Amit Kumar Mohanta works on his web portal in Jamshedpur on Wednesday. Picture by Animesh Sengupta

It will be manna from heaven for social network site buffs if Facebook and LinkedIn decide to team up.

While founders Mark Zuckerberg and Reid Hoffman may not have thought of a merger yet, two youngsters from Jamshedpur and Garhwa have developed a new social network site that tries to combine both friendship and professionalism.

Curiously named www.pinaly.com, its beta version was launched on Tuesday in Jamshedpur for testers and developers. Within 24 hours, the site saw 300 users.

Founders Amit Kumar Mohanta (22) and Animesh Kumar (22) can’t stop beaming.

Amit, a Jamshedpur resident and a BTech final-year student at KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, and Garhwa boy Animesh, an MCA final-year student at the same cradle, collaborated on their “dream project” to see if they could manage to come up with something different.

“We wanted to offer a site with features to help students and professionals alike,” said Kadma Farm Area resident Amit, the son of Tata Tubes division employee Pabitra Mohan Mohanta.

He added they wanted to go beyond usual facilities of uploading data and pictures and offer user-friendly links for people who log in.

“We have established links with 25 international universities. Students can become members of our site and get access to experts in various fields from reputable universities, send queries and get replies. This apart, we have a social group. Later, we’ll add more links for locations, industry experts and corporate firms. We plan to get sleek and user-specific,” Amit said.

But when asked about the single-most important feature to break through the virtual clutter, Amit said it was enhanced security.

“We’ve done a good job of making our site safe from hackers,” grinned the youngster.

Coming a close second was their emphasis on news from across the world.

Up next, the duo has got the go-ahead from KIIT University to globally launch the site at the three-day Indian Science Congress, Bhubaneswar. The date: January 3, 2012.

The only worry? The youths are on a sticky wicket as far as arranging resources for a patent. “We’ll need over Rs 1 lakh to apply for a patent. But if we keep getting hits, we’ll get a sponsor too,” Amit smiled.