Today, users can start connecting with all their favorite social causes in one online sphere, as Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has launched his much-talked-about social network, Jumo.

    Hughes, who left Facebook in 2007 to become the Obama campaign’s director of online organizing, soft-launched Jumo last March. At that time the site existed merely as a homepage featuring a survey* box that asked the site visitor an array of questions from, “If you had a daughter tomorrow, which would you name her?” to “Would you say the world is getting better or worse?” Upon answering these queries*, you could also submit your e-mail address to get more information as it came.

    Jumo was designed to let users find, follow and support the causes important to them, and with 3,500 organizations on board at launch, would-be philanthropists* could be able to find and follow something of interest upon joining.

    It’s very similar to Facebook. Upon signing up via Facebook Connect, which lets you easily find friends on the site, you can begin to shape your Jumo experience by figuring out “What You’re Interested In” by way of selecting “Issues.”

    “This is to get a sense of who someone is, what they’re passionate about, what’s meaningful to them,” Hughes says. “It’s the first way to figure out what a person might want to see more of.”

    Every Issue also has a page that you can follow, allowing you to discover more organizations over time.

    After choosing your Issues, you can either drill down to find more specific Issues (think education reforms, schools, at-risk youth, etc.), or sort through “Projects” and select which ones you would like to follow.

    Once you choose your Projects and click “Done,” you’re transferred to your homepage, which, again, is very similar to Facebook’s. It has a newsfeed of sorts with updates from all the projects, people and issues you’re following. It also has a “Talk” section showing social updates from Projects and people you follow.

    By joining Jumo, a Project can pull all its social streams into one place — Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, blogs, etc. That way, followers can check out a wealth of information on a single organization all in one framework.

    Again, Project pages are a lot like Fan Pages on Facebook, however the key difference here is that the focus seems to be less on the individual than on the organization. On Facebook, it’s more about the connections you make with friends than those you do with brands/bands/etc. Jumo focuses much more on creating a space where you can learn more about organizations, and take action.

    “We can make it easier for people to connect with the professionals working in a lot of fields in order to make change happen. There are a million different groups out there working day in, day out to provide healthcare or education services, or do good government work and I think that our challenge is to support the work of the people who are out there getting the job done,” Hughes says. (SD-Agencies)