First, the goal of ExpertCEO is to create a private community where CEO’s can ask questions and get answers from others who have experienced the same types of issues and problems. As a private community, we qualify the members to insure they’re CEO’s (COO’s, etc.). At ExpertCEO, as opposed to a broad network like LinkedIn, you can be confident that the responders have some qualifications to answer your questions. There is a huge demand for this type of service and there are many organizations that cater to CEO’s by offering monthly in-person meetings for large fees ranging upwards of $12,000 per year. We want to provide some (but not all) of the benefits of these organizations in a economical and web-based environment.

A second goal of ExpertCEO is to utilize the “Wisdom of the Crowds”. Sure, every CEO has his or her network – perhaps 10 or 20 people, but we feel that if a question is addressed to, perhaps 1,000 individuals, a number of people in this “crowd” will have unique and relevant answers for the questioner that wouldn’t normally come from his or her close circle.

We offer other capabilities such as our “Ask the Expert” feature where we have experts (legal, M&A, etc.) that you can query and get useful information. We also have a Resource Center where product and service providers can list their companies, and our members can provide comments on them to add credibility.

As to confidentially and security, that is our highest priority. When creating or participating in a discussion, you can either sign “by name”, “generic” (i.e. a venture backed software company) or completely anonymous.

ExpertCEO was launched in mid April, so the site is evolving as our membership grows. We think that it will provide an great complement to the broad based sites like LinkedIn as well as to the various “in person” CEO organizations that exist today.

However, ExpertCEO exhibits a pretty fatal flaw: its by-design lack of diversity. If any group needs to expose itself to more diversity, it’s leaders. I wonder what would have happened if the CEO of Bear Sterns had asked the mail room clerk if it was a good idea to purchase an asset that you had no reasonable idea as to its value? Bank CEOs didn’t think there was a problem.

Many (most?) of the major screw ups at the CEO level result from a lack of diversity, not CEOs not having access to other CEOs. Technology enables leaders to expose themselves to lots of diversity. ExpertCEO is a step backward.

However, it could still do very well. Everyone likes to feel special.

I see ExpertCEO as being a legal nightmare. I might chat about some business ideas casually with fellow STS members, but that’s a spoken conversation and not forever logged for Google. Their lack of a basic understanding of online marketing makes me bet their security sucks, too.

If I were to pick out the difference, I’d pay for an organized means of getting to know people I already know better or in a more organized way (old Facebook, Highrise), and to potentially meet other people in their circles. (Yes, LinkedIn does this, but there isn’t enough interaction to be worth $ to me.) I’d pay to join a community based on a particular hobby (filmmaking). But “CEO” is too broad, and the discussions likely too important, to get me to enter the walled garden. (How do I know the CEOs don’t suck? Or that they’re real CEOs at all?)

A corollary to the Groucho quote might be that elitist based organizations wouldn’t want anyone who would want to be a member. The sociology/psychology of it is fascinating, people are clearly wet wired to shun some status symbols while they seek others.

TheFunded is a bit of an anomaly… but they’ve done a good job making it about learning about VC ratings and discussion and not about status in any way.

ExpertCEO is especially classy – they last spammed STS less than two weeks ago.