Facebook 2.0? Scoop Wants to Take the Social Network Back to Its Roots--The Campus
Google CEO Eric Schmidt, one of the most influential investors in the world, is placing a bet on a new social network called Scoop to take on the current king of social, Facebook.
Schmidt's personal venture capital investment arm, TomorrowVentures has invested in Trumpet Technologies, developers of Scoop. Scoop apparently aims to take the Facebook style of social networking right back to its roots--the college campus--with a "mobile local search" application to connect college students with events and activities.
In an interview with VentureBeat, Nick Simmons, a college student recruited to develop the product, described it as "a campus-wide conversation about what’s going on." "That information is not all in one place today," he claimed.
But other details are scarce. Scoop developer Trumpet Technologies describes its only product as "mobile local search," although does not mention Scoop by name. TomorrowVentures describes Trumpet as "a stealth mobile local search company launching in 2010." The Scoop website lists only their logo and tagline, with an option to enter your e-mail address for future updates.
Whether Scoop will be able to transcend the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare remains to be seen, but the comments from Simmons indicate confidence. But his claim that, "that information is not all in one place today," seems questionable, as Facebook seems to aggregate most events with relative success, particularly among college students. The real challenge for Scoop will likely be simply making that information more accessible.
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