6 ms·

If you're interested: Russia is missing because we've got one very similar social network[1][2] that's got arguably more features and arrived to the market a ye

If you're interested: Russia is missing because we've got one very similar social network[1][2] that's got arguably more features and arrived to the market a year or so earlier than facebook got its russian localization. [1] http://vk.com http://vk.com [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vkontakte http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vkontakte

ugh 16y ago
I’m pretty sure that this is a development that happened all over the World. Germany had its own Facebook clone [1] early on and it absolutely dominated before Facebook entered the German market [2]. That’s now no more the case. To quote StudiVZ CEO Riedl: “There is now no more direct battle against the global player Facebook.” [3] It’s interesting to see that the Facebook clone worked in Russia but didn’t in other places. [1] StudiVZ: http://www.studivz.net/ http://www.studivz.net/ [2] StudiVZ was founded in November 2005 (a whole year earlier than Vkontakte), Facebook was localized in early 2008 [3] A week ago, in an interview (German): http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/it-medien/studivz-chef-clemens-riedl-es-gibt-keinen-kampf-gegen-facebook-mehr;2706777;0 http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/it-medien/studivz-ch...
- xentronium 16y ago
  That's an interesting case. I might make some wild guesses based on what I see: 1. vk ports features from fb 3 to 6 months after they appear (share-widget, like-widget, connect-widget, possible friends) 2. vk's got a comprehensive search engine with lots of filters by age, city, gender, current status (married, single, in active search etc.). Lots of people I know use vk for dating. I might be missing something, but I didn't find such a thing for facebook. 3. vk's got native music and video upload. By native I mean that you don't use any third party application/service to do this. Everything's hosted on vk's servers. That's the reason copyright owners sued vk several times (RIAA even blacklisted the guys). However, they [copyright holders] lost in all the court cases. 4. VK offers cheap contextual ads. While not exactly a killer feature, it is very nifty for business, -- they only charge per-click and if you get the targeting and ad text right, you'll get more visitors than you need. 5. Another random guess is that it's easier for a German than for a Russian to migrate to English service.
  - pmjordan 16y ago
    5. Another random guess is that it's easier for a German than for a Russian to migrate to English service. In principle, Facebook is localised. I could imagine that few apps are translated to German though, and even fewer to Russian, except those built by native developers; (I don't use any apps, so I don't know) that native developer pool ought to be the same as the one building VK (or VZ) apps. Assuming Facebook does a decent job of filtering localised apps, I can't imagine this to be a massive issue for users. I can only assume the media upload is what keeps people coming back. All of the other reasons you mention seem to be reasons why businesses would prefer VK over Facebook, but surely it's the users that are the key?
    - edanm 16y ago
      "I can only assume the media upload is what keeps people coming back." People keep coming back because that's where their friends are.
      - ugh 16y ago
        See, that’s what I would have thought about StudiVZ and yet Facebook could spread in Germany like a wildfire. StudiVZ still has millions of users but Facebook has those same users, too. (This is only anecdotal evidence but Facebook also seems like the busier place to me, activity has transitioned from StudiVZ to Facebook.) This tells me that even if a social network seems to have a particular market cornered, a competitor still has a chance. (Which, I think, is quite nice to know.) Network effects are obviously important and have to be considered by anyone who wants to build a social network but I think there are certain properties of social networks that dampen network effects: Signing up is easy and free, for one, and rebuilding the social graph, while some work, is far from tedious. You only have to add some friends and recommendations get you the rest of the way.
        ZoFreX 16y ago
        It might be just a Russian phenomenon. Are there any other countries where Google is not the dominant search engine?
- buster 16y ago
  Well, StudiVZ just screwed up with some good money in the back. They had downtimes and they developed no new features. StudiVZ is too basic to be competitive. Now they have apps and stuff liek that, but now it's too late. I always wondered what they did with their money, because the really developed very very slow. And had major problems with downtimes for months. I guess that this is not the case with vk.com and they may as well survive.
mitjak 16y ago
> we've got one very similar social network that's got arguably more features and arrived to the market a year or so earlier than facebook got its russian localization. Except that it's an incomplete relatively ugly clone of Facebook, which is why quite a few people are jumping ship to Facebook. It does have its niceties in the form of music uploads, but that's more of a quirk of the general state of regard for copyright laws in the country.
- xentronium 16y ago
  Surprisingly, I found vk's interface much more appealing and intuitive than fb's. Besides, I can't find a single reason to migrate to facebook and so do most people I know, and as the map shows, most people in Russia.
  - varjag 16y ago
    The users really started to trickle over to Facebook during the year. I see even my less technically inclined friends appearing there now. Give it another year or two.
    - eru 16y ago
      Sounds like you two should make a public bet?
      - mitjak 16y ago
        All three of us, sure.
        eru 16y ago
        Yes, indeed. I miscounted the first time.
- crocowhile 16y ago
  I think Zuckerberg makes it very clear that is not about the platform but about where most of your friends are. Which is why it would be very difficult to displace people from facebook.
joakin 16y ago
Same happens in Spain with Tuenti http://tuenti.com http://tuenti.com
revorad 16y ago
Also, VK and FB have the same investor DST.
sedachv 16y ago
Others have mentioned the media uploads before, that's definitely the killer feature. The other great thing is the lack of censorship. Vkontakte doesn't censor posts and doesn't have Facebook's policy of selectively banning links to outside websites. You can't post a picture of a titty on your FB wall without the Facebook Nazis coming down with threats on you. Vkontakte doesn't ban adult content or adult-related groups. The two things they do actively fight against are spammers and pedophiles. About respecting copyright law, Facebook does nothing about people posting stolen photographs. It's just more socially acceptable to pirate those. The other thing about Vkontakte is it's very popular with CIS diaspora and exchange student communities abroad. Lots of people keep accounts in both Facebook and Vkontakte, but the latter gets used more for things like organizing social outings and events.

ugh 16y ago

I’m pretty sure that this is a development that happened all over the World. Germany had its own Facebook clone [1] early on and it absolutely dominated before Facebook entered the German market [2]. That’s now no more the case. To quote StudiVZ CEO Riedl: “There is now no more direct battle against the global player Facebook.” [3] It’s interesting to see that the Facebook clone worked in Russia but didn’t in other places. [1] StudiVZ: http://www.studivz.net/ http://www.studivz.net/ [2] StudiVZ was founded in November 2005 (a whole year earlier than Vkontakte), Facebook was localized in early 2008 [3] A week ago, in an interview (German): http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/it-medien/studivz-chef-clemens-riedl-es-gibt-keinen-kampf-gegen-facebook-mehr;2706777;0 http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/it-medien/studivz-ch...

xentronium 16y ago
That's an interesting case. I might make some wild guesses based on what I see: 1. vk ports features from fb 3 to 6 months after they appear (share-widget, like-widget, connect-widget, possible friends) 2. vk's got a comprehensive search engine with lots of filters by age, city, gender, current status (married, single, in active search etc.). Lots of people I know use vk for dating. I might be missing something, but I didn't find such a thing for facebook. 3. vk's got native music and video upload. By native I mean that you don't use any third party application/service to do this. Everything's hosted on vk's servers. That's the reason copyright owners sued vk several times (RIAA even blacklisted the guys). However, they [copyright holders] lost in all the court cases. 4. VK offers cheap contextual ads. While not exactly a killer feature, it is very nifty for business, -- they only charge per-click and if you get the targeting and ad text right, you'll get more visitors than you need. 5. Another random guess is that it's easier for a German than for a Russian to migrate to English service.
- pmjordan 16y ago
  5. Another random guess is that it's easier for a German than for a Russian to migrate to English service. In principle, Facebook is localised. I could imagine that few apps are translated to German though, and even fewer to Russian, except those built by native developers; (I don't use any apps, so I don't know) that native developer pool ought to be the same as the one building VK (or VZ) apps. Assuming Facebook does a decent job of filtering localised apps, I can't imagine this to be a massive issue for users. I can only assume the media upload is what keeps people coming back. All of the other reasons you mention seem to be reasons why businesses would prefer VK over Facebook, but surely it's the users that are the key?
  - edanm 16y ago
    "I can only assume the media upload is what keeps people coming back." People keep coming back because that's where their friends are.
    - ugh 16y ago
      See, that’s what I would have thought about StudiVZ and yet Facebook could spread in Germany like a wildfire. StudiVZ still has millions of users but Facebook has those same users, too. (This is only anecdotal evidence but Facebook also seems like the busier place to me, activity has transitioned from StudiVZ to Facebook.) This tells me that even if a social network seems to have a particular market cornered, a competitor still has a chance. (Which, I think, is quite nice to know.) Network effects are obviously important and have to be considered by anyone who wants to build a social network but I think there are certain properties of social networks that dampen network effects: Signing up is easy and free, for one, and rebuilding the social graph, while some work, is far from tedious. You only have to add some friends and recommendations get you the rest of the way.
      - ZoFreX 16y ago
        It might be just a Russian phenomenon. Are there any other countries where Google is not the dominant search engine?
buster 16y ago
Well, StudiVZ just screwed up with some good money in the back. They had downtimes and they developed no new features. StudiVZ is too basic to be competitive. Now they have apps and stuff liek that, but now it's too late. I always wondered what they did with their money, because the really developed very very slow. And had major problems with downtimes for months. I guess that this is not the case with vk.com and they may as well survive.

mitjak 16y ago

> we've got one very similar social network that's got arguably more features and arrived to the market a year or so earlier than facebook got its russian localization. Except that it's an incomplete relatively ugly clone of Facebook, which is why quite a few people are jumping ship to Facebook. It does have its niceties in the form of music uploads, but that's more of a quirk of the general state of regard for copyright laws in the country.

xentronium 16y ago
Surprisingly, I found vk's interface much more appealing and intuitive than fb's. Besides, I can't find a single reason to migrate to facebook and so do most people I know, and as the map shows, most people in Russia.
- varjag 16y ago
  The users really started to trickle over to Facebook during the year. I see even my less technically inclined friends appearing there now. Give it another year or two.
  - eru 16y ago
    Sounds like you two should make a public bet?
    - mitjak 16y ago
      All three of us, sure.
      - eru 16y ago
        Yes, indeed. I miscounted the first time.
crocowhile 16y ago
I think Zuckerberg makes it very clear that is not about the platform but about where most of your friends are. Which is why it would be very difficult to displace people from facebook.

joakin 16y ago

Same happens in Spain with Tuenti http://tuenti.com http://tuenti.com

revorad 16y ago

Also, VK and FB have the same investor DST.

sedachv 16y ago

Others have mentioned the media uploads before, that's definitely the killer feature. The other great thing is the lack of censorship. Vkontakte doesn't censor posts and doesn't have Facebook's policy of selectively banning links to outside websites. You can't post a picture of a titty on your FB wall without the Facebook Nazis coming down with threats on you. Vkontakte doesn't ban adult content or adult-related groups. The two things they do actively fight against are spammers and pedophiles. About respecting copyright law, Facebook does nothing about people posting stolen photographs. It's just more socially acceptable to pirate those. The other thing about Vkontakte is it's very popular with CIS diaspora and exchange student communities abroad. Lots of people keep accounts in both Facebook and Vkontakte, but the latter gets used more for things like organizing social outings and events.