Cisco to Acquire a Social Network Site

One of the most unusual deals is to take place next week - the networking and communications technology giant Cisco Systems will acquire the technology asset of Tribe.net, which is a social networking website that is lost and forgotten in the jungles of the Internet. The announcement was made by individuals close to the company.

The deal is considered unusual since it is rather odd to see a company with about 38,000 employees that provides networking equipment for big enterprises to buy Tribe.net, which is owned by a company of eight employees. Tribe.net has been pushed aside by such giants like MySpace and Facebook.

The deal will allow Cisco Systems to gain a technology with the help of which several large companies will be able to develop MySpace or YouTube - like services. This will allow bringing their clients together on-line.

Companies like Cisco, that are new in the field of social networks, now say that such networks will be as popular as regular website. These companies have the goal of developing tools that will allow ordinary people, corporations, as well as presidential candidates to design social networks that aim towards their own target audience: clients, friends, workers etc.

It is to remind that in 2004 Bono, U2's vocalist, asked Tribe.net to develop a social network for One.org, an antipoverty campaign headed by Bono. Mark Pincus was the one to found Tribe.net. His idea was to create a destination site, just like MySpace.

Mark Pincus left the project in 2005. Last summer, however, he purchased back Tribe.net from lenders. This happened when the company was almost out of money. Now the site is mainly used by those artists that meet at Burning Man festival, which takes place every year in Nevada desert.

Both Cisco and Utah Street Networks, the owner and the company that operates Tribe.net, did not state any comments regarding neither their deal nor terms. However, people familiar with current discussions say that, though Tribe.net's technology will pass to Cisco Systems, it will remain an independent website.

Those that left Tribe.net are now working on their own projects. Their opened their own firms that offer various social network tools. One of such former employees is Alex Muldoven, who worked as a product manager. He founded Crowd Factory, a firm that develops social networks for large companies.

Another former employee is Paul Martino. He worked as Tribe.net chief technology officer and now he owns the position of chief executive in a company called Aggregate Knowledge. The company offers on-line Collective Discovery Service, the aim of which is to improve the way people shop for products and search information off-line.

If Cisco acquires Tribe.net it will continue its way to become a consumer-oriented company. The company looks further to the days when consumers spend most of their time in on-line communities.