* HerOrbit is Myspace for women
One of the things I dislike about MySpace is that it’s so ugly and if there is one thing that the service shows you it’s that the majority of MySpace users have the design sense of chimpanzees – they pick up bright, shiny object and throw it on simply because they can. That said, for many of us over 40, MySpace is also impenetrable at a social level – there’s a whole style of interaction that I find tedious and shallow but then I’m not a hypersocial teenager. So it was that when I came upon a new Web service called HerOrbit, which is like an adult MySpace designed for women, I was intrigued.
HerOrbit is like MySpace in so far as when you signup for a free account you get a personal Web page on which you can create a personal statement and a profile as well as post pictures, videos, keep a journal, etc.
As with MySpace, friends can post comments on each other’s pages, join groups and discussions, browse a summary of all public journals and view a news section, which is very much oriented to the site’s demographic – essentially mothers, professionals, and entrepreneurs in their 20s and up.
HerOrbit was launched in April this year and has collected some 11,000 users of whom, according to one of the site’s founders, Cherry Mendoza, about 80% are currently active. Mendoza says the site is hoping for 2 million users by April next year and summarizes the attraction of HerOrbit as being a service that its members recognize as “honest, safe, and positive.”
What is really unusual about HerOrbit is that the service is making money! In the world of social networking this is major achievement and HerOrbit expects revenue of around $1.2 million by the end of its first year of operation.
An important part of the revenue model for HerOrbit involves turnkey Web stores that members can open for a $90 setup fee and a 10% plus 99 cents per transaction charge which includes credit card processing. As HerOrbit handles money collection on behalf of the store owners as well as providing a well-defined target market the service is a slam-dunk for entrepreneurs who are e-commerce newbies.
The storefront feature was launched at the beginning of November and in its first two weeks had garnered 212 businesses! Mendoza says HerOrbit is aiming for 150,000 stores by the end of 2008.
When you explore HerOrbit you’ll be impressed by the feeling of community expressed in the postings. When you consider that HerOrbit was privately funded for under $200,000 this is quite an achievement. Definitely a site to watch to see how it progresses. HerOrbit could well turn out to be a poster child for social networking that actually makes money.
