Luke Janssen
Jumping off stuffArchive for friendster
Facebook Shmacebook
I just read a cool piece of research from Ogilvy comparing Facebook and other social networking sites in Asia.
The key thing was that Facebook is not number 1 in most Asian markets. The reasons for this (in short, but I suggest you go read the research HERE, which is also quite succinct) are:
- Language: Friendster is killing Facebook in Malaysia and Indonesia. Largely because Friendster has Malay / Bahasa Indonesia (which are pretty much the same language – and a beautiful one, I encourage anyone to learn it. Its not too hard. There are no tenses and often to pluralize a noun you just say it twice!
- Customization: Philippines accounts for almost 40% of all Friendster traffic. Filipinas send more SMSs than anyone in the world (SMS started off free there and is still pretty cheap), and Friendster has a good mobile site and good SMS link ups which most importantly, Friendster tailored to them specifically to that market… clever old Friendster (crap name though)
- Site weight & Broadband usage: India (Orkut) with low broadband means that Facebook is too heavy so they use the lighter Orkut. I am not sure I buy this.
- Inferiority: Japan (Mixi) and Korea (Cyworld) are examples. Each of their mobile sites blow Facebook’s out of the water (and Facebook’s mobile site and iPhone App are excellent in my opinion). Plus Japanese and Korean are just different. You can’t rope them in with the rest of Asia.
I grew up in a few places, and travelled a lot. I agree with my man in Singapore most of the reasons, but one of the main reasons is that you join what your friends join, and sometimes if one site takes off, then that one tips over the tipping point and wins and not the other one. I reckon Orkut just took off. You don’t want to be sitting alone at Susan Facebook’s party when everyone else is getting down with Deepak Orkut!
And now a question: Why is Philippines spelt with a PH, and Filipino spelt with an F? Someone call someone.
