Social networking site Facebook is growing rapidly in India according to a report by comScore. From 238,000 users in January 2007, Facebook has grown by 230 per cent to 785,000 users from India in June 2007. According to the report, Facebook's growth in India was remarkable between April and June 2007, when it added 323,000 users.
I created my Facebook profile in the same period and I find that Facebook is a much better product that Orkut.
But Orkut is still ten times larger than Facebook, with 7.2 million Indian users as of June 2007. It added nearly a million new users during April-June 2007.
Among social networking websites - Orkut, Facebook and Linkedin are very popular in India. While the world leader MySpace does not have much traction here, slugging with 399,000 Indian users.
Here are the Alexa rankings of popular social networking sites in India.
* Orkut = 2
* Facebook = 21
* Hi5 = 53
* Myspace = 65
* Linkedin = 75
About 40 per cent of Indian Facebook users are women, while they constitute 28 per cent in Orkut. Indian companies like NDTV, Info Edge, SBI and Indiatimes are already advertising on Facebook. (Source: Agencyfaqs)
Orkut's popularity is also landing the site in trouble with Indian authorities. It was involved in quite a few controversies, most of which are cases of obscene or defamatory fake profiles and hate communities.
Homegrown social networking sites like BigAdda, Rediff iShare, Fropper, Yaari and Minglebox are gearing up to challenge the international heavy weights. Their success will depend on whether they are able to leverage their local knowledge and understanding of Indian sensibilities to differentiate their offering. The global social networking giants start with a huge advantage - that of a large exisiting userbase - which helps in creating the network-effect and boosting viral growth.
Source:www.cnet.com
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