How many social networks does the world need?
Bill Gross, the man credited with pioneering the search advertising business, believes there’s room for one more.
On Monday, Gross’ Ubermedia unveiled Chime.in, a social media “platform organized around interests.”
The idea is to make it easier for people to cull the sea of social media content and home in on specific topics of interest, whether it’s photography, Indian cuisine or neighborhood-specific news.
Anyone can create a group around any topic, and Chime says its algorithms can recommend groups to join and people to follow based on personal interests. Users can also endorse other people’s Chime posts by clicking on them, helping the more popular items gain prominence on the service.
In addition to what it contends is improved relevance of information on the site, Chime also says it has novel ways for users to profit from their social activities. Starting next year, any person who creates a topic group on Chime will be able to offer online advertising to go along with it, the company says.
