NEW YORK -- Web 2.0 Expo -- Forget pokes and hamster-in-a-pot gift-giving: A startup is making a push to put social networks to real use by devoting its platform to promoting collective action. Amazee, a Swiss-based startup, which launched a trial product in May, is launching its networking and collaboration platform today in the U.S.

Amazee was founded by Dania Gerhardt and her husband, Gregory Gerhardt, who hope to ultimately help people post and collaborate on their life projects on the Internet. Amazee received initial angel funding in Switzerland and is looking to raise a Series A round by the end of the year. Its business model is two-fold: incorporating sponsorship/advertising, as well as selling premium subscriptions for $19.99 per quarter.

The site has a social networking feature, but it is kept separate from the social collaboration area -- which only allows people to connect on projects, and not via their personal profiles.

"It's not like we want people to replicate their existing network onto Amazee, and just have their friends go there and chat with them," says Dania Gerhardt. "We want them to do stuff there and to target goals. If we allow them to replicate their social network, we'll be just another social network."

That fate will be tough to avoid. With the great potential our social networking tools provide us, the mundane seems to ceaselessly prevail, leaving things like Facebook's "Causes" application to be little more than showy icons on profile pages, championing one's concern for cancer beneath one's score on Bum Wars.

"The community on Facebook goes there for talking with existing contacts. People do not go there to do things," says Gerhardt. "You go there and say, this is a cause I support, but you don't do it."

Gerhardt hopes for a different scenario on Amazee, which values collaboration over social networking. One project currently employing the site's tools is the Chicago 2016 Olympics effort, which has set up a video channel, allowing people to come together via video and say why the Olympics should be held in Chicago. This project, the team hopes, will help put Amazee on the map.

In buying the premium version of Amazee, users can make all or parts of their projects private (in addition to other features). But considering privacy is such a huge issue with users -- including those non-paying types -- Amazee may see pushback from the community for asking users to pay for privacy.

Despite any potential hurdles, Gerhardt sees social collaboration as the future of the Internet. "Now everyone knows how to set up a profile, gain 1,000 friends -- but that's getting common. The next step in the evolution of our social network is that we also go and achieve things together and work together as we do in real life."

— Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution