Wealth Base Camp, for those who want to climb the financial ladder

Wealth Base Camp, a recently-launched social networking site that I originally heard about at the New York Web 2.0 Meetup, encourages its user base to "live up to your dreams." The site is geared toward folks who have caught the entrepreneurial bug and are looking to figure out how to get themselves off the ground--and then make some bank.

Basically, it's like a "niche" version of LinkedIn--instead of a social networking site for business users in general, it's specifically for those with a particular set of needs and objectives ("creating wealth"). Wealth Base Camp is organized so that members can fill out their profiles with their skills and objectives so that they can match up needs and collaborate with other users wherever they see fit. There's also a list of events somewhat similar to Upcoming.org. Members are also encouraged to share their "expedition reports" of successes and failures so that other members can read them and learn from them. I have never tried to use online social networking as a business tool (other than utilizing LinkedIn as a substitute for business cards) so I'm not really sure what kind of success rate one would expect.

The catch is that I'm not entirely positive if budding entrepreneurs will really want to participate in an active social network. Especially if they're new to the field, many of them may approach with trepidation and be skeptical of "collaboration" out of the fear that their ideas could easily get snapped up by other users with less-than-savory intentions. People have reason to be secretive about what they do: just look at the number of copyright and trademark lawsuits out there, and at the tendency of one of the most successful tech CEOs out there to keep as much under wraps as is humanly possible (yes, I'm talking about Mr. Jobs).

Then there's the potential that it'll become a haven for scam artists. Optimally, the team behind Wealth Base Camp will be able to keep tabs on this. If they can, it could be interesting to see where something like this goes. The focus of LinkedIn is certainly on touting one's past successes and becoming well-connected, whereas Wealth Base Camp is all about meeting other people who are similarly starting at the bottom of the heap. A noble idea, for sure. Will it work in a MySpace-like social networking format? That's still unclear.