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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

#41

Post by VladRussian »

tomjen3 wrote: post #20
JoachimSchipper wrote: post #4

"Your "use case" should be, there's a 22 year old college student living in the dorms. How will this software get him laid?" -- jwz, http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html Which is to say, selling sex has always been a nice business.

Maybe, but it is a horrible use case. Or rather it is too limiting as people now only focus on young males rather than, say, really sexy software for businesses. The 22 year old market is, comparatively, over-saturated.

"there's a 42 year old [account|support|...] manager living in the cubicle. How will this software get him laid [or at least not get his chops busted]?"

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

#42

Post by Mvandenbergh »

metachris wrote: post #28

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.

That's what okcupid and other dating sites are for though. A huge part of Badoo is facilitating casual hookups for which it works really well.

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

#43

Post by [deleted] »

mrleinad wrote: post #32
metachris wrote: post #28

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.

When you're trying to pick up someone in a bar, do you talk to every possible girl, or just the most attractive ones?

[deleted]

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

#45

Post by ricardobeat »

gfaremil wrote: post #31

Unrelated question - but I would to hear what others think. I noticed that two sites we have developed in the past (chat/dating site and food review site) had much better acceptance in Mexico, Brazil, Netherlands, etc. than in US. First we thought this is just a western anglo-saxon thing, but we also have much higher acceptance in UK. It seems like that users in US are not early adopters. Did anybody noticed the same…

Yeah, internet usage characteristics vary a lot from place to place. There is an amazing study from 2010 on internet behaviour around the world: http://2010.tnsdigitallife.com/ (swf)

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

#46

Post by ricardobeat »

anonimo wrote: post #15
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'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…

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.

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

#47

Post by redthrowaway »

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #42
metachris wrote: post #28

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.

That's what okcupid and other dating sites are for though. A huge part of Badoo is facilitating casual hookups for which it works really well.

So what's the advantage to Badoo over its free alternatives like Plenty of Fish?

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

#48

Post by nivertech »

tryitnow wrote: post #34

This quote is noteworthy: "Does Andreev have Facebook in his sights? "Badoo is more of a social network than Facebook, as on Facebook you interact with your existing friends in an absolutely virtual life," he says. "Badoo is more social: it provokes you to go down on the street and meet these people."" I hope the next phase in social networking is actually centered around meeting new people. I don't know if Badoo wil…

Meetup.com - helps you to meet new people with common interests in the physical world.

LinkedIn.com - after you met them, to keep track in case you are heavy networker.

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

#50

Post by keeptrying »

Sex is a huge motivator - duh.

The essential thing I'm learning from trying to start my own company is this: "Understand People" - what they do, why they do it, how they do the things that they want to do, how they interact, what motivates them etc.

If your not a people person its going to be hard to create a startup - ie a truly innovative solution that has a real business need. You might be better of running a small business where the cashflows are known or better yet working in some part of someone elses business.

Bottom line - Sucessful entrepreneurs understand people.

And badoo understood that sex is a great people motivator.

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