Just saw this article from Avnish, Matrix Partners. Avnish, I know you are around somewhere on venturewoods, so please do participate in this friendly discussion!
A followup would be unnecessary if I agreed with this statement. However, I must say that I myself do believe that the “kids hanging out” variety of social networks are premature in India. These businesses are essentially media businesses, and reach and engagement levels are the key metrics. Besides the internet penetration being low in the country, kids are not spending hours at end on the internet — the engagement levels simply arent there as yet. The only hope for these is a strong and simple mobile addon.
And now for the exciting part — some social networks will fly in India, IMHO. I believe these will be driven by specific tangible benefits, rather than being “hangouts”. I will afford a couple of examples. The first one is referral based recruitments. The Indian e-recruitment technology is 10 years old (no, there are no company wars here! I mean this across the board.) Global sites like linkedin, simplyhired, jobster and so on have demonstrated how social networking can be tied into recruiting very effectively. The Indian model is going to be different from these, and I believe there is a significant market there.
The second example that I would afford is networks for buying services (I am yet to see a good model around product ecommerce) — services are intangible, and often very fragmented. Think of hiring a printer for printing visiting cards. These selections are essentially social in nature, and I believe translating them to the web will be productive.
I am sure there are a lot more examples — social internet is waiting to be discovered in India. And like any other business, the customer is a good place to start from.
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Avnish, thanks for coming by and sharing your views. and thanks to contentsutra for heeding to our request to not sensationalize this on headlines 🙂 Greatly value the spirit in which some of these discussions are entertained.
I was about to write on why Avnish is wrong, and glad to see that you have shared the same ideas.
IMHO, the best way to do a market survey in India is not by reading research reports, but by barging into the cyber cafes. And you will realize that most of the users are hooked onto Orkut [which means there is a place for social nets!]
Moreover, things that work in US may not work in India. Infact, there are core reasons and patterns behind social nets in India. Indians don’t *hang out* for fun, but have specific needs [can be simply demonstrated by maslow’s hierarchy – esp if you stick to the bottom 3 needs!!]
I have covered a few of them here: http://www.pluggd.in/2007/03/social-networking-in-india-where-is.html
Ironically, most of the Indian social nets are feature overloads – and all we need is some strong thinking and you will see the socionet ball rolling!
-Ashish
Totally agree on the ‘tangible benefits’… but has web 1.0 (in india) captured all or even a significant portion of all the possibilities? as far as web 2.0 goes, wont any field which has a significant population with interest levels and the need for information/resources be a good opportunity? photography, music, books… or even medical help 🙂
I told Alok on a separate thread that there is no point getting into debates when one has been quoted as making a headline grabbing radical statment :-), but out of respect for Alok and this forum let me state a few things:
1. SN is but one application of Web 2.0 – which also includes new technologies like AJAX, usites (C2C sites like craigslist etc.), UGC (user generated content) etc.
2. Some of these – e.g. AJAX etc. – are fundamentally better ways of structuring Internet sites and absolutely should be adopted
3. Others like UGC and usites are also very compelling since they are essentially community driven applications – which is what refers to my comments on creating a community around strong vertical “pull-based” product applications which has been interpreted as a shameless plug for seventymm 🙂
4. What I don’t think works (FOR NOW) is pure SN style models which don’t have a “pull” element. Key is that this is based on current levels and type (non-broadband) of Internet penetration. This will change in 3-5 years
5. So key is to build “made for india” models rather than “me too” models like youtube and myspace. Key is to ask yourself the question as to why in an English speaking country, the global english site is not good enough already? Key example would be that Orkut is more successful in India than any of the Indian SN sites
6. It’s sites which don’t have this “India” filter that I don’t think will work. Having started Baazee and funded Seventymm, I am clearly not one to bag the “me too”‘s without thinking – the question is whether the model needs and has a unique to India flavor
Cheers & Over and out!
Avnish
No doubt about it-social networking is here to stay. Like Amit mentioned, it is evolving very rapidly, with each site having it’s own ‘spin’ or fundamental basis, but offering a number of tools that are now basic to most web 2.0 sites. Such as registration, forums and file sharing.
I am, of course, focused on an evolution even further down the line, from 2-D sites to 3D spaces, but the basic principle remains the same.
I have accounts on Orkut, Facebook and Hi5. YouTube and Elance. About a round dozen, come to think on it. And the basic purpose is the same. I am connecting with so many more people than ever. For instance, I catch up with old school friends, relatives and prospective clients on the Names Database (http://namesdatabase.com/), NID friends and faculty on Hi5, artists and illustrators in DeviantART…my problem here, which I am sure is shared by many, is that suddenly there are so many things to do just to maintain an active presence in all these sites!
I agree with Alok that these sites will start to fly in this country. It is just a matter of time. As Avnish says, there is a problem with Internet access, but again I see this as just a temporary gap, which is being filled as we speak. Again, I speak from the perspective of someone who is trying to get 3-D networking accepted here, which takes up a lot more bandwidth. Yes, there are huge problems with access currently. But is this situation necessarily going to persist? It can only improve, I feel. And the benefits of such sites more than make up for the current access drawbacks.