Seattle start-up Unsocial wants to help you build your contacts

If social networking is all about meeting new people and making new connections, why is it that old friends seem to exclusively populate our contact lists?

That’s what Seattle start-up Unsocial asked themselves, and that’s how they came up with their namesake app. Unsocial is social networking that gives you a whole new set of contacts based on where you live and the field(s) you work in. It’s not about reconnecting with old classmates or keeping up with friends — this app is for making connections within your field and furthering your career.

Once you sign in with a LinkedIn profile and give your information, a list of potential contacts is generated, and you can send private messages to those matches to develop a further relationship, or just exchange other contact information.

TechCrunch has some info about the app, and how they plan to monetize this free product:

Although the mobile apps are free to download, Unsocial has created a structure to monetize what it refers to as “premium events.” Any organization can list an event on Unsocial, however, the startup will charge a fee for adding special features, such as a copy of the agenda, venue maps, speaker bios, the event’s Twitter feed, etc. In addition, Unsocial can also sell ad space around these premium events, if sponsors buy these ad slots, Unsocial will share the revenues with event organizers (hopefully giving the organizers a chance to recoup those premium fees).

Unsocial is launching one city at a time, starting with San Francisco. More cities following in the coming weeks, so stay tuned to see when Seattle and the Pacific Northwest get added to the menu. You can follow developments with Unsocial from their homepage here.