A former Microsoft senior manager with deep ties to the Seattle startup industry has created a social networking startup called LiveMocha.

Shirish Nadkarni, who spent 12 years at Microsoft before founding the mobile e-mail messaging startup TeamOn in 1999, said the month-old startup will launch this summer.

"We are not trying to be a social network just for the sake of it," Nadkarni said. "It is a specific market that has really not embraced the Internet in any major way, certainly not social networking Web 2.0 concepts. We believe by applying those concepts, we can really transform the market."

Nadkarni didn't want to disclose LiveMocha's niche, though he said it will be a consumer service that initially targets "the younger demographic."

Social networking may be one of the most overused buzzwords of the new Internet era. But the concept -- using the Internet to share information and connect people of like-minded interests -- is rapidly catching hold as millions of people set up profiles on MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and other sites.

Social networks also are expanding into niche categories. Dogster is a social network for dog owners, while Shelfari of Seattle is a social network for book lovers. A WSA panel discussion Thursday night focused on online social networking tools for business.

LiveMocha, whose name could change before the launch, plans to make money through online advertising and subscriptions.

Nadkarni, who sold TeamOn to Research in Motion in 2002 and worked as a vice president for the BlackBerry maker until last year, has lined up some of his former Microsoft cohorts as investors and advisers.

Raghav Kher, an eight-year veteran of Microsoft who went on to found Imandi.com, Rendition Networks and, most recently, the Indian movie rental business Seventymm, is helping the startup get off the ground.

"LiveMocha is one of the best revenue opportunities I have seen in Web 2.0, and that's why I have put my own money on it," said Kher, who worked with Nadkarni at Microsoft on the acquisition of Hotmail.

LiveMocha was co-founded by Krishnan Seshadrinathan, the former director of development at Austin, Texas-based Motive.

Former Microsoft Vice President Pete Higgins, a venture capitalist who sat on the board of TeamOn, was not familiar with LiveMocha. But Higgins called Nadkarni a "good entrepreneur" who is smart, resourceful and adaptive.

In order to navigate the social networking maze -- a highly competitive area that has drawn millions of investment dollars -- Nadkarni will need all of those skills.

Still, the 46-year-old is confident that his small team can make waves.

"The key is to find an opportunity where you can actually make some money out of it," Nadkarni said. "We think that the market we identified really has some unique opportunities to charge for content and to benefit from advertising revenues."

Since it was founded early last month, LiveMocha has been hammering out details of its business plan at the Tully's coffee shop on the Sammamish Plateau. The startup plans to move into a new office in downtown Bellevue in early March.

LiveMocha is having fun with the name, writing on its Web site that it is "not trying to compete with Starbucks or Sun." Nadkarni is listed as the co-founder and chief roaster. Kher is listed as a coffee connoisseur and adviser.

While the silly titles might remind some of the dot-com boom years, Nadkarni is quick to point out many of the differences between starting a company in 1999 and starting one today.

One of the most important is cost. TeamOn raised $15 million and at its peak employed more than 60 people, with Nadkarni recalling that the startup's hosting costs were about $5,000 per month.

At LiveMocha, Nadkarni said, the startup costs are minimal because of open source technologies and low-cost marketing tactics. Nadkarni, who had to lay off staff members at TeamOn during the dot-com bust, pledges to keep things tight and efficient. "We are not going to go out and hire 100 employees or something," he said.

Part of the reason why Nadkarni believes he can create a new consumer Internet offering relatively cheaply is that the online advertising market has matured to the point where niche Web sites can make money.

"The business models emerging today are much more viable than they were before," he said.

At this time, LiveMocha is self-funded, with Nadkarni saying that they have sufficient capital to launch the company. Nadkarni said he probably will raise his first round of venture capital after the service debuts.

Having ushered TeamOn through the dot-com boom and bust, Nadkarni is aware of the challenges that startups face. But he said the market niche they are targeting is "wide open."

"We think by being the first in the market we can establish a brand and be the leader, as opposed to being the 300th site trying to do video sharing or something," he said.

BLOG ROUNDUP: A quick look at some of the items appearing in my venture blog this week. Here is the link: blog.seattlepi.com/venture

Find out why former astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin is joining the board of Neah Power Systems.

Read an interview with Imperium Renewables founder John Plaza.

Learn about Clearwire's new advertising agency.

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