by Michelle Lentz

Soceeo (the name is a clever play on “social economy”) launched in Alpha in early June. Soceeo is another niche social networking tool, entering into the same competitive space as Ning, Wetpaint, and Flux. The folks at Soceeo believes they’ll survive by offering the easiest and quickest solution to creating your own network. In a video comment on Venture Beat, Emile Cambry states that he had his grandmother create a network and she easily succeeded. That’s definitely easy.

The Soceeo vision is to create a free platform for individuals, group s and organizations to easily make a customized social network without any programming skills. In future updates, the Soceeo team wants to focus on verticals (such as making marketing easier for musicians) and throwaway groups. I love the idea of a place for throwaway groups. Occasionally you need a place for communication and community -such as when you’re planning a large event – but that community is for that event only. When the event is over, there is no longer a need for the home on the Web. I like that Soceeo is acknowledging that need.

Soceeo is also hoping to enter the application space, like Facebook, with a directory of simple and useful applications that help organize your community and your life (unlike most of Facebook’s apps). One nice feature (and one I’d like to see on Ning) is that tabs are treated like applications and are therefore it is easy to substitute alternatives. Each network comes with 1GB of space and the ability to send emails to outside addresses, making it easier to manage your mailing list. In addition, Soceeo lets you reap the monetary benefit from any ads.

The beta release looks to allow importing unlimited RSS feeds, widgets, and enhanced privacy. The beta will allow for fairly detailed customization as well, such as how many forum posts to display and the ability to create widget channels.

Soceeo looks like a niche network tool to keep an eye on as they move from alpha to beta.

Sample Soceeo networks:

Nintendo Wii
Team Nike