Entree New - social networking sites

Justin Phelps, an executive at a computer game company in Silicon Valley, wasn't looking for a new job when a friend in France forwarded him a message posted on a Web site last August. It was for a position as a chief technology officer with Blue-Stream Communications, a telecommunications company based in the British Virgin Islands, with offices in Grenada.

Phelps, 28, sent an e-mail to Blue-Stream and several teleconferences with the company's managers followed. Then, in early November, he received an offer letter to start at the end of December. What made his job search remarkable is that Phelps never met the people who hired him. Instead of using contacts from a fraternity or an alumni association, his introduction to Blue-Stream's executives was through Tribe.net, an exclusive Internet social club based in San Francisco.

"I feel pretty fantastic making a competitive American salary in a beautiful Caribbean country," says Phelps, who now lives in Grenada. "I hope to use Tribe a lot more in business relationships."

Phelps is part of a rapidly growing movement among computer users to join invitation-only Web sites in order to make business contacts, find dates, meet people with the same hobbies or interests, or just chat. Besides Tribe.net, other social networking sites include Ryze.com, Friendster.com, LinkedIn.com, Meetup.com and Emode.com. Unlike mass job sites, like Hotjobs.com or Monster.com, or cyber dating services, such as Nerve.com or Match.com, users of these new Internet social networks have to be invited by a member. Picture them anxiously waiting behind velvet ropes to receive their invitations.

USERS QUICKLY ADOPT SERVICES

Within the past year, more than 3 million users have joined these social networking sites. In contrast to the vaunted dot-com company blueprints of the mid- to late 1990s, these new ventures appear to be gaining both validation and momentum from the ground up as businesses formed around consumer demand versus Wall Street greed.