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The following paragraph really says it all: Snow focuses on Asian consumers. Like Snapchat, it offers users an array of filters that can add dog ears, glowing
by whack 10y ago
The following paragraph really says it all:
Snow focuses on Asian consumers. Like Snapchat, it offers users an array of filters that can add dog ears, glowing eyes and bulbous foreheads to selfies. But Snow also lets users add bottles of soju, the Korean liquor, or images of Korean pop stars. Another filter adds a rain of fried chicken, a favorite South Korean nosh. For Japan there are sumo wrestler and sushi filters.
If you want to win a foreign market, you have to ensure that you meet their needs. This is just Business 101. Any company that thinks that it can simply take a US/Western oriented product, add some language translations, and roll it out in other continents, is going to be massively vulnerable to local competitors that are willing to customize their features to tailor local preferences.
- jonknee 10y ago> Notably, it is also gaining traction in China, where the country’s 700 million users make up the world’s largest internet market. There, Snow has a major advantage: Snapchat is blocked in China. That also helps!
- tuna-piano 10y agoWould that mean this snow app is providing user information to the Chinese govt? Why would snapchat be blocked but not Snow?
- stcredzero 10y agoPerhaps it flew below the radar?
- brobinson 10y agoProbably because Snapchat is an American company and Snow is not.
- whack 10y agoI agree. Chinese protectionism is a whole other story entirely. I was referring specifically to that fact that Snow is beating out Snapchat in South Korea, where Snapchat doesn't face any regulatory barriers.
- drawnwren 10y agoWhile I don't know the specific causes. You might be interested to know that South Korea has a very strong history of preferring clones to the original software. Some of it is cultural and linguistic, but Korea also has a very protectivist market. The examples I can think of, Naver over Google, KakaoTalk over Whatsapp/Messaging, KakaoTaxi over Uber, 1km/Hello There over Tinder. Edit: Actually, Kakao's (the company) business model is to take apps from the West and remake them for the Korean market. (Talk - Messaging, Music - Music Streaming, Taxi - Taxi Hailing, Story - Facebook)
- mchaver 10y agoWhat are the protectionist policies (not cultural or linguistic causes) that prevent non-Korean mobile apps from succeeding in South Korea?
- wodenokoto 10y agoThe iPhone was delayed several years in Korea because it didn't have Korean security/encryption software and was therefore considered insecure. I haven't heard about app level barriers but I wouldn't be surprised
- dba7dba 10y agoHard to see how apps can be kept out lime iPhone was. Unless you are China.
- drawnwren 10y agoWhile I don't have specific examples of this being abused. I would point out that there are actually country/region specific app stores, not one unified store. It's very common for software to not release globally. For example, much to the chagrin of most of my Thai friends, Pokemon Go is still not available in Thailand.
- dba7dba 10y ago
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoAnd this will probably be blocked soon also, unless they make an agreement to harmonize their service for a Chinese market and partner with some princeling's tech company.
- gkanai 10y agoThe rules in China are evolving all the time but basically to have an app in China, you need to have an entity in China, have user data on a server in China, follow all Chinese laws, etc. So if Snow wants to keep it's Chinese user base, they will need to implement everything that other CN messaging apps have done, including censoring specific keywords, etc.
- kiba 10y agoI wonder how much the disadvantage that causes for the Chinese economy, if it got slowed down at all.
- tw04 10y agoYou have to wonder at what point the US returns the favor? Just kidding, that would require our politicians having a pair.
- aianus 10y agoReturn the favor how? There aren't any novel Chinese apps worth using outside of China.
- yardie 10y agoI wonder if this is the same for search? As a long time user of Google I must say, outside of the anglosphere, their search engine is really lacking.
- rangibaby 10y agoWhere is it bad? It's pretty good in Japan
- yardie 10y agoFrance, Germany are my main areas. It still sends me to wildly different locations each search. One example near Paris: some tourism company were hijacking Maps results so when I went looking for a specific language school this other place was the first result. Another example: I was in Cape Verde looking for the ships chandlery. The results returned were in Portugal. My second attempt gave me results in Brazil and Portugal. I've since learned to sanity check the results first. This can be hard when you are driving in a different country and Maps wants you to board a ferry and drive through sub-Sahara Africa.
- rangibaby 10y agoAre you searching in the native language for those areas? I think that might be the difference; Google maps search is unpredictable like your examples in English but basically perfect in Japanese.
- smegel 10y agoDon't most markets have their own local apps/sites that are more popular than foreign ones? I think Kakao is more popular in Korea than Whatsapp. In Russia Yandex is bigger than Google. In China everything is bigger because the foreign apps are banned. > If you want to win a foreign market, you have to ensure that you meet their needs. This is just Business 101. Beating the locals at their own game is just Business 101? Seems like an arrogant attitude.
- function_seven 10y ago> Beating the locals at their own game is just Business 101? Seems like an arrogant attitude. When you recast the quote in different words, I suppose. But do you refute that you "have to ensure you've met [your market's] needs"? Is it better to ignore the market's needs instead? That seems more arrogant to me.
- hammock 10y agoReally? That's the opposite of where I thought you were going with your comment. Based on what you're saying, it sounds like all Snapchat has/had to do to be more successful in South Korea was add soju and fried chicken filters to their existing product.
- walrus01 10y agoIf Caucasian engineers at an American company created fried chicken, sumo wrestler and sushi filters for specific ethnic target markets they'd be accused of ethnic stereotypes and racism.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- colordrops 10y agoI don't think that's true based on personal experience working for foreign markets. Who exactly would be calling these engineers racist?
- nostromo 10y agoOther Americans, of course.
- walrus01 10y agogood luck creating a fried chicken filter targeted at south korea and convincing people it wasn't part of some thinly veiled "fried chickenz and watermelons" plot to insult a large percentage of the american population...
- vskarine 10y agoremember what happened when Snapchat had Bob Marley filter?
- mrmffh 10y agoPeople who don't understand what 'racist' means. Which is a lot of people today.
- yongjik 10y agoTo be fair, if a Japanese company launched sumo wrestler filters in Korea, I'm sure some people will find a way to be offended. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (Also, never mention "Sea of Japan", or you'll be in deep trouble...)
- 10y ago
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoInstagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube are all very popular in SE Asia, especially the ones that are just getting into the internet now (Cambodia, Myanmar, even Vietnam). Most internet companies in the states have more Asians working there from these countries than in say, South Korea and China, which often have NONE (they are all pretty homogeneous ethnically). To say western internet companies don't have any multi-cultural affinity isn't accurate given the make up of most tech companies.
- uniclaude 10y agoIn this precise case, it has much more to do with : - It's been launched by Naver, a tech company with deep pockets, not a startup. - It can access China.
- 20andup 10y agoThat is so true. You can see a lot of SV startups think if it works in the US, then it works in Asia. AirBnb is a great example something that does not work. When a 5 star hotel cost $50-70 only, people aren't going to pay the same price for someone else's home.
- aianus 10y agoAirbnb certainly works in Asia. Lots of Americans use it to find month-to-month whole apartment rentals. It's safer than paying a wad of cash to some random local landlord.
- 20andup 10y agoAmericans are using it, but that's a very tiny slice. The local market isn't using it and that's where the bulk of the money is. Using your logic, that would mean Airbnb is working the US, because Chinese people are using it in the US. Also, you are literally paying the same local landlord plus service fees to Airbnb. It is known that the exact same apartment can be listed +10% more on Airbnb. Look at all the medium size indie hotels that are popping up all around Asia, and you can see that the local people still prefer hotels.
- flamedoge 10y agoIt's not just that. Asian markets have incredible amount of protectionism and self-promotion that it takes uncanny effort to penetrate as a North American company.
- mchaver 10y agoI know China has a lot of protectionism, but I have not heard of it being difficult to get your software/app into other Asian countries. Which ones have a lot of protectionism in terms of software/app stores?