Internet giant Yahoo! India announced plans to launch yet another social network for the 16-24 age groups in an attempt to capture the growing market in India. Dubbed SpotM, the new social networking site, Yahoo claims it to be an equivalent to Google’s Orkut is being under testing at its US headquarters. And although scant details are available, it sounds interesting.
SpotM, according to people familiar with the development, will make its presence in India in a few weeks’ time. It promises to be an interactive site, and just like Orkut, a medium to spot one’s friends and keep track of them. SpotM will be an India-specific site.
Yahoo India when contacted commented on the issue: “As a global company, Yahoo encourages each market to innovate for their local audience based on local user needs. Yahoo India is in the early stages of working on an invitation-only communications experiment for users in the Indian market. We will share additional details about this product if and when we launch it publicly.” said a Yahoo India spokesperson.
However, it is obviously clear that Yahoo India is struggling to launch the product in a market like India where Orkut has become the most-talked-about social networking site.
“The testing is at an advanced stage and bloggers have already started to talk about it,” said the person tracking the development.
SpotM attempts to set itself apart by offering two features: the idea of a secret friend and SMS integration with anonymous chat. According to Yahoo, SpotM will allow users to make friends with other users and if they choose, make those friends private so other users do not know about the relationship. SMS integration with anonymous chat will let users correspond via SMS without revealing their phone number.
Another important aspect is its privacy features that would be the first of its kind, but most of the popular Indian social networks are already on mobile through SMS, WAP and Apps. Check out the mobile websites of Orkut, Facebook and BigAdda.
Social networking in India is largely influenced by Orkut, with Facebook fast catching up and BigAdda doing big promotional activity through TV advertising etc. Among notable others, MySpace launched its India site in April this year, while India’s top portal Rediff has Connexions. Wild card entries in this competition include Web18’s portal in.com, Chinese QQ.com’s group company iBiBo and HT Media’s Desimartini.
The company, which has 500 million users globally, has been on an innovation over-drive in the recent past. Recently, it launched a product called Local, a “yellow pages” platform online in India. Post the Microsoft bid, an analyst said, Yahoo seems to have woken up.
It is a good sign that Yahoo is trying something novel, but whether or not its privacy plans will really work in its favor dangles in doubt. As social networks become more popular, its transparency that parenting groups are looking for, not privacy. And once those issues arise, every social network buckles under the pressure. Will Yahoo be any different?
It now remains to be seen if Yahoo! can turn out to be a social networking leader through product innovation or by building upon its sizeable Yahoo! Groups and Messenger user-base in India. But its track record is not a good indicator, with both Mash and 360 shutting down earlier this year.