A new, free social network for the global shipping industry has been launched with the simple mission statement: find, and be found.
Shippingcluster, whose aim is to cut out the 'noise' of other social networks, was officially launched in May 2014 and has quickly built a global following of over 500 professionals from over 30 countries.
The nature of this industry is that everybody knows someone in shipping, but it's about bridging that disconnect. We spoke to Shippingcluster's founder and CEO, Eirik Fosse, about the philosophy behind Shippingcluster's clean simplicity: "The maritime industry is the world's most international industry, serving more than 90% of the global trade," says Fosse, "yet the industry is missing a global network that connects the players.
"The industry is too dependent on Google free-text search to find companies and services, which is not always efficient. Similarly, amongst the hundreds of millions of users on LinkedIn for example, only a fraction is relevant for shipping.
"In the near future I expect to see all industries having industry dedicated social networks. The one size fits all concept is being challenged by specialised networks tailored to industry specific needs, without all the unrelated noise."
Shippingcluster is available by invitation only, which you can request by visiting www.shippingcluster.com – but once you are a member you can invite your contacts. Here you can list your own profile, and look for companies, job vacancies, and events.
