Facebooks of the World: How they all live happily ever after

Monika Salita#uwsmc treatmentOctober 16, 2010

@monikasalita

Facebooks of the world: How international social media can happily co-exist

POLAND:Nasza Klasa

ARGENTINA: Sonico

INDIA: GupShup, Orkut

JAPAN: Mixi

BRAZIL: Orkut

CHINA: Tencent, Baidu Space, RenRen

AUSTRALIA: RSVP

Courtesty of Ad Age

Analyzing Facebook, Nasza Klasa and Orkut

Facebook log-in, en Français

FB, en Français

hi5 homepage: Seems very game-centricNasza Klasa log-in

Orkut homepage

Profiling the world’s Facebooks• Orkut: Brazil

• Owned and operated by Google, which is apparent in its design.

• Extremely popular in Brazil; has 20M users in Brazil, in comparison to Facebook’s 5M users in Brazil (100M+ users worldwide).

• Focuses more on text and images, has fewer applications than Facebook.

• Allows for users to connect with friends in developed communities, with which they identify.

• Free from advertisements (or very minimal presence thereof). • 50% + of users : 18-25 year old demographic.

Orkut

Owned & operated by Google

Free of advertising

Customizable look via Google themes

Search for friends via communities

Integrates existing Google services like Chat

ThemesThemes

My status: I <3 uwsmc

A few reasons as to why Orkut is so popular in Brazil, vs. Facebook

• Brazilians are very heavily community-oriented, Orkut helps further promote their relationships to specific communities (gardeners, rock music fans, etc). Proponents of ‘real’ friends.

• Orkut is easy to pronounce in Portuguese. Facebook or MySpace become lost in translation.

• Orkut sounds like Yakult, a popular yogurt drink. Nearly everyone has consumed yogurt as a kid. This ties together memories of childhood. An unintentional but fun coincidence.

• Lack of advertising. Brazilians hate being bombarded by advertising in everyday life (billboards, radio, magazines, etc.). Orkut allows users to socialize in an ad-free environment.

• Portuguese language availability: Facebook - a little over 2 years, Orkut – Since 2005.

Profiling the world’s Facebooks• Nasza Klasa (Our Class): Poland

• NK is said to be more closely modeled after Classmates.com, or the UK’s Friends Reunited, rather than Facebook. The key being that users can and do search for friends via school and graduation year.

• NK satiates Poles’ desires to stay in touch with others from their pasts, specifically classmates.

• Much more linguistically appealing for the (older) users who dominate NK. Nasza klasa actually means something in the Polish language while Facebook means nothing.

• (Some) Polish users welcome NK’s targeting advertising, finding it at least somewhat useful (in contrast to Brazilians’ thoughts on advertising).

Nasza Klasa classmate search

Your very Classmates.com-esque search via school (in a given location) option

Nasza Klasa (looking a lot more like FB these days)

Update your status

Write mail

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My (sparse) profile info

Dad

Log in page: also full of ads, in contrast to FB, Orkut

Various communication tools (photos, text, etc)Various communication tools (photos, text, etc)

Groups in beta

GamesGames

A few reasons as to why Nasza Klasa is so popular in Poland, vs. Facebook

• Poles are very nationalistic, thus keen on supporting new inventions /ideas from their homeland. NK was founded by a Polish IT university student in Wroclaw in 2006.

• Nasza Klasa is obviously much easier to pronounce than Facebook, in Polish. Thus, NK sticks or resonates more greatly with its audience.

• Older users find it an attractive and “hip” new fashion to connect with old friends. (Tweens probably haven’t been introduced to Facebook yet and have no need for it[s international relevance] yet.)

• Facebook has only been available in Polish for about 2.5 years, since May, 2008. NK was launched in November, 2006.

Key Points: Why country-specific networking sites still thrive among FB

• Language. It took years to Facebook to launch in the languages in question, while other sites were already thriving.– Also, something easier to pronounce is easier to remember. Try

pronouncing and remembering “Facebook” in Portuguese or Polish. What’s “fah-say-boo?”

• National pride. One is more keen to support a network rooted in one’s home country. Brazilians, for example, love to been seen as hip trend-setters in technology.

• Targeted advertising, or lack thereof. Orkut is free of advertising, while Brazilians find important. NK has very targeted advertising, which Poles find useful.

• Exclusivity: Orkut is either available for those with Gmail email addresses, or by invitation-only.

• NK has a greater focus on connecting with classmates, allowing users to search for friends by school and year.

References• Baker, L. (2006, March 9). Why Brazil Loves Orkut!. Retreived from

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-brazil-loves-orkut/3082/• Boulware, J. (2010, November 1). The orkut effect. American Way. Retrieved from

http://www.americanwaymag.com/brazil-google-orkut• del Moral, J.A. (2010, October 17). Nasza-Klasa, the network that beats Facebook

in Poland. Retrieved from http://blogs.alianzo.com/socialnetworks/2010/10/17/nasza-klasa-the-network-that-beats-facebook-in-poland/

• Patel, K., Vescovi, V., Rocca, A. (2010, June 14). Profiling the Facebooks of the world. Advertising Age. Retrieved from http://adage.coverleaf.com/advertisingage/20100614?pg=10#pg10

• Social Media Portal. (2008, May 14). Facebook Releases Site in Polish [Press Release]. Retrieved from http://www.socialmediaportal.com/PressReleases/2008/05/Facebook-Releases-Site-in-Polish.aspx