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How Badoo built a billion-dollar social network on sex

wired.co.uk

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Re: How Badoo built a billion-dollar social network on sex

#2
| 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.

Re: How Badoo built a billion-dollar social network on sex

#3

| 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.

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

Re: How Badoo built a billion-dollar social network on sex

#5

| 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.

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

Re: How Badoo built a billion-dollar social network on sex

#6
I used to use Badoo during 2007-9 and the only reason I can think of being there was sleazy pics that users uploaded. Slowly Badoo restricted how much "porn" users to display. After reading this and re-visiting Badoo after about 3 years I somehow feel funny as to how big funds are chasing it.

Re: How Badoo built a billion-dollar social network on sex

#7

| 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.

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?

Re: How Badoo built a billion-dollar social network on sex

#8

| 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.

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

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).

Re: How Badoo built a billion-dollar social network on sex

#9
I've been on this network for about 4 years now (maybe less, can't remember), and it really worked for me, I've met several people there and had a really good time doing so.

What I think provides the most value for the user is location, as the article says. I can filter users by my location, and just interact with them. Since this is a dating site, it's ok to just say hi to someone without a formal introduction by someone else, and everyone acts accordingly.

What I really dislike about the site, is how invasive the business model has become. They try to get viral with facebook apps, desktop apps, iphone apps, but those apps tend not to respect a user's privacy. A while ago they tried to charge users to filter by online users. If you didn't pay, you could filter by location, but you'd have to go through all offline users to find those that are online at the time. It rendered the basic, unpaid product, useless. Fortunately, they rolled back that "feature".

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