INVESTMENTS IN THE SOCIAL SOFTWARE SPACE... A SMALL WORLD INDEED

So The Weinstein Company, the production business of Bob and Harvey Weinstein, has invested in aSmallWorld. aSmallWorld was built by our crazy advisor, Marc Canter, and Carl Wescott, our CTO. I heard aSmallWorld wanted to rehire Carl, but not Marc so Broadband Mechanics left the project soon after completion. Then Marc and Carl were working on GoingOn with Tony and I, and after a few months Carl decided to leave Broadband Mechanics for personal reasons. We were then fortunate enough to have Carl join our team at GoingOn Networks late last year. Carl is a stud... he built Schwab.com :)

Another connection in all this is that my close friend at Goldman Sachs led their sizeable investment into The Weinstein Company. A small world indeed...

Weinstein brothers invest in exclusivity
Most popular Internet communities, like Facebook or MySpace.com, measure their success by their ability to attract new members.

By Maria Aspan
The New York Times

A notable exception to this rule is aSmallWorld, an exclusive online community that is about to get bigger.

The Weinstein Co., the production business started by Bob and Harvey Weinstein after they left Miramax, has invested in aSmallWorld, the company plans to announce today. The Weinsteins, whose multimedia portfolio includes Miramax Books and a magazine publishing company, Niche Media, head a team of investors such as Robert W. Pittman, former chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner. The company declined to put a dollar figure on its investment, describing it only as "significant."

Weinstein was attracted to aSmallWorld by the community's social-networking and advertising opportunities, Harvey Weinstein said in an interview. This is the company's first investment in an online venture. (full article)

MORE: Friendster gets $3.1 million of new life. Definitely seeing activity on Friendster picking up. Wonder how this story is going to turn out.