Can Indian social networking sites survive?
April 2, 2008 by Sachendra Yadav
With international favorites like Facebook, Orkut (yes, it’s back) and MySpace gaining traction in Indian markets, it’ll be really difficult for the “me too” websites with a “follow the leader” mentality to hold out in this space. In a product where the content is 100% user created, a country specific product seems out of place.
Big multinational players are capable of investing vast sums to innovate and provide free services sustained by advertising networks such as Google. Any local company which takes these guys head-on in doomed to fail. Unless they innovate and come up with out-of-the-box solutions by playing to their local strengths which will be difficult for the international giants to pursue, they are bound to fizzle out or “at best” get acquired for local user base (which again is something some of the sites may be praying for).
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We have the max mass, we may be the late entrants in the social networking space, however in the long run we may be able to produce the stuff that works best locally. Who could have imagined the mobile revolution in India, we have one of the lowest rates in the world and a fast growing huge base. Social networking in India is a nuclear reaction waiting to reach its critical state, after which it will take off on its own…the nuclear fuel is here aplenty.
@ankur: You can’t compare Mobile Industry with social networking, they are 2 very different beasts. Like I said “In a product where the content is 100% user created, a country specific product seems out of place”. What value do you think the current crop of Indian social networks provide over multinationals besides having an Indian sounding name?
@sachin - u said
—–Unless they innovate and come up with out-of-the-box solutions by playing to their local strengths which will be difficult for the international giants to pursue,—
this is what i believe will happen. I am watching ibibo on and off and more i see, more i like it,,its a khichdi, but well its the flavor thats more indian..