Social networking site Nimble.ie, an Irish David challenging the Bebo and MySpace Goliaths, says it expects to enrol its 100,000th member this week, writes Karlin Lillington.
Tim Bourke, sales and marketing director for the start-up company that launched last March with a "rough and ready" website that was significantly overhauled in September, said fresh private investment aims to make the site a significant home-grown competitor to international favourites like Bebo.
Mr Bourke is an investor in the company and also works as a consultant with a private family of angel investors interested in the site's potential. He declined to name individuals or investment figures, but said investors feel this is an area that will develop in Ireland "and we want to be there".
Started by Swedish student Per Johansson, who recently completed a graduate business degree at Dublin Institute of Technology, Nimble.ie is based on similar Swedish social networking sites. The site was part of DIT's start-up hothousing programme last year.
"Our focus is on becoming the very best at managing user-generated content," Mr Bourke said. He claims that Nimble.ie has more features to allow members to interact with each other and "more toys" - fun features that make profiles more active and less static.
Mr Bourke said Nimble.ie's growth indicates there was strong interest among Irish youth to have an Irish profile site, and that Nimble.ie can sit comfortably alongside Bebo, MySpace and Facebook, which dominate in Ireland. About one million Irish people use such sites, according to research.
The company's goal is not to displace the international sites. People like to have profiles on two or three social networking sites, he said. "We won't be the biggest in Ireland, but we'll be in there."
Membership so far is 99 per cent Irish. Of that, 95 per cent is urban, with 55 per cent of members coming from Dublin. Nimble.ie draws most of its members from the 16-24 age group, with the majority between 19 and 20, Mr Bourke said, adding that the site breaks into "two distinct markets" for advertisers: teens and young adults.
Advertising is one source of revenue for the website, Mr Bourke said, primarily banner ads or "channel sponsorship" where an advertiser or company could sponsor a particular area of the site. As with its larger competitors, Nimble.ie will also offer companies the chance to have free company profiles featured in various ways.
In the future, some form of premium membership with additional functionality and features may also offer revenue opportunities. "We don't think the site will be hugely cash generational" in the short term, said Mr Bourke, but pointed towards the large valuations given existing social networking sites, suggesting investors also have an eye on eventually selling on the community.
