Not long ago I received a not-so-shocking update from Bloomberg Businessweek’s Business Exchange Team – they will close their social networking site, Business Exchange, and will introduce a new social site, Bloomberg Current.
I am one of the 100 most active members of the Business Exchange, and I get the opportunity to be among the first to join the beta version of Bloomberg Current.
But why the change?
I love BusinessWeek’s Business Exchange (BX). I find some great news updates from the social bookmarking site for business, and I did shared – quite a lot – to the community. The updates from my blogs I shared to BX also received some targeted traffic. All is good for me.
However, things have changed, and due to one reason or another – which one of them might be spams and hacking issues which have brought the site down numerous times, Bloomberg will close Business Exchange on August 2013.
Bloomberg is not out of the social networking scene, though… to replace BX, the big media company will launch Bloomberg Current.
What is Bloomberg Current and why it’s better than BX
Perhaps the number one reason of the closing down of BX is branding. BX is a part of Bloomberg Businessweek online publication. Bloomberg Current, on the other hand, is a standalone website with its own branding.
Secondly, I think the major caveat of BX is the social interactions. We know that social sites’ number one asset is social interactions. BX has failed to provide that, and Bloomberg Current will definitely try not to make the same mistake: The social site will focus on social interaction.
So, what is Bloomberg Current, anyway?
As explained in the FAQs:
“Bloomberg Current is a social discussion platform for business, curated and managed by its users. Current allows members to post, discuss and share content within groups they define. Users may post publicly or privately.”
Okay, that explains. So you can share posts like BX, curate news like Scoop.it, create your own group and invite others to discuss business issues in the group like LinkedIn.
But why yet-another-social-site? This is answered in the following paragraph of the FAQs:
“Bloomberg Current seeks to be a community of experts who are dedicated to discovering and discussing trending business and economic news and ideas from around the globe.”
Good vision, and that means Bloomberg Current will compete head-on with AmEx’ OPEN forum, LinkedIn Groups and the likes – and attempt to be the leader.
Should I join Bloomberg Current?
Definitely. If you are a business owner, business expert, business leader, content curator, journalist or business online publication owner, Bloomberg Current should be your first page to visit on daily basis.
Marketers should stay away from Bloomberg Current, though, as they are not well accepted; I hope the Bloomberg Current moderator team can fight marketing pitches better than BX, LinkedIn and the rest.
So, is Bloomberg Current better than BX?
Looking at the beta, I think the answer is yes. BX lacks social interactions, and I think Bloomberg Current will do better than BX at least in this area.
Ready to get started?
If you are ready to give Bloomberg Current a go, you need to request for an invite. You can do so from this link.
So, what do you think of Bloomberg Current? Please share your opinions with us.