April 22nd, 2007
Social Networking and Niches
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According to Compete, Orkut, which is the default social networking site in India, is only ranked #8 in terms of attention and an even more lowly #22 in terms of number of visitors, amongst all social networking sites.
The question to ask here is: for a precocious teenager in Kolkata, what is more important -
- That MySpace is 300 times bigger than Orkut?
- That a million other social networking sites offer more advanced features than both Orkut and MySpace?
- That all her friends have profiles on Orkut?
The key to building a successful social networking site is to own a niche. MySpace owns the bigger niche (USA), but Orkut owns the niches that will grow faster (Brazil and India). These numbers will look very different in a few years from now.
I think it helps that you can visit most Myspace profiles without being a member of Myspace and you can not do that with orkut. I think the lack of transparency with orkut keeps it unpopular…but it also keeps it clean. I’d rather have my orkut page clean and simple, then doll it op beyond recognition and have a million ads flashing on my face every time I view my profile on Myspace.
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