Social Media Club - Cleveland joins ANEO as a partner

Did you know that Cleveland, Ohio is quickly becoming an emerging region for social media and technology development? A number of social media and technology sites are being developed in Cleveland and the Social Media Club - Cleveland -- the fastest growing club of social media professionals & users in the country with over 400 members today -- is proposing the creation of a Fund to support this growing industry.  The Fund would be dedicated to investing in start-up, pre-revenue companies that will focus on social media, social media tools and social technologies in the Cleveland, Ohio marketplace. All portfolio companies in the Fund would also have the ability to incubate their operations in the Social Media & Technology Center (“SMTC”).  Examples of companies that might fit the profile are:

• Zolio (www.zolio.com) – Creating a web 2.0 that enables quick dissemination of information during a job search between a job seeker and recruiters.
• Within3 (www.within3.com) – Is a private professional networking site exclusively for health and life science practitioners.
• GamerTrainer (www.gamertrainer.com) – Offers a unique social media system of pairing professional gamers (i.e. X-box, Wii and Playstation systems) with amateur or novice gamers.
• Corkshare (www.corkshare.com) – Has created a proprietary way to visually share web content including photos, videos, links and widgets with close friends and colleagues using an easy and intuitive interface.

Why does this all matter?  According to a trend report by Netpop Research (www.netpopresearch.com) social networking sites have grown 93% since 2006 in terms of active users. In fact, 76% of broadband users in the U.S. are active contributors to the web via social media. Other key findings by the Netpop report on U.S. social media usage include:

• Social networkers in the U.S. are most likely to be single, employed women, age 18 – 39 and geographically focused between the East Coast and Indiana[1] or along the West Coast.
• Social networkers use multiple modes to communicate and stay in touch – including instant messaging, texts, blogs and microblogs (i.e. – Twitter.com).
• The top two social networks in the U.S. are Facebook.com and MySpace.com. Currently, 60% of social networkers use Facebook.com, 63% use MySpace.com and 34% use both.
• However, FaceBook.com has grown 500% between 2006 and 2008, catching up to MySpace.com in users in the past year.
• Avid social networkers spend an average of $101 per month online.