Cubeduel launches, a "hot or not" for LinkedIn

Two Seattle startup veterans today launched a venture that adds a little competition to LinkedIn, letting the business network users rank colleagues.

Cubeduel.com uses the LinkedIn API to call up a poll when you sign in to the site. It pulls up contacts with experience at the same company and lets users vote on which one they'd rather work with, then builds lists of "top" employees at particular companies.

The site adds a little spice to LinkedIn, which is relatively dry compared with other social networks. But I wonder how well anonymously submitted personality rankings will go over on a site where contacts and resumes are shared for business networking.

The company was started by UrbanSpoon co-founder Adam Doppelt and Tony Wright, co-founder of RescueTime. They're so far the only employees at the boot-strapped company, which is being advised by Microsoft veteran and iLike co-founder Hadi Partovi.

Monetization plans are still being developed. Options include job ads, selling lists of top-rated employees and selling ranking information to recruiters doing background checks.

Here's a screenshot of a duel drawn from my meager LinkedIn contact list:

Here's the site's current list of the top-rated current and former Microsoft employees, topped by Nat Brown, who worked with Partovi at iLike and then MySpace's Seattle office.

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