I spent some time on them in the last couple of days. It's early days yet, for both, and I would be keenly watching to see how they shape up.
Groups - or addas as they are called on BA - I visited, still have very few members and it might be some time before they achieve critical mass. CI doesn't have groups, unless I missed out, and continues to attempt building the community around blogs - more on that in a bit. Both looked very similar to Orkut in terms of features, so I wasn't really sure on what's the incentive for anyone who's already on Orkut (a large number now) to move to either.
As a matter of fact 2 clear trends I have recently noticed on Orkut:
- It's become more mainstream and a somewhat older population is now beginning to adopt it too (I was fairly embarrassed until recently, to acknowledge that I was a member on Okut and would quietly lurk around, watching life go on around me). Now it's a bit like Ryze + loads of much younger people.
- If youth who were already on Orkut are choosing to adopt new communities too, (they are not abandoning Orkut) then one community that I think finding traction is Facebook. It's more aspirational - the lure of a more global member-base, coupled with familiar Indian faces (many who have studied or are studying overseas) already friends with global buddies... making them more accessible to new joins. There's also more that can be done on the site, so many seem to be adopting it because they are perhaps now more comfortable with the concept of SNA and think they can hold their own etc.
Coming back to Ibibo and its blogging initiative - I think, even though they have given their 'rewards programme' a new twist by bringing in the criteria of interactivity and quality, and that is DEFINITELY going to clean up the place a lot, will it become a serious blogging platform? I don't think so! Here's what I think, but I need to go back a bit, first:
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