Conferences: We’ve all been there, drink in hand, struggling to make small talk in a room filled with other professionals. It’s a great networking opportunity, and yet so much time is wasted without actually getting down to business. Now imagine that at this networking event you’re accompanied by an expert connector: a pro who helps you find and introduces you to the right professional contacts. You’ve just met PEER(http://www.peer2.me/), an introduction service which helps you better connect with other tech professionals.

The new mobile app that just announced its public iOS launch, allows you to explore individuals on LinkedIn, and provides a seamless path to engage via video, both live and by chat. Whether you’re looking for an expert opinion, searching to hire a consultant, seeking an investor, or simply trying to run it by a peer, using PEER makes the process effective and allows you to have multiple meetings per day, one video chat after the other.

How does it work?
To use the service you need to have a LinkedIn account with sufficient connections, a photo, and descriptive experience. Once you’ve installed the free app, the system syncs your contacts on LinkedIn and presents you with other PEERs who are now online, including their distance away from you. Once you browse to the PEER you were searching for, you get a chance to make first impressions with a 20 second video pitch. Just like in the real world, the pitch needs to be interesting enough for the other person to want to take the video meeting.

PEER’s paramount goal is to help you screen business partners in order to find the best ones, and forge lasting business relationships. You connect with experts that you yourself vetted, as opposed to other services that let you buy time from celebs or purchase advice from self-declared consultants, the purpose of networking is first and foremost interpersonal, not transactional.

PEER’s features include:

• Send pre-recorded video messages as invites, or text
• Easily request time to chat and indicate availability for a call back. Don’t waste time scheduling
• Edit and save your intro video pitch
• Password protected large groups (over 500) can network in a private environment
• Hop on 1×1 live video calls right from your iPhone

Program Manager at the Master of Management Studies at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, Mary Elizabeth McIntosh: “As an innovative program that embraces cutting edge technology to connect nationally and across the globe – PEER represents an unmatched networking opportunity between alumni and recent grads. In a world where professional connections matter more than ever, we believe that the app represents the future of networking. We are thrilled to be involved with PEER.”

Ofer Baharav, CEO of PEER: “Our service is all about democratizing access to the professionals you could be meeting. Today, this is rather cumbersome. We depend on our networks for favors, we seek costly alternatives when the right person might be right there for us online. And there’s virtually no difference between a live video conversation and an in-person meeting. We all know that scheduling synchronous communication is tough and often tiring. With PEER we wanted to simplify, recreate, and elevate the cocktail mixer concept and give tech professionals the power and value that quality live video and messaging is known for, while bringing in the best in needs matching using semantic technology.”

About PEER:

Based in San Francisco and founded in 2012, PEER is the developer of the first mobile networking service to connect professionals over live video. The company was founded by two serial entrepreneurs Ofer Baharav and Carl Jackson, with a background in product, operations, and software engineering.

See more at:

https://www.facebook.com/peer2me

https://twitter.com/peer2me