Zurich-based startup Amazee has come out of a five month public beta with the full launch today of its “collaboration platform” which allows people to organize, track, promote and fund projects of any size. Think Facebook “Causes” meets Basecamp with the ability to take PayPal and credit card donations thrown in. Amazee has also been signed up to provide the social platform which will back Chicago’s bid of the 2016 Olympic games (it’s down to the final four), aiming at students to create content for the “Why Chicago” competition.
So you have your standard set of social networking tools combined with the ability for project admins to offer sponsorships and sell advertising. Think of it as a platform for activism able to do much more than a simple social group. The collaboration tools are not unlike like Basecamp but it’s all built more like a social network, so you can have a hierarchy within a project and a mini network inside that. The main difference with other social networks is that Amazee focuses on what you are about to do, rather than what you have just done on the network.
As well as taking donations, projects can also sell banner ad space on their home pages and the revenues are shared between the project and Amazee. Additional functionalities like the ability to run closed projects and advanced search will attract a fee of $19.95 for three months. The site is headquartered in Zurich and has an office in San Francisco.
Typical of an Amazee user is the Studieren ohne Grenzen project (“Studies Without Borders”) which supports young people from regions affected by war and political oppression, enabling them to launch their own projects related to reconstruction, peace, and the promotion of human rights.
Update: Looks like Amazee will be kind’ve competing, in various guises, with sites like Change.org, dotherightthing and Six Degrees.