Monday, August 15, 2011

Facebook Competitor Altly Becomes Anybeat

Altly, the startup headed by Dmitry Shapiro which is developing an alternative to Facebook, said Monday that it has renamed the firm to AnyBeat.com. The new name was not a surprise, as Shapiro had said the company would be renaming itself before launch. In addition to the new name, AnyBeat outlined a number of principles behind the social network. The firm said it will look to help people meet others who they would not naturally meet in their day-to-day life; help people gauge the reputation of others on the service; and will avoid making the site a place for "personal branding,", instead looking as a place to socialize, converse, and enjoy. Shapiro was formerly the founder of Veoh Networks, and head of MySpace Music. AnyBeat is backed by Freestyle Capital, Social Leverage, Arthur Bilger, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Howard Lindzon, Tom Anderson, Alex Bard, Alex Karelin, Kenny Van Zant, and Francis Costello.

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