Power.com Introduces Social Inter-Networking to the World
Stealth
Brazilian company quietly registers over 5,000,000 for site that brings
together a user's major social networks and messaging services. Join
CEO Steve Vachani for live online demo of the service December 1 and
December 2.
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) -- Today Power.com ushers in the era of Social
Inter-networking with its global launch. Now, for the first time,
social network users don't have to jump from site to site to
synchronize their logins, content, messages and friends across
Facebook, Hi5, LinkedIn, MSN, MySpace and Google's Orkut. Steve
Vachani, CEO of Power.com, will hold 4 live online "webinars" to demo
Power.com on December 1 and December 2 at 10 am PST and at 4pm PST,
both days. (Information to access the webinar is at the bottom of this
release.)
"Today many people have multiple social network, email and IM
accounts," said Steve Vachani, CEO of Power.com. "Power synchronizes
their friends, messages, photos, updates, and everything they care
about. We're taking down the boundaries between social sites, so users
can keep in touch, and even synchronize friends and photos
automatically. We call this Social Inter-networking."
"Social is about people, not about place," Vachani continued. "So
we're making the virtual 'where' irrelevant. Social Inter-networking is
the basis for our vision of the future of the Internet."
Stealth roll-outs: five million registered users and counting
Power.com,
based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, held "stealth roll-outs" in Latin
America and India in the past year. The company quietly let over 5
million people register themselves - about the population of Sweden.
These users arrived organically after seeing their friends using
Power.com; no one either blogged about the company or wrote about it in
the press, no websites linked to Power.com, and the company sent out no
invitations, yet 5 million people joined.
No Vested Interests: unlike Facebook, Google or Microsoft:
"Power.com works because it doesn't require the big websites to get
together and break down their walls," Vachani stated. "Instead,
millions of Power users are breaking down these walls on their own, and
experiencing the benefits of Social Inter-networking without waiting
for Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and MySpace to all agree. This
independence contrasts with all previous efforts to bring social
networks together, including Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect,
Microsoft Passport, OpenID and OpenSocial.
"There is currently an industry wide trend among all sites and
consumers to break up and atomize the web with widgets, applications,
feeds, and mashup tools," Vachani explained. "Although Power is
significantly accelerating this imminent evolution toward a borderless
internet, we are preserving the essence of these sites' terms of use by
giving users rightful control of their own content and friends. We are
focused on delivering applications which increase user's usage of and
add new value to their existing sites. Soon, we will provide tools for
sites themselves to add the most popular Social Inter-networking
applications directly into their entire sites."
"These previous efforts assume the problem to be 'interoperability,'
a technology issue," Vachani continued. "We are the first to address
Social Inter-networking as a consumer proposition. Power.com is
well-positioned to deliver our vision of an ecosystem in which
individuals, websites and even large social networks can create new
ways to satisfy customers and build businesses in a socially
inter-networked world."
How Power.com Works:
Users join by registering their social
networks at Power.com. Their Power start page shows them all of their
friends, messages, and content -- from all their social networks,
instant messengers, and email accounts -- in one place. Updates,
pictures of friends, messages that they'd see on Facebook show up next
to ones they have on MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. Communities, birthdays,
any social network features they choose, are all arranged by people --
not by website -- on their Power.com start page.
Once users log on to Power.com, they are automatically logged on
everywhere that matters to them. They go from Power.com to their page
on any one of their social networks with one click. Another click
brings them to their page on another social network. One click also
brings them back to Power.com, where they can simultaneously update the
content of all their social pages. For example, they can browse for
their latest photos or videos, pick the ones they want, and -- click --
make the pictures appear on any or all of their personal pages at the
same time.
Messaging is especially nimble with Power.com: all their friends and
messages from all sites show up in one place. Users can write one
message and just choose recipients, without regard to what social
network or messaging provider actually reaches each friend. Power sorts
it out and sends the message off to each friend via the appropriate
system. If any one friend has multiple ways to exchange messages, Power
lets the user choose which one to use.
Today, Power.com now supports users on Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, MSN
Messenger, Orkut, and YouTube. In the near future, Power will support
them on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, Skype
and other email and communication accounts.
Virality -- How Power Got 5 Million Registered Users So Quickly:
Messaging is a prime driver of Power.com's virality. Users communicate
with all their friends on all of their sites, email, and instant
messengers, using Power Messaging. The historic analogy is Hotmail,
which grew to be the world's largest Internet service with over 500
million users by promoting itself at the bottom of each email its users
sent. Power users are sending millions of inter-networked messages
every day, across all social networks, email, and instant messengers.
Like Hotmail, each Power Messenger message promotes Power.com.
Furthermore, millions of Power users have already added Power widgets,
links, and watermarks to their social network profile pages, photos,
and messages, so when friends visit these enhanced pages, they click to
learn more about Power.com. Power also encourages users to invite their
friends. At Power's current growth rates, the company expects to have
over 30 million registered users by the end of 2009.
The Brazilian Advantage:
"To me the important issue is that
users are driving Power themselves," said Esther Dyson, one of the
technology industry's preeminent global trend spotters and a seed
investor in Power.com. "And it excites me that these users are not just
in the U.S. Nor are the software's creators: Latin America has
impressive software design and engineering talent. Silicon Valley is
not the only place to find great talent to build a world-class
company."
Vachani, a self-proclaimed "global adventurer" arrived in Brazil
five years ago to take a break from the Silicon Valley. A UC Berkeley
graduate, and a serial entrepreneur, Vachani, who lives in Rio de
Janeiro, said, "I came to Brazil with a smile, a backpack and a passion
for Brazilian dance and music. I just wanted to get my mind off of
technology, and I thought I would go back to the U.S. and start a new
project after a year or so. Little did I know..."
Vachani soon recognized Latin America's hidden treasure:
undiscovered great minds. Vachani stated, "I quickly realized that
Latin America was like India 30 years ago, before Silicon Valley
discovered it. Back then, most of India's brilliant minds were trapped
in academia or working as bureaucrats in the government, with no
entrepreneurial opportunities. Today, thousands of brilliant minds in
Latin America are likewise underutilized and undervalued, with their
biggest dreams being jobs as government bureaucrats and academics.
Little capital and few role models are available to young
entrepreneurs. If I could create a project that truly pushed the limits
of innovation, and that had capital, I knew I would be able to attract
hundreds of Brazil's and Latin America's brightest minds. Together we
have built Latin America's first global technology company built upon
the Silicon Valley adage to first bring the brilliant minds together
and then they will create a brilliant product and company."
Vachani did just that. As founder and CEO of Power.com, he attracted
the world renowned Silicon Valley venture capital firm Draper Fisher
Jurvetson, famous for investing in Skype, Baidu, and Hotmail, to invest
$6 million in Power and complete DFJ's first ever investment in Latin
America. A group of private investors -- including Esther Dyson --
added another $2 million. Power has attracted over 70 of Brazil's
brightest minds, including self-made entrepreneurs, professors, PhD's
and top graduates from Brazil's most prestigious universities.
Igor Barenboim, Power's Director of Business Development, PhD
graduate from Harvard University and former Global Economist for Latin
America's largest hedge fund, stated, "I joined Power when it was just
an idea on paper because I truly believed that Steve's vision would
help jumpstart Latin America's transformation into an economy which
truly values its intellectual capital. As a Brazilian with great dreams
for the future of Latin America, I knew I needed to join this
adventure."
Vision -- People, Not Websites, At Core of Power's Social Inter-Networking Platform:
Eric
Santos, a Brazilian native and the company's Chief Technology Officer,
stated, "We visualize a social world that centers around people, not
websites. People have grown to love sharing their lives. They love to
stay in touch, share their pictures, their relationships and everything
they care about. The boundaries between different websites and
different providers are irrelevant to these relationships. Power
removes these boundaries, creating a much more natural and open social
experience. We are creating a borderless Internet."
Power.com is now building an open platform for developers to create
thousands of new Social Inter-networking applications. Today, thousands
of developers are creating Facebook and Google applications. Soon these
developers, and anyone creating social applications, will be able to
add Social Inter-networking functionality on top of their existing
Facebook and Google applications and dream up new Social
Inter-networking applications which will help Power.com realize its
vision of a borderless internet powered by the users, not corporations.
About Power:
Power.com is the world's leading Social
Inter-networking company, with 5 million registered users.
Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, Power.com is a privately held
company with 70 people. This month, Power.com is opening new offices in
San Francisco, California and Hyderabad, India. The company received an
$8 million Series A investment led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson of Menlo
Park, California and notable investors including Esther Dyson. For more
information visit http://www.power.com.
Webinar Information:
Steve Vachani, CEO of Power.com, will hold 4 live online "webinars" to
demo Power.com on 12/1 and 12/2 at 10 am PST and at 4pm PST, both days.
To join a webinar please choose one of the following options:
Power.com delivers Social Inter-networking Webinars: