As more and more people and their friends join tribe, it results in an elaborate social network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
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 Michel Maffesoli
Michel Maffesoli
Michel Maffesoli is a French sociologist of italian origin.He is a former pupil of Gilbert Durand and is at present a professor at the Paris Descartes University. Michel Maffesoli made a work around the issue of social link community, the prevalence of imagination and everyday life in contemporary...
and Ethan Watters
Ethan Watters
Ethan Watters is an American journalist. He is the author of articles for The New York Times Magazine, Spin, Details, Mother Jones, Glamour, GQ, Esquire, and The San Francisco Chronicle Magazine as well as books.-External links:...
. In practice, these tribes are a kind of topical forum
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
. 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).
Instability
In the summer of 2008, after instituting a premium membership option in November 2007, 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 would alleviate these problems, scheduled to launch in August or September 2008.In Nov. 2008, a group of long-time tribe members formed a partnership called New Systems Associates (NSA) and announced that they would be taking over management of tribe.net as well as provide capital for upgrading the hardware and rewriting the code base.
On Feb. 28th, 2009, NSA made the following announcement on the tribe.net company blog:
"After many thwarted attempts the Tribe servers should move to an enhanced colocation facility today. The process has been underway for two months now and only now, finally, does everything seem aligned for an actual move. We apologize for the late notice, but a seemingly endless chain of unexpected events blocked us previously and made us wary of predicting the Great Transition.
The move will improve service and at the same time gives us an opportunity to lower costs. It is the most significant step thus far in moving Tribe onto a more secure footing.
Please bear with us. This is likely to take most of day."
As of August 16, 2009, Tribe was still having stability issues following the move.
Ownership
Tribe Networks, the original company behind tribe.net, was formerly privately owned, financed largely with venture capitalVenture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
. Tribe has partnered with the Washington Post and Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by The McClatchy Company on June 27, 2006, it was the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspapers sold.- History :The corporate ancestors of...
. In 2006, a new company called Utah Street Networks was formed to buy the assets of Tribe Networks and continue operation of the site. This transition was largely transparent to the users of the site, but largely coincides with the "taking back Tribe" message that was posted by Mr. Pincus.
In March 2007, Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...
announced their acquisition of Tribe Networks' technology assets.
External links
- tribe.net website
- tribe listing in which Marc Pincus announces he is "taking back tribe"
- Statement from Brian Lawler (Chief Architect) regarding tribe.net's current stance on mature content, posted September 27, 2006
- CEO Jan Gullet Interview, May '05
- New Systems Associates Announcement