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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

#21

Post by nopinsight »

archivator wrote: post #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.

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.)

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

#22

Post by danso »

TobbenTM wrote: post #19

Are all users listed real? (That is, not generated by Badoo?) It just feels kinda fake when looking through the list of accounts in my city (with a somewhat "small" population of ~50k, 814 Badoo accounts) that there is a lot of users. More than I anticipated for a service which I, as a person very interested in technology, did not even know about. Some of the pictures look very legit (with car-plates matching the cou…

Are you in the U.S.? That would seem like a lot. I'd be surprised if there were that many Twitter accounts in a city of 50k

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

#23

Post by ashconnor »

danso wrote: post #22
TobbenTM wrote: post #19

Are all users listed real? (That is, not generated by Badoo?) It just feels kinda fake when looking through the list of accounts in my city (with a somewhat "small" population of ~50k, 814 Badoo accounts) that there is a lot of users. More than I anticipated for a service which I, as a person very interested in technology, did not even know about. Some of the pictures look very legit (with car-plates matching the cou…

Are you in the U.S.? That would seem like a lot. I'd be surprised if there were that many Twitter accounts in a city of 50k

There are many shill accounts on the likes of AFF, it wouldn't surprise me if Badoo had them too.

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

#26

Post by agumonkey »

babebridou wrote: post #14
GFischer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

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, o…

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;

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

#27

Post by TobbenTM »

danso wrote: post #22
TobbenTM wrote: post #19

Are all users listed real? (That is, not generated by Badoo?) It just feels kinda fake when looking through the list of accounts in my city (with a somewhat "small" population of ~50k, 814 Badoo accounts) that there is a lot of users. More than I anticipated for a service which I, as a person very interested in technology, did not even know about. Some of the pictures look very legit (with car-plates matching the cou…

Are you in the U.S.? That would seem like a lot. I'd be surprised if there were that many Twitter accounts in a city of 50k

No, not in US, in Norway.

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

#28

Post by metachris »

Just tried it a little. The main thing I dislike is the extreme superficiality. On most parts of the site where you meet new people, you only see the image and the age, but no interests etc. I mean come on -- to decide whether I want to meet someone, the image is really saying close to nothing.

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

#29

Post by hollerith »

nopinsight wrote: post #21
archivator wrote: post #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.

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 Fac…

>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.

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