Longtime movie industry moguls Bob and Harvey Weinstein are the latest media players to invest in a social networking site, after the Weinstein Co. Monday said it has taken an undisclosed stake in aSmallWorld.net.
The founders of Miramax, led a group of other investors including Bob Pittman, former chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner Inc., to make a "significant investment" in the social networking site that can only be joined by an exclusive invitation from existing members.
aSmallWorld.net was founded in 2004 by Erik Wachtmeister, and is described by the company as an exclusive global online community of 130,000 members representing over 100 countries.
Wachtmeister said in a statement that the company's target audience is 3 million people who are well-educated, highly mobile and influential.
The investment by the Weinstein Company is the first that it has made in an online company. Last month, the company worked with online video site YouTube, to feature the first eight minutes of its thriller 'Lucky Number Slevin' to help promote the film.
Last July Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. paid $580 million to acquire the leading social networking site MySpace.com. Several media companies including Viacom Inc. have been linked with the potential acquisition of Facebook.com, a college-focused social networking site.