Passitto.com,  social referral network, recently launched.  The premise is that we all know people who are looking for goods and services, so why not put that information to good use and earn some money, all while helping people find goods and services they need? 

I know, it sounds too good to be true.  Here is an explanation on the Passitto.com referral network website: 

Passitto’s approach is unique, since the referral information originates from other business users, not necessarily the potential clients themselves. Passitto CEO Jeremy Bamford explains that “businesses of every size come across potential clients who need goods and services that they do not provide, and this information typically goes to waste. Passitto.com provides a platform for businesses to pass this valuable information on to other business users who do provide these goods and services.”

Most users will be familiar with the traditional business social networking features of Passitto.com, such as being able to create profiles and to form connections with other users and groups. Unlike other business social networking websites, Passitto.com focuses on networking with the aim of receiving business referrals.

Passitto.com provides an incentive for business users to share this information. “Passitto allows users to capitalize on referral information that they otherwise might have not been able to, either by exchanging it for referral information that is useful for them, or for money,” explained Bamford. The site uses an innovative credit system to move and track referral information that is exchanged between users and to reward users for submitting referral information through the site.

Users can send referrals to any other member, or they can limit the referrals that they send out to their connections or members of their groups. Bamford provides this example: “An employee of a larger business can use Passitto.com to pass referral information to a division of the business that is located in another state, a member of an industry group can use Passitto.com to send referral information to other members of the group, or the user can open the referral to the entire Passitto community.”

The site uses a true pay or play model. It is free for users who submit referrals for exchange on the website, as the users obtain Passitto credits from users who receive their referrals. Users also have the option of purchasing Passitto credits. These credits can then be used to receive referral information from other users.

Passitto.com harnesses the power of the Internet to reduce the inefficiencies of traditional offline leads groups, to package referrals so that they can be exchanged in an online auction-like forum, and to add “referral” to the phrase “online business social network.”