I read Flickr (Yahoo photo sharing) has added 7 more languages and 55% of their user base (24 million) is international. Also, interesting to note Alexa India rating of Orkut (Rank 2), YouTube (Rank 7) and Blogger.com (Rank 10)
This is the current picture. However; I also hear a lot that there is a play for India centric social network – though yet to be proved. For many industries – food, retail localization of services and content is a critical success factor. First vegetarian Pizza Hut opened in Ahmedabad (to cater to the jain community). I am not sure if same business factor extends to Social Networks. These businesses seem to be geographical neutral or the inherent nature of business is such that users (& communities) define their own way.
Any views on localization for Social Networks – What are the parameters on which localization can happen. Otherwise entrepreneurs need to develop new ideas instead of replicating YouTube and Orkut. Matrimonial probably is one example of localization of dating sites. Any other ideas here?
-Mukul
- Onion Rs65/kg, Petrol Rs65/litre, Beer Rs65! - January 19, 2011
- NEN Program for Women Entrepreneurs - September 3, 2010
- A Billion Dollar Indian Internet Company - August 19, 2010
also, watch out for FaceBook, Its growing like crazy all over the world specially in India. Having been on Facebook, its really miles ahead of any other players out there.
the second wind for a lot of US community sites is coming from places where large English speaking populations exist, like India for example.
The concept of country specific social networks is silly. In any product where the content is 100% user created, how can anyone launch a country specific product? What possible value can they add to the features over general products? Perhaps only localised labels.
Mixi is a Japanese social network because its labels where in Japanese, if MySpace or Friendster did that, they would have taken on Mixi head on.
Someone please contradict me here, especially all you Indian SN owners and investors 😉