Will Russians need a Facebook localized?
I have spent a hour today surfing through a RU-NET website called VKontakte.ru. It's a Russian Social Network that "imitates" Facebook, in UI and Networking style. I don't know the original intentions of this web site creators, maybe they didn't really know about the existance of Facebook.com and just invented it by themselves in Russia? Just Kidding! ;)
Well, of course this "clone" couln't be a powerful Open Framework as Facebook, and it's not a framework at all but just a networking site... but how is it similar to Facebook.com!
- Fun: On the Groups there people discuss what is "better", Facebook or VKontakte. It's such a fun!
Just have a look yourself at the two my profiles on these Networks- they look like twins, would you agree?
My pforile on Facebook.com
and My profile on Vkontarke.ru
I think it's AMAZING!
You will probably ask me if Russians have also let's say flickr.com "localized" in the same way (CLONED)? Maybe also spock.com, linkedin.com? About LinkedIn- I know it exist "Moi Krug (translation="My Circle"), known as a high level contacts network.
I think Russians already have or will have soon for sure all that's needed to not be "dependent" (I'd call it ISOLATED) from the "rest" of the World, and I think it's an Oops!:(
You guys should remember the story of LifeJournal. So...it's not difficult to predict that Facebook, when/if it's localized for Russian market, won't find the space on the wide location of the ex (renewed?) USSR!
- btw, the recent news about Moi Krug ("Russian LinkedIn") is that it has been acquired by Yandex (Russian Yahoo! ). LOL. So in this case Moi Krug could be better seen as Orkut (in the "rest" of the World) and Yandex is a Russian Google, since it's here we have a Social Network controlled by a Search Engine (and lots more) company. Should we expect another more strong and independent "Russian LinkedIn", to follow the independent line of LinkedIn.com of today? We'll see!
I'll be back to subject soon...
UPDATE of June 2008: I am back to the subject :)
Social Networking in Russia part II, Business Networking: will Russians need a LINKEDIN localized?
http://www.milanin.com/members/andrey.golub/weblog/1659.html
Keywords: LifeJournal, LinkedIn, Moi Krug, Orkut, Russian LinkedIn, Spock, Vkontarke, Yahoo!, Yandex, facebook, russia, russian social networking, social networking, vkontakte, vkontakte.ru, Google
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