UPDATED 14:24 EST / JANUARY 31 2011

Mixtent Launches its Own Website to Track, Rank Professional Skills

After being in beta for several months, Mixtent, a website that tracks your professional reputation online, announced the official launch of its website this morning. The social network aims at helping people hire and get hired. It helps individuals find the right people to work with.

“The real problem is to qualify talent, who is good at what? If you ask around you can get recommendations, so that actually works offline. Online it currently just doesn’t work like that,” said Jonathan Gheller, one of the founders. “So I thought this is the type of problem I can do. This is where I can have the maximum impact. People need jobs. And some people in jobs are unhappy and this is due to asymmetry and lack of information. I felt I could do something about this,” he added.

The website will work on top of LinkedIn’s API, and will tap into Facebook as well, adding a sophisticated provision of rankings that are based on relevant information and not just mere popularity. The votes will be calculated via weighted, anonymous endorsements and algorithmically-derived metrics. Most importantly, in order to protect the rights of the voters, they will remain anonymous.

So far, the company’s got some 600,000 unique visitors. The average vote made by the people who actually voted is 20.

“We will be able to do this on an individual level, a recruiter level or at a company HR level,” Gheller added.. ‘We will be able to go to companies and tell them “we’ve learnt a lot about your employees. We can help you either find or corroborate who your top talent is.’ We are in the business of qualifying people and using that data to help match people.”

Mixtent is not the first website to tap into professional social networking. Mavenlink, a comprehensive cloud-based collaboration tool, has also focused on a similar demographic as Mixtent, bringing consulting and collaboration services into an online environment for small- to medium-sized businesses, enabling them to develop teams and relationships.  It was founded two years ago, relying on a different aspect of the cloud than Mixtent, finding its Google Apps integration key for user adoption.  This hones in on Mavenlink’s management features, whereas Mixtent’s LinkedIn and Facebook integration signals the need behind algorithmic trust factors and research.  Since Mavenlink’s launch, they’ve been constantly updating their features, the most recent being a custom branding tool that allows businesses to personalize their own workplace.

While Mixtent is working something innovative up its sleeve, it will also need to keep an eye on the activity of its supported networks, as they both seek the next stage in institutionalized financial support.  LinkedIn’s IPO is expected any time now, while Facebook’s skyrocketing valuation is raising questions about the availability of their privately held information on  market performance and profits.


Since you’re here …

… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.

If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.