Swedish pioneer launches networking site for top 1% users

Aug 27, 2012

Swedish social media entrepreneur Erik Wachtmeister on Monday announced the launch of a new social networking site targeting the "top one percent" of Internet users, called Best of All Worlds.

The site, which helps users find events and contacts, counted 20,000 members even before its launch.

Wachtmeister, 57, created one of the world's first , aSmallWorld, in 2004, the same year as . He left the company in 2008.

Best of All Worlds is targeting the same audience, he said.

"The top one percent of the online , people who are leaders in their field, investment bankers, PR people, media, fashion, government... It's not about jet-set or rich people, but sophisticated people who have good taste," he said.

"It's more three million people than a billion," he added, a reference to Facebook's announcement in July that it had more than 950 million subscribers.

Best of All Worlds helps users get in touch with each other to find what's going on where they are, which Wachtmeister said was an improvement on Facebook's service which "looks backwards (and) gives you unstructured information that shows what your friends have done."

Subscription to Best of All Worlds is by invitation only. Wachtmeister did not specify how or when the company would turn a profit.

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User comments : 4

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Aloken
5 / 5 (2) Aug 27, 2012
It's not about jet-set or rich people, but sophisticated people who have good taste," he said


I wonder how many non-rich sophisticated people will get an invite.
antialias_physorg
5 / 5 (2) Aug 27, 2012
Once they start charging? Not too many.
It's a clever setup since people will pay for exclusivity. And the richest 1% will probably just buy a subscription and then forget about it - no matter how exorbitant the price.

On the other hand he might as well have painted a big "hack us" sign on the webpage. With 'leaders in their fields' sharing information on social networks there is no one - from pranksters, to Anonymous, to competitors, to governemnets - who would not want to listen in.

Let the games begin...
Aloken
1 / 5 (1) Aug 27, 2012
On the other hand he might as well have painted a big "hack us" sign on the webpage.


It happened to aSmallWorld in 2009 and the culprits were caught. But the best wouldn't do that, most people know better than to bite the hand that feeds them.
alfie_null
5 / 5 (1) Aug 28, 2012
People who are busy being leaders in their various fields of endeavor likely have no time or interest in electronic social networking.
Where's the payoff?

Even from a purely social aspect, electronic social networking isn't even remotely a substitute for face-to-face networking.

Of course, as others have pointed out, we understand what he intends with this apparition of exclusivity. His "by invitation only" invites, at least initially probably take the form of "if you join, I'll compensate you thus ...".

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