Sroys

Two of the giant social networks of the world but each popular in certain countries. While Facebook is the leading social network in the US and Europe. Orkut used to define social networking here in India. Why does this happen and is there any particular reason why some websites do better than others in geographical areas.

Some days back I was watching an interview of Prof. Kishore Mahbubani and he gave an example which literally blew my mind. He was talking about the emerging Asia - and was talking about how the Japan occupied Singapore they made sure to retain the culture, gardens and treasures of Singapore and didn’t destroy them - where as in the American occupation of Afghanistan they literally destroyed everything. The difference of strategy is in the fact that the Japanese didn’t attack the culture but rather wanted to preserve it to eventually contain the citizens of the country.

You can watch the interview here.

This is a a major factor - to understand the culture of a geographical area before you launch your campaign in that area. Facebook was not very popular in India initially because the name doesn’t quite fit very well into our psychology. It feels like a book where you put your face - something which is open for all too see. Indians have never quite been very happy about attracting attention to themselves - cause here attention still means possibility of trouble.

On the other hand Orkut doesn’t really mean anything - it vaguely reminds me of “orko” the friendly ghost like character everyone likes from the popular series of “He Man“.
This adding to the fact that it was discovered within Google which almost every Internet user in India uses made Orkut the number 1 social network in India initially.

I heard about Face Book from my friends abroad a long time back but never really used it - the name just didn’t go down well with me - why would I want my face in your book? Orkut was something which was just there in my Google account and I used it some times to read up on what my friends are saying.

But things are changing today and literally because of the great work put in by Face Book - you know someone is doing great when others state to ape them. Orkut is now aping and trying to replicate everything FaceBook is doing and this is very visible in Google Trends - we see a downward trend for orkut search queries and an upward trend on Facebook search queries.

orkut-facebook

The point of this article is that when we plan a business we must find out what will and what will not go well with people in a geographical area - do this before you even decide the name so that you can build something which will work globally. Of course nothing can replace quality of your work but being aware of what works will help you grow your business quickly.