An analysis of Indian Social Networks
Every week we get to see a new India specific Social Network springing up. Many of them will fail miserably, and a few may somewhat succeed, but probably just a couple will wildly succeed. While, I admire the fact that some of the big names are taking this huge step and some big names are behind the VC funding - I still think 9 of 10 sites are not justified in trying to do what they are, given the fact that they have woken up over 2 years late other than the fact that their services offer no additional benefits or features - that their already wildly popular global competitor sites are offering. The value in such a model is in the network of friends and associates users create, and once they spend all that valuable time and effort in building their chain and network - members are just not going to switch over - unless you provide them with something that is very radical and that they don’t have at the site they are hooked onto. Also, in this global networking (business and friendship) era - just launching a India specific Social Network provides little additional value and limits people to only friends from India and of Indian origin, something probably only about 10% to 20% of Indian people will be seeking.
While, some may argue that, that there is a large number of people who have yet to get online in India - and they could probably be the apt target of these new Social Networking sites, I have a counter argument for this thought. Lets take for example Orkut. They have built a very strong presence in India over the past couple of years. The fundamental fact is that people only go to the bars and parties that are crowded, and those that their friends are using. They will not go to someplace where they know nobody. And which sites do newbies sign up at? Well, obviously the sites where their friends are at… and the sites their friends invite them to sign up.
Local new brands are going to have a very hard time getting people on board. This is a winner takes all model (for each specific social network niche - college students, business, mature audience). The college student niche has been snapped up by Orkut, the business network niche by Linkedin (with techtribe.net in India and Rediff connexions making a little limited headway), and the mature more sophisticated crowd is now flocking to Facebook.
Here’s my stab at local India specific social networks in the market. There are probably over 200 desi Social Networks already out there, and I’ve only reviewed the ones that are making somewhat of a buzz in the online space. If I missed out someone, please do make a post and I will review them. The reviews are in no particular order of preference or performance.
- Launched very early on in the piece.
- One of the initial front runners.
- Controversially funded by Sequoia.
- Not too hot, with basic features and steady traffic.
- Needs to increase membership base and traffic.
- Very basic social networking features offered.
- Steady low traffic - not increasing or decreasing. Very dormant.
- Verdict: will take a while to becoming part of the deadpool, unless Sequoia gives them some more money to live for another year. They have the potential to turn things around - but they will have to really think out-of-the-box and come up with a “winner feature” to turn the tables. Are you guys listening?
- Funded by guys behind Axill.in / Europe Ad network
- Heavy media ad campaign in progress - online, TV and offline
- Claim to have garnered over 1 million members in 4 months (highly inflated in my opinion)
- Very basic standard features
- Traffic increasing to some extent
- Verdict: Has a fluke chance amongst desi competitors to succeed. Although the name is not too catchy, its apt to some extent… and this *may* just work for them. Alexa rankings may be a bit skewed, as they also control a large ad network.
- Launched early in the piece by People Group, the company behind Shaadi.com
- Early mover and the pitch is to be more of a dating site
- Some good features offered with a buzzing and active forum
- Traffic to the site is steadily declining
- Verdict: Will stay the way it is. Won’t increase or decrease in popularity. Will not turn out to be a money spinner for them, but their database and eyeballs can be used to funnel traffic to their other site ventures.
- Reliance Entertainment initiative
- Rs 3 cr to Rs 4 cr media campaign planned, that will create a spike in membership base
- Basic Social Networking features offered, nothing “wow”
- Verdict: This is going to blow up on their face, like Zapakmail. They need to stop trying to do get into any and every area with publics money
- Launched by a 24 year old Indian Standford student while in college
- Steady amount of low traffic, with not much growth potential
- Verdict: Will become part of the deadpool soon
- Heavy media campaign and somewhat of an early mover in the second wave of budding sites
- Has a mobile angle, which wont work. (at least not just yet)
- Ripped of the Facebook.com look, but obviously has no idea on how to develop a “platform” like Facebook
- Trying to be a Facebook feel for Orkut users
- Verdict: Is probably almost already part of the deadpool, and I wont be surprised if they put it up for sale on Baazee / Ebay India.
- One of the early movers
- Very mediocre, and based on a $300 readily available script
- Verdict: already part of the deadpool
- Business networking site for local IT professionals
- The people running it seem to “get it” to some extent
- They should have purchased the .com TLD too
- Traffic is not too high, but very targeted to their niche
- Verdict: May be a winner in their vertical… probably already is.
- Very early mover, for basically local business networking
- Large number of members, exact number unknown
- Will succeed somewhat as they have all their portal traffic to hit
- Even if it does not become wildly successful it will help in increasing Rediff’s stock price and value
- Verdict: Will not be wildly successful, but may continue to be alive as all portal traffic can be funneled here.
- Very late entrant in the Social Networking scene
- Initiative of Naukri.com folks (Info Edge)
- Trying to pull off a local Linkedin.com
- Features and interface are all very basic, bland and unimpressive
- Will experience an initial blip because of media strategy and cross-selling to Naukri users
- Probably have a lot of money from their successful IPO
- Verdict: Too early to say, but they wont make it.. as their fundamental idea is incorrect - as in todays networked era, Business Networking is Global and not local. They may not be able to provide users with a good enough value add. And even users who initially sign up, may probably end up moving to Linkedin - once they hear of it, leaving Brijj deserted.
- Not much traffic and the site homepage is not user friendly or inviting.
- Traffic to site is minimal.
- Verdict: already part of the deadpool
My overall response to the scene is that this is going to burst in a lot of people’s face… and the global sites like Orkut, Facebook, Myspace, Tagged etc are going to run away with the trophy, with probably just one or two desi sites, at max, generating some buzz and popularity. Who will it be? I invite feedback from readers based on their experience.
Is there some scope in setting up specific narrower community based social network sites - which could be support regional languages too? Perhaps a Punjabi or Konkan or Cricket based Social Network - as users will not mind being on Orkut AND on a niche community network. Or, do sites like Orkut and Facebook already cater to this with their user created local “groups”?
— admin Filed under: Uncategorized
[…] As a second part to this post, I will review the players in the Indian market, including the overseas global networks like Orkut, Facebook, Linkedin etc. that are spreading like wild fire amongst Indians. I will base my review purely on readily available stats and research. You may read the second part to this post here. […]
Hey, I just wanted to what is the fame to glory of the individual who is giving comments like these about brijj.com
I think Networking today is more global than local, unless ofcourse your running ur own kirana store. But then, the target audience of Brijj is Global. The interface and UI of Brijj is better than that of linkedin, and Im sure that once the site is more complete, you will understand the strategy adopted by the incumbents.
By the way, im stil waiting to hear of the fame to claim of the person who has authored this blog saying that..
Brijj.com
(FYI as quoted in the blog above(I think its a very biased view point)”Verdict: Too early to say, but they wont make it.. as their fundamental idea is incorrect - as in todays networked era, Business Networking is Global and not local. They may not be able to provide users with a good enough value add. And even users who initially sign up, may probably end up moving to Linkedin - once they hear of it, leaving Brijj deserted.”
Cheers..
No, the interface of Brijj is not as advanced and well made as Linkedin. Their CEO Sanjeev Bhikchandani has agreed to this, and has also said they will be improving it and adding more features in the coming months. He says he wanted to get into the market in India “early” before others move in, and thus took this decision to launch a sort-of incomplete website. I am not the only person with this view.
Also, Brijj is not global but is targeted mainly at Indian professionals.
It’s ‘claim to fame’ nikhil. Your english seems as bad as your company’s strategy.
Hi VIshal,
Actually I had never said that the UI of brijj.com is not where we want it to be.
What I had said was that some of the add on features (which arenot used by most users of networking sites) would come in in the months to come.
The UI is complete and where we want it to be.
It is the feature set that will be enhanced going forward.
Regards
Sanjeev
Hi Vishal,
Really nice insights into the social networking business.
I have a question for you .. has any social networking website in India broke even yet ?
I think the basic revenue model for these sites is flawed and hence none of them has been profitable till now .I am myself working on a plan for niche social networking website , and i dont feel so good after your reading your post
Porush, i dont think any site has really “broken even” or made significant revenues other than Bharatstudent. They have a fantastic “spamdexing” and “spamvertising” campaign going on all other the web … you can see those pesky popunders appear when you visit a torrent site, warez site etc. These are FULL page ads served on a PPV basis. Most of them appear on sites that bharatsudents parent company axill has already signed up. They probably pay less than a cent per view… and so by spamming their ads all over - they’re getting some significant amount of traffic on their site thats beating the current competition in the market. How much of this traffic they managed to convert and bring on as steady sticky users is probably very very low. But, as long as they keep the traffic increasing month-to-month, investors will get all excited. Note: most social networking sites in India are drab. I’ve mentioned before that the growth should be “naturally hyper-viral”… but this is not the case. Indian social networks are only growing in spurts IF they pump in online and offline ad money - which is a bad way to grow a Social Network site. As soon as ad activity stops - growth declines. This is bad news. However, sites like Orkut and Facebook continue to remain popular, sticky and full of activity from Indian users. Thats because they moved first and they have plenty of good interactive tools - and are naturally virally growing sites. So, my take is that, no Indian Social Network is really making much money - but they are probably channeling traffic to other online portals they own… and ofcourse trying hard to impress the VC community.
Hi Sanjeev,
Thanks for dropping by.
Sorry, my mistake in the follow up comment. I did also mean features in addition to the UI, as said in my main post too.
I’m a heavy user of Linkedin and am stuck there because if the large network I have developed.
What value add can you give users like me - to make us switch over or add Brijj onto our backpack of Social Network sites? Thx.
For every social networking site that says “myspace wannabe” the BIG factor is that it is the numbers that gather people.
This means whosoever starts a social networking site has to first get registered users in the thousands if not in the millions on day one. There are many innovative ways of getting this.
What people at Google and other software major do is they first release the software among their own community, be it university, friends and colleagues. They also have beta testers send out invitations and get some of their numbers there.
Once they have the stuff buzzing, release the beta to general public.
Most GOOD Indian social networking sites fail because of lack of clear and focused marketing strategy.
The only Indian websites I frequent is rediff.com (for up-to-date news and self help excellent articles) and indianpad.com (for digging into the Indian psyche).
Very very good point on the internal release strategy. I believe Reliance did try it with bigadda.com … but i dont think it worked for them - as they don’t have much experience trying to get into everything that smells good, and are just “me too” wannabes with a lot of spare change to burn.