Ecademy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ecademy is a social networking site, partly used for the building of contacts between people, but also used to advertise products and services offered or wanted. To gain a level of trust, it is expected that members adhere to some rules for a networking environment. The Ecademy management have published these rules and an Ethos document. The main mechanisms for indicating trustworthiness are: members must use their real name and photograph; one's online reputation; removing a user from the site. This being the case the “Trusted Network” slogan is more a marketing device.
Ecademy uses a layered subscription model - members have different options depending on their subscription level. As of October 2006, Ecademy has approximately 95,000 registered members, around 10,000 of whom are paying subscribers. Membership is said to represent 130 industries in over 180 countries. These figures are not independently verified.
Ecademy's Chairman is Thomas Power. Ecademy is owned by The Ecademy Ltd, a private limited company, based in the UK.
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[edit] Aims
Ecademy is an online community intended to be used to connect people under the philosophy that it is people first, business second to generate future business opportunities. With the bulk of the membership concentrated in the UK, one of the goals of Ecademy is to have "A Friend in Every City", a slogan coined by Thomas Power and shared with Kirstin Elaine Myers' Globond as part of their complementary relationship. [1]
[edit] Profiles and Personal Branding
In addition to networking with other members, many Ecademy members use the Web site for promoting a professional online presence for themselves and their business. Because Ecademy's content is ranked highly by Google, many of members' profile pages appear at the top of search results when someone searches on their name. This was highlighted by one Ecademy member, who used Ecademy to promote http://www.search-advantage.com (a Web site that discusses how to leverage Ecademy to build a visible on-line presence) to the first page in Google for the phrase "Internet Presence"- in less than 30 days .
[edit] Clubs
With an ever greater number of people involved, it is important to allow for self organisation. Clubs are one way in which people can express their particular interest. By creating or joining a club, members can focus on similar interests and enjoy discussions with like-minded people. Some clubs are purely online; others offer face-to-face events, typically on a monthly basis.
Ecademy records the speakers at its monthly Ecademy networking event, which are made available for subscribers to watch online a few days later. Ecademy is currently experimenting with broadcasting the events live using Skypecast.
[edit] Weblog
There is an active amount of writing done in the format of weblogs. These are given a lot of prominence on the Ecademy website and are also registered on Google; more blog entries leading to increased pageranking in Google. There are no quality constraints placed on blogs. Editing and moderation are done retroactively in the form of censorship. Ecademy appears to aim to balance allowing discussions of Members' business ideas & issues in open blogs, with the commercial imperative to encourage paid advertising of those business services.
Ecademy have now hidden the comments to user postings from non members. [May 2005] Guest members, who are currently free, can see comments but cannot interact.
[edit] Platform
The Ecademy platform is Drupal software that has been modified by the management over a period of time to meet user requirements. In 2002,Thomas Power stated that the site was available as a white label. When it was pointed out that to do so would involve giving it away free under Drupal's GPL, the offer was withdrawn.
[edit] History
According to their latest book, "A friend in Every City, “On 7th February, 1998, over pizza in the Surrey town of Farnham, Penny set out her initial idea for a place where the self-employed could support each other and find ways of working together. Ecademy began as a meeting of people from Thomas’s network at a bar in Central London.”
Ecademy has grown without venture capital funding, advertising or PR, thus far. Ecademy has changed its proposition over the years, from an Education Portal to an online and offline Business Networking club:
- Ecademy was originally the "Education Portal for Electronic Commerce.", with Thomas Power as self-styled "Ecommerce Guru".
- By 2002 Ecademy's mission was "To provide the knowledge that drives E-business by sharing information and uniting people.". Most of the early posts were about Web Services and .NET Framework. CTO Julian Bond described Ecademy's new blogging feature as a soap box for you to get your voice heard on the topics of E-Commerce and Web Services. The vision for 2002 was to move closer to becoming a Web Services Consulting organisation.
- In August 2002 Thomas Power announced that Ecademy members would have to pay GBP5 per month for one-to-one meetings with him.
- On December 9th 2002 Power Networking was launched, a move that came shortly after BT removed sponsorship from the site.
- On March 31st 2003 Ecademy took over the running of the Beyond Bricks internet entrepreneur portal, inheriting 5000 members.
- In late 2004 Ecademy launched BlackStar, an exclusive level of membership available for (initially) GBP3,000.
- In September 2005 Mike Southon claimed using Ecademy had helped him promote his book to "#64 of *all* books on Amazon.co.uk"
- On 6 October 2005 Ecademy was featured on BBC Radio 4's "In Business" programme. During the first airing of the interview, Penny Power stated that "100% of the members are on the site every month". A member of Ecademy challenged her publicly on Ecademy about this statement, producing information to show that this claim was incorrect, and was banned from Ecademy immediately. The original claim was not made in the second airing of the programme. Penny Power wrote that she was "talking about subscribers, not members" but Chapter 5 of her book 'A Friend in Every City' (ISBN –0954509374, published in May 2006) states that "70% of subscribers use the system every month..."
- In April 2006 Andy Lopata and Peter Roper used Ecademy to help them promote their book on Amazon. It peaked at No 2, subsequently dropping down the rankings.
- In May 2006, Ecademy Press publishes a book on networking and Ecademy, "A Friend in Every City" (ISBN –0954509374).
- In September 2006 Ecademy's publicly available accounts for 2005 were disseminated. The accounts show Net Current Assets of £353. There was an increase of Tangible Assets from GBP2,348 last year to GBP1,918,010 this year, although this is referenced in the notes by the following - "Deferred tax has not been provided for on the revaluation of the website, if realised the potential tax payable at current rates would be GBP574,000". Due to the accounts being abbreviated, there is no profit/loss data nor a fuller explanation of the changes to asset valuations.
- In October 2006, The Daily Telegraph reported that Ecademy is considering putting itself up for sale: According to the paper, "It is thought the business could fetch as much as £20m. The company is understood to have hired corporate finance boutique Unity Capital to advise on a potential deal."
[edit] BlackStar
BlackStarLifeMembers is a private club for Ecademy members, founded by Ecademy co-founder and Chairman Thomas Power in November 2004. It offers lifetime membership of Ecademy, plus other benefits, enabling members to interact with other members willing to make a long-term commitment to Ecademy and networking.
BlackStar Life Membership originated when Thomas Power visited Roger Hamilton, the owner and founder of XL Results Foundation Pte. Ltd.,a limited exempt private company based in Singapore, and decided to copy Roger's system. Roger was the original co-leader of the BlackStar club, where members were told: "In effect as a BlackStar you are becoming part of the Thomas Power and Roger Hamilton inner circle.".
XL Results Foundation Pte. Ltd. is registered in Singapore, has an authorised share capital of S$100,000.00 and a paid-up share capital of S$10,000.00. Its registered principal activities are: (1) Technical, vocational and commercial education; (2) Mail order agencies (including sales via telephone and the Internet).
- The benefits of Blackstar originally included "becoming part of the Thomas Power and Roger Hamilton inner circle.".
- It was also stated that "There will be a price rise January 1st 2006 to GBP6,000. A maximum of 200 Life Memberships will be made available each year... with a limited quota each month to ensure quality levels, service levels and qualification levels." The actual price rise on January 1st 2006 was from GBP3000 to GBP3600.
- There has also been a change in the maximum number of Memberships available. The number of Foundation Life Members (who pay a one-time fee) is limited to a maximum of 2,012 members by the time membership closes in 2012. The number of Subscription Life Members (who pay a monthly fee for life) is limited to 1,000 members per year.(The original limit was 200 per year). Both Foundation and Subscription Life members go through the same approval process prior to their application being accepted.
- On April 26th 2005, Thomas Power stated that "BlackStar IS access to Google". This has been denied by Google.
- Later in 2005 a long list of "Benefits of BlackStar" appeared on the clubs home page (referenced in this post by Rich Wootten - Rich has only added "Bigger Manhood" to the original list.). These included "Amplify Yourself, Magnify Yourself, Multiply Yourself, Energise Yourself, Expand your mind... Instant Trust, Intrinsic Trust, Friendship , Longevity, Peace of Mind.".
- On May 2nd 2006, Thomas Power claimed that with BlackStar Life Membership "you get access to 400 major Corporations". A list of which major Corporations and at what level is not available.
- In May 2006, BlackStar had attracted over 215 members. There has been a noticeable tail-off in new members since the first 3 months.
- 52 people joined in the first 2 months.
- 49 more joined in the third month.
- There was a net increase of 109 members during the rest of 2005 (quote - "There are currently 210 BlackStars as at January 2006").
- There was a net increase of 6 members between January 2006 and April 29th 2006 (Membership at April 29th 2006 - 216).
- There was a net decrease of 3 members between April 29th 2006 and May 8th 2006 (Membership at May 8th 2006 - 213).
- At least 8 people have left BlackStar since it started, being replaced by others.
- In June 2006, Ecademy published the results into a survey of BlackStar members. It claimed that, within the first year of membership, over 25% of Blackstars had business referrals in excess of their membership fee, with 2% gaining business worth more than £100,000. When asked to value the intangible benefits of membership, the average value of those surveyed was £7,500 per annum.
- In September 2006, Ecademy announced prices would rise by 67% on January 1st 2007 and a limit would be applied to UK membership.
- In October 2006 the BlackStar terms and conditions were amended to include the following:
- Existing BlackStar Foundation Life Members cannot advertise the sale within Ecademy, either on its website or directly to members, only to individuals outside the Ecademy membership.
- BlackStar Subscription Life Membership must be held for a minimum of 72 month contract period and the balance of monthly payments outstanding at any time during this period will become payable in full should the member breach any of the specific or general terms of membership. The legally-binding commitment to 72 monthly payments will only be waived if the member opts for Foundation Membership, or if the member becomes incapacitated.
- The new BackStar [sic] Foundation Life Member buyer must adhere to the terms & conditions of BlackStar and Ecademy which includes a minimum 12 months membership.
[edit] Criticism of Ecademy
Some former subscribers have been passionately critical of Ecademy (both while they were paying members and after they were excluded), and have created other online networking platforms and discussion groups to express their opinions.
Their criticisms include: management practices, including the complaints process and the reasons for their expulsions (some have vociferously complained that the complaints process did not follow the natural rules of justice); site statistics; the site's ease of use (or lack of it); the products and services offered by some Ecademy members; the value of online networking per se; moderation policy; and the quality of content posted onto the Ecademy site.
According to some former Members, they have been removed from Ecademy for opinions and assessments they have written on other websites in relation to the faults they find with Ecademy as an online community. Independent verification of these and other, management- and process-related claims is difficult if not impossible due to their very "he-says-she-says" nature.
Others have complained that, often, Ecademy subscribers will 'double post' content from their own site onto Ecademy's open home page in order to raise their hit rate on Google. As the content doesn't have to pass any rigid standards, it could just be filler with a signature attached resulting in a member's Google capture for search engine visibility.
In 2005, a number of former members of Ecademy formed LastThursday, another social networking site to compete directly with Ecademy, albeit on a different platform. Membership and activities of LastThursday remain largely confined to the United Kingdom. Last Thursday has now changed its name to First Monday, and appears to be managed by at least two BlackStar members of Ecademy.
Roger Hamilton (original co-leader of the BlackStar club)claims that a certain portion of XL Results Foundation membership fees have been donated to charities around the world. The original claim was that 10% of all revenue from XL Results Foundation is contributed to good causes. To date, Roger Hamilton has not been able to produce any financial records since 2004 to substantiate his claims.
In November 2006, approximately 20 members accounts were barred or suspended in an attempt by the Ecademy managment to control escalating comments of their abilty to manage the site with the necessary level of equanimity. Banned members have complained that the messages they received stated this action was due to them having 'fake accounts' - a claim they strongly dispute. Current members have been told by Ecademythat the suspensions were part of a cooling off period.
