Harvey Weinstein Invests in Friendster-for-Bankers
The Times reports this morning that Harvey Weinstein** is putting money into aSmallWorld.net, which is ostensibly the Swiss boarding school equivalent of Facebook/MySpace. It's friendster for people who self-identify as being dually-based in two large cities with modern Western economies, an abundance of 8-figure real estate and a luxury resort or two. Normally, it would be too small a deal to feel relevant to us, except that half the bankers/traders/private equity guys in New York have a profile, and the founder, above left with Harvey, is an ex-banker.
Of course, the first rule of aSmallWorld is that no one talks about aSmallWorld, or so implied a recent communique from the founders noting that someone had talked to the press about the service and had been booted out a result. (We're not sure if this counts as "talking about it" to the press, given that we are the press and given the newly added "press center" on the homepage. Guess we'll see if our profile gets pulled.)
** We were first introduced to Mr. Weinstein a few years ago, after some light skewering on our part--fake letters to Santa, and whatnot. "See?" he said, "I'm not so fucking bad, am I?" We declined to point out that he was speaking at a decibel level that technically constituted "yelling". Then again, we were at Marquee, there was loud music, and yelling may have been in order.
Comments
ouch.
only 12 members in your network? a bit sad, no?
Posted by: le rosey alum | May 23, 2006 12:20 AM
"We are the press."
Sure. I'll bet you think you're really writing for the WSJ, too.
Why are you still on asw if you can't stand it so much?
Posted by: Jetlagged | May 23, 2006 11:43 PM
Le Rosy - only I were actually *using* it. I've been on it for a long time, but have never found any fo the social networking sites--ASW, LinkedIn, etc--that useful. That said, some of my friends use it all the time.
Jetlagged - Actually, it's more the having written for several newspapers and magazines (the Times, the Post, etc), the stint as an editor and writer at New York magazine, the having been approached about jobs by, among other places, your beloved WSJ, the archive of clips and the fact that I've been making a living from writing, reporting and editing for the last few years that make me think I'm "the press." But maybe I'm missing the Super-Double-Secret-Handshake that seals the deal and officially gets me into that highly exclusive, impossible to penetrate professional strata that is The Press to which you refer. Do let me know where I should take my press pass to get it redeemed for a membership.
And who said I can't stand aSW? I'm ambivalent about it and I think the founders' paranoia about press for an "exclusive network" that has a 5 digit membership is slighly over the top, but that doesn't mean I'm ripping on the actual service.
Posted by: Elizabeth Spiers | May 24, 2006 11:30 AM
asmallworld pulled a fast one on the Weisteins to get that cash, they were down to their last few dollars and their ad performance sucks. After uber CEO (in hiding) Nirav Tolia left earlier in the year they were in trouble if this deal had not gone through.
asmallworld is way over hyped, its full of wannabees hitting on each other who hang out trying to get a glimpse of the celebs that supposedly are members but in reality never use the site.
Posted by: Eriks Brain | June 29, 2006 03:51 AM