Pajama Entrepreneur

Go Tribal is an online application launched by Tribal Atmosphere, Inc., a startup based in San Francisco. The founding team is made up of four people: Shruti Challa, Chris Baclig, Eric Ma and Amara Humphry.

Go Tribal helps members get their friends together on very short notice for clubbing, coffee, lunch, dinner, and other social activities. It does this by allowing members to see when their friends are available. It works opposite to the formal “Evite” way of getting people together. This is also a great service for people who travel to a city on short notice and want to meet up with friends, business relations and even relatives.

Here is how it works: As a Go Tribal member you can broadcast when you are available, easily see who else is free and use the simple collaboration tool to finally decide what to do or where to go. From this, Go Tribal is able to grant members broad visibility into what their larger network is planning on doing.

“Getting my friends together for a casual dinner or even a night on the town is not as easy as it once was. Between our travel schedules, careers and relationships it is almost impossible to coordinate when everyone is free and decide what to do. Go Tribal is the perfect tool for us to organize ourselves and make it happen,” said Keylee Sanders (Founder of Style Studio and Former Miss Teen USA 1995).

“What makes Go Tribal different is its focus on social women and informal events. Unlike services like Plancast, Evite or Facebook, Go Tribal helps members form informal plans not just broadcast formal ones — while acknowledging women and men approach this activity differently,” said Ross Mayfield (President and Chairman of SocialText and Advisor to Go Tribal).

“We feel that technology is moving further and further away from facilitating meaningful physical interaction. Our driving vision is to create simple technology that enables friends to get together in the real world. Go Tribal is the first step in fulfilling that larger vision,” said Shruti Challa (CEO and Founder of Go Tribal).

The free web-based service is immediately available to the first 10,000 registrants. To start using Go Tribal, visit http://gotribal.com.

Similarities with Bookioo

I wrote about a Spanish startup called Bookioo, which started out as a social networking site where women can find friends on short notice to go to events, hang out, visit a museum, etc. — just like Go Tribal. However, Bookioo has expanded its concept to include dating site where men who want to join have to be invited by a female member; a man can see a woman’s profile only when she gives him permission to do so. Read more: Bookioo – dating and social networking site gives women full control.

Go Tribal and Bookioo focus on women’s needs and how women interact with one another. Most social networking sites are created by men and start from a man’s point of view. I hope we see more sites like Go Tribal and Bookioo.

UPDATE (23 April 2010): Go Tribal is now called Pinchd (www.pinchd.com).