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| the free-to-use network [..] is a mass phenomenon in Brazil (14.1 million members), Mexico (nine million), France (8.2 million), Spain (6.5 million) and Italy

| the free-to-use network [..] is a mass phenomenon in Brazil (14.1 million members), Mexico (nine million), France (8.2 million), Spain (6.5 million) and Italy (six million) Does anyone have any insight as to why Brazil is such a target for fringe social networks? I find it interesting that first Orkut and now Badoo have a major stake in that market and practically none in Western Europe.

agumonkey 15y ago
I'm registered but never used it, I wonder if those million members are really active..
- GFischer 15y ago
  At least here in South America, yes they are (and I've used it, and it works). The nice thing is, it's not "competition" for Facebook as they serve different needs (and markets).
  - babebridou 15y ago
    I'm French and this is honestly the very first time I ever heard of this service. I'm not in the target audience, but 8 million users in France? Riiiiiight, that's more than 13% of our total population, roughly 20% of all French internet users, or one Facebook user in three. It's roughly equal to sum of the population of the top 3 to 10 most populated cities in the country along with their whole urban surroundings, or 2/3rd of the population of Paris. This figure makes no sense to me. Even assuming it's targetting a very specific population that I share no connection to, it's still a ridiculous figure. The biggest (in revenue) dating website in France (and apparently, in Europe, too) is Meetic. It had less than a million registered users in december 2010 in total, including other companies in the group. After a quick search on independent consumer satisfaction services, turns out there are a lot of people whose accounts were created through fishing or the likes, or even without consent. Just by reading the tons of user comments, this really looks like a major scammy, fishy, spammy and illegal service (illegal at least in France, since it refuses to comply to our Privacy & Freedom directives). There are some satisfied comments, too, so this service probably works well enough in some ways, I just can't take these figures at face value.
    - bjoernbu 15y ago
      I personally know multiple, sad people who maintain 10+ fake facebook acoounts in order to create fake images of themselves. I can easily imagine really high rates of those people in such a network. Especially if there is nobody trying to avoid this kind of accounts. I don't know if there is any benefit you could get by having many accounts, but if there is, I'm really sure it is used a lot.
      - GFischer 15y ago
        I know a lot of people that have multiple Facebook accounts, some are kids that want to push different updates to different people for example, or a "games" account. Others are men with a "dating" account and a "family" account. I guess the same happens in Badoo. Also, they must have a lot of dead accounts and count them (much like Microsoft does). Their numbers do seem inflated, I don't know how much (50%? 100%?). I'm their active users must be at least an order of magnitude lower (my own account is inactive at the moment).
    - agumonkey 15y ago
      This is my feeling too. Their 'keep up' mails are also a beauty: "Check out those 2934 females that likes your profile" ( i'm not making up the number ) This website should be down, if only for environmental reasons u_u;
carlosn 15y ago
Maybe because they are fringe networks, and the first thing new users find isn´t a very large community already established around the english language?
hendrik-xdest 15y ago
Badoo is big in France, Spain, Italy - how much more Western Europe can it get?
rufibarbatus 15y ago
I wouldn't say "fringe", but you might be on to something if you say "exclusive". From LiveJournal to orkut to Facebook and Twitter to Google+, whatever had high barriers to entry is perceived as "exclusive" and therefore "cool". It's cool to be in a social network before everyone else. It's cool to give out invites to your friends. Lacking an invite-only system, it's cool to be in an English-only social network. I know I'm generalising a bit (and I should point out that I'm not ranting—the whole thing amuses me more than anything else), and of course I'm only accounting for half of the issue here, wherein something becomes "cool" (how the place ends up being ultimately stormed into by the entire Brazilian population is a problem I honestly haven't thought about much). But this is really how it starts, every time. Now, why Badoo is popular is an entirely different question. I've no idea. Then again, to call it fringe is to elect a mainstream alternative: from my understanding of the article, Badoo IS the mainstream location-based dating site, isn't it?
anonimo 15y ago
I'm not sure if it makes sense to call them "fringe". Orkut is mainstream in Brazil (though Facebook is about as popular now), just as Facebook in the US and Mixi in Japan. Also note that Brazil has a large number of internet users, around 40 million. So Brazil is also a big target for auction sites, e-commerce, games, phone apps, etc. It just so happens that people don't hear much about those sites outside Brazil. I'm quite skeptical that Badoo has 14 million Brazilian members. That would be around 1/3 of the internet-using population. That said, I suppose their success in Brazil (and elsewhere) is due to the fact they aren't really a regular social network, but rather a site for "hooking-up".
- helton 15y ago
  I'm also really skeptical about the 14 million Brazilian members. I live in Brazil and never heard of this social network. (As opposed to orkut, that was very massive here.) However, I think that orkut is dying here. All my friends migrated to facebook because is "cooler". haha
- ricardobeat 15y ago
  77.8 million internet users as of November 9. That 14 million number is very questionable. Facebook has around 30 million users. I bet 13 million of those are inactive profiles that fell for their bait-and-switch.
nopinsight 15y ago
I believe the reason is partly cultural. South Americans, like South East Asians, are less privacy conscious that Anglo-Saxons and Europeans are. Badoo and Hi5 are examples of less private social networks that grow more easily in these cultures. (Though Hi5 is dying down because of its inability to design and implement software properly--people flocked to Facebook for its coolness and niceness, even then they use Facebook a bit differently in these cultures than in the West.)
- hollerith 15y ago
  >South Americans and South East Asians are less privacy conscious that Anglo-Saxons and Europeans are. Very interesting. Did you learn this from someone you trust to be right or from observations of the relevant populations? If observations, were they mainly observations of online behavior? And can you give any sort of example? (E.g., how exactly do they use Facebook a bit differently?) The reason I ask is that I have an idea for improving society which violates most American's (I am American) sense of privacy.
  - nandemo 15y ago
    Anecdotal examples: Brazilians upload lots of pics, have tons of orkut/facebook friends, "chain-like" updates ("blablah, if you agree with this post it on your wall"). are not uncommon, etc. Meanwhile, many of my Japanese facebook-friends don't even have a real pic of themselves as their profile pic, they usually don't add coworkers, etc. Americans might be somewhere in between. You could probably find data that quantifies those anecdotes. If you want to talk more about it feel free to send me a message (my email address is in my profile).
  - nopinsight 15y ago
    It's from my observations among my South East Asian's and South American's online friends. Nandemo's anecdotes on Brazilians agrees very well with mine. One group I don't have much data on is Eastern Europeans--whom I'd love to know more about. If anyone cares to share about their culture, please feel free to. I am very curious about your idea on improving society with some privacy issues and would love to discuss with you if you feel comfortable to. My email is in my profile.

agumonkey 15y ago

I'm registered but never used it, I wonder if those million members are really active..

GFischer 15y ago
At least here in South America, yes they are (and I've used it, and it works). The nice thing is, it's not "competition" for Facebook as they serve different needs (and markets).
- babebridou 15y ago
  I'm French and this is honestly the very first time I ever heard of this service. I'm not in the target audience, but 8 million users in France? Riiiiiight, that's more than 13% of our total population, roughly 20% of all French internet users, or one Facebook user in three. It's roughly equal to sum of the population of the top 3 to 10 most populated cities in the country along with their whole urban surroundings, or 2/3rd of the population of Paris. This figure makes no sense to me. Even assuming it's targetting a very specific population that I share no connection to, it's still a ridiculous figure. The biggest (in revenue) dating website in France (and apparently, in Europe, too) is Meetic. It had less than a million registered users in december 2010 in total, including other companies in the group. After a quick search on independent consumer satisfaction services, turns out there are a lot of people whose accounts were created through fishing or the likes, or even without consent. Just by reading the tons of user comments, this really looks like a major scammy, fishy, spammy and illegal service (illegal at least in France, since it refuses to comply to our Privacy & Freedom directives). There are some satisfied comments, too, so this service probably works well enough in some ways, I just can't take these figures at face value.
  - bjoernbu 15y ago
    I personally know multiple, sad people who maintain 10+ fake facebook acoounts in order to create fake images of themselves. I can easily imagine really high rates of those people in such a network. Especially if there is nobody trying to avoid this kind of accounts. I don't know if there is any benefit you could get by having many accounts, but if there is, I'm really sure it is used a lot.
    - GFischer 15y ago
      I know a lot of people that have multiple Facebook accounts, some are kids that want to push different updates to different people for example, or a "games" account. Others are men with a "dating" account and a "family" account. I guess the same happens in Badoo. Also, they must have a lot of dead accounts and count them (much like Microsoft does). Their numbers do seem inflated, I don't know how much (50%? 100%?). I'm their active users must be at least an order of magnitude lower (my own account is inactive at the moment).
  - agumonkey 15y ago
    This is my feeling too. Their 'keep up' mails are also a beauty: "Check out those 2934 females that likes your profile" ( i'm not making up the number ) This website should be down, if only for environmental reasons u_u;

carlosn 15y ago

Maybe because they are fringe networks, and the first thing new users find isn´t a very large community already established around the english language?

hendrik-xdest 15y ago

Badoo is big in France, Spain, Italy - how much more Western Europe can it get?

rufibarbatus 15y ago

I wouldn't say "fringe", but you might be on to something if you say "exclusive". From LiveJournal to orkut to Facebook and Twitter to Google+, whatever had high barriers to entry is perceived as "exclusive" and therefore "cool". It's cool to be in a social network before everyone else. It's cool to give out invites to your friends. Lacking an invite-only system, it's cool to be in an English-only social network. I know I'm generalising a bit (and I should point out that I'm not ranting—the whole thing amuses me more than anything else), and of course I'm only accounting for half of the issue here, wherein something becomes "cool" (how the place ends up being ultimately stormed into by the entire Brazilian population is a problem I honestly haven't thought about much). But this is really how it starts, every time. Now, why Badoo is popular is an entirely different question. I've no idea. Then again, to call it fringe is to elect a mainstream alternative: from my understanding of the article, Badoo IS the mainstream location-based dating site, isn't it?

anonimo 15y ago

I'm not sure if it makes sense to call them "fringe". Orkut is mainstream in Brazil (though Facebook is about as popular now), just as Facebook in the US and Mixi in Japan. Also note that Brazil has a large number of internet users, around 40 million. So Brazil is also a big target for auction sites, e-commerce, games, phone apps, etc. It just so happens that people don't hear much about those sites outside Brazil. I'm quite skeptical that Badoo has 14 million Brazilian members. That would be around 1/3 of the internet-using population. That said, I suppose their success in Brazil (and elsewhere) is due to the fact they aren't really a regular social network, but rather a site for "hooking-up".

helton 15y ago
I'm also really skeptical about the 14 million Brazilian members. I live in Brazil and never heard of this social network. (As opposed to orkut, that was very massive here.) However, I think that orkut is dying here. All my friends migrated to facebook because is "cooler". haha
ricardobeat 15y ago
77.8 million internet users as of November 9. That 14 million number is very questionable. Facebook has around 30 million users. I bet 13 million of those are inactive profiles that fell for their bait-and-switch.

nopinsight 15y ago

I believe the reason is partly cultural. South Americans, like South East Asians, are less privacy conscious that Anglo-Saxons and Europeans are. Badoo and Hi5 are examples of less private social networks that grow more easily in these cultures. (Though Hi5 is dying down because of its inability to design and implement software properly--people flocked to Facebook for its coolness and niceness, even then they use Facebook a bit differently in these cultures than in the West.)

hollerith 15y ago
>South Americans and South East Asians are less privacy conscious that Anglo-Saxons and Europeans are. Very interesting. Did you learn this from someone you trust to be right or from observations of the relevant populations? If observations, were they mainly observations of online behavior? And can you give any sort of example? (E.g., how exactly do they use Facebook a bit differently?) The reason I ask is that I have an idea for improving society which violates most American's (I am American) sense of privacy.
- nandemo 15y ago
  Anecdotal examples: Brazilians upload lots of pics, have tons of orkut/facebook friends, "chain-like" updates ("blablah, if you agree with this post it on your wall"). are not uncommon, etc. Meanwhile, many of my Japanese facebook-friends don't even have a real pic of themselves as their profile pic, they usually don't add coworkers, etc. Americans might be somewhere in between. You could probably find data that quantifies those anecdotes. If you want to talk more about it feel free to send me a message (my email address is in my profile).
- nopinsight 15y ago
  It's from my observations among my South East Asian's and South American's online friends. Nandemo's anecdotes on Brazilians agrees very well with mine. One group I don't have much data on is Eastern Europeans--whom I'd love to know more about. If anyone cares to share about their culture, please feel free to. I am very curious about your idea on improving society with some privacy issues and would love to discuss with you if you feel comfortable to. My email is in my profile.