Matt Heaton knows what it takes to build a social networking platform for a targeted audience. After all, he co-founded the popular Active Rain real estate network in 2003 — a Bellevue network that boasts more than 150,000 real estate professionals as members.

Now, Heaton — who left his day-to-day duties at Active Rain last summer — is giving it another whirl in a completely different arena: amateur sports. This week, he’s launching Timu, a new service that he says is designed to help baseball, basketball, soccer and other amateur athletes more effectively communicate with their teammates.

Does the world really need another social network — especially one that is tailored to recreational sports? Heaton — an amateur athlete himself who came up with the idea after growing frustrated trying to stay connected with his sports teams — certainly thinks so.

"Sports already has a built in offline social network, primarily focused around teams," said Heaton.  "These small offline social networks have not (migrated) onto existing online social networks very well, mainly because the generic social networks provide a disjointed solution."

Timu — which takes its name from the Swahili word for team — allows team members to upload photos and videos from games as well as organize rosters and schedules. It even has a stats section so players can see whether they are carrying their weight or not at the ballpark.

Heaton said there’s "a tremendous motivation among competitive athletes — no matter what skill level — to show off and share things like statistics, game results and photos."

 Beyond the specific team pages, individuals can check a general message board built around specific sports.

Just as recreational sports can get heated, there’s plenty of competition in the quest to build a top-notch Web site for recreational sports.

There are big players like Facebook and Google, which allow people to create groups around specific interests. And there are startups such as WePlay — endorsed by Cleveland Cavs star LeBron James — and Sportsvite.

I also wrote about a similar concept in February called GroupieGuide, a Seattle startup which was created by University of Washington grad Jordan Isip.

And then there’s the big Kahuna in the category: The Active Network.

Heaton doesn’t seem too distracted by the competition, including the Active.com communities which he said provide almost no interaction.

"There hundreds of people out there providing team Web site solutions, yet by and large they are fairly static offerings, which don’t provide the interaction expected on the web today," he said. "There were also several entrants into the sports social networking space but tended to be targeting mostly at individuals and (do) not handle teams or leagues well."

Heaton, who has self-funded the startup to date, said he originally thought about creating Timu as a Facebook application. But then he decided it was smarter to build the service as "social network agnostic" –  meaning that the service could easily plug-in to Facebook as well as other social networks. 

At this point, Heaton is the only full time employee on the project. He’s just started to consider a seed round of funding.

And the entrepreneur is drawing on his experience at Active Rain to try to build Timu.

"There were many take aways on how to build a network using a ground roots, viral marketing approach that I think will apply just as well to sports teams as it did in real estate," he said. 

Given the experience at Active Rain, Heaton also said he’s spent a lot more time thinking about revenue models and how the company will reach profitability.

A team page on the Timu sports network.

READ MORE and COMMENT, more 
and Barnes & Noble takes on Amazon.com on the iPhone  

Barnes & Noble is playing a rapid game of catch up to Amazon in the Apple App Store. The big brick-and-mortar bookseller came out with an application for the iPhone and iPod touch today that lets people browse and buy books, DVDs and CDs — much like Amazon’s shopping app for iPhone. Barnes & Noble’s app also has a feature that lets people snap a photo of a book cover with their iPhone camera and quickly get product details and pricing. That’s a lot like what Snaptell does — a company that Amazon just acquired.

"Using the iPhone camera, just snap a photo of the front cover and within seconds get product details, editorial reviews, and customer ratings – even find and reserve a copy in the store closest to you," B&N says in today’s announcement.

Amazon, of course, has released a shopping app as well as a Kindle electronic book app for iPhone, and has been making other moves in the mobile market, buying Lexcycle, maker of popular iPhone book app Stanza, and mobile image search startup Snaptell.

Barnes & Noble says its new app also includes video interviews with authors, event calendars with celebrity book signings and readings, directions to Barnes & Noble stores, and information on which stores have cafes and Wi-Fi access. The B&N app is currently ranked No. 2 in free book apps on iTunes, after Kindle.

Follow my updates on Twitter.

 

READ MORE and COMMENT, more 

and Blue Nile joins Amazon in cutting ties with North Carolina affiliates  

Amazon.com isn’t the only ecommerce company cutting ties to affiliates over state sales tax legislation. Online diamond and jewelry retailer Blue Nile has ended its North Carolina affiliate program over pending legislation there, TechFlash has learned. Blue Nile’s move comes after Amazon took similar actions in North Carolina and Rhode Island. Amazon and Blue Nile are seeking to avoid efforts by states to classify them as a physical retailer — and require them to pay sales tax — through their relationship to locally-based affiliate websites.

Affiliates receive a sales commission for linking to products, and play a role in driving business for many ecommerce companies. But Amazon, Blue Nile and others apparently feel the potential tax burden outweighs the benefit of affiliate programs.

Here’s the text of the email Blue Nile sent to North Carolina affiliates, obtained by TechFlash:

We are writing to notify you that we have terminated our relationship with all North Carolina affiliates, effective Saturday, June 27th. This is a result of the tax collection legislation currently under consideration by the North Carolina state legislature, which is expected to be passed and signed into law.
 
Blue Nile regrets the need to take this action. As the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1992 Quill decision makes clear, the proposed bill is unconstitutional as it requires sellers with no physical presence in the state to collect sales tax on sales to buyers in that state.
 
Blue Nile has taken this action in advance of the legislation’s implementation because the effective date is unclear. We have enjoyed working with you, and want to assure you that you will earn commissions on any qualified sales through June 27, 2009.
 
We remain hopeful that this unconstitutional legislation will ultimately be rejected, at which point we would be happy to resume working together. Thank you for your participation in the Blue Nile Affiliate Program.

Asked about the email, John Baird, a spokesman for Seattle-based Blue Nile, said the North Carolina legislation "penalizes small businesses as many of the affiliates tend to be." He added: "We totally regret having to do this, but we feel like our hand is forced in this case."

He said Blue Nile is analyzing legislation in other states on a "case by case basis."

Will other ecommerce companies soon join the fray?

Follow my updates on Twitter.

READ MORE and COMMENT, more 

AdmitOne; Zillow’s iPhone app; networked VCs; and more  

Former Microsoft executive Scott Oki and former AskMe Chief Technology Officer Digvijay Chauhan have created a new non profit called SeeYourImpact, which utilizes camera phones and other technologies to get a glimpse at how their donations are helping people in need. Kristi Heim of The Seattle Times has the story, which also notes a similar effort from Microsoft Research’s Adnan Mahmud who has established the Jolkona Foundation with his wife.

VentureBeat has details on the latest offering from AdmitOne — the keystroke analysis security company formerly known as BioPassword. The Issaquah company is now touting an analytics business called Scout Analytics that indicates how and when people log on to the corporate network.

Bellevue’s DreamBox Learning — a maker of online math games for Kindergartners to second graders– has named education experts Dr. Francis "Skip" Fennell and Dr. Catherine Fosnot to its advisory board.

Self-described Web geek Keith Vance pulls the plug on the Seattle online news publication, The Seattle, Courant, and explains why it did a "belly flop." 

TechCrunch lists the top 100 most "networked" venture capital firms and finds that Draper Fisher Jurvetson — which has an outpost in Seattle led by Bill Bryant — is at the top of the list. Others who have strong networks include familiar names such as Sequoia, Accel, Intel Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The first and only true Seattle firm on the list is Bezos Expeditions, the venture arm of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. It ranked 73rd. Meanwhile, VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall wonders if this is the best way to rank VC firms.

Web hosting provider Rackspace encountered some technical issues today, knocking some Web sites offline.

 more