Sabeer Bhatiya’s Apnacircle (review) has been acquired by Viadeo, France based business networking site. 
ApnaCircle boasts of 350,000 member base and raised investment from BCCL – the acquisition will result in BCCL opening up the ad space (across print/media) for Viadeo (via).
An interesting statement from the press release:
Based on the concept that business networking is closely linked to local culture and that its success is reliant on its proximity to its members, Viadeo will be keeping the name of ApnaCirlce.com which is already perfectly adapted to Indian business habits.
How true is this? How many serious users are on ApnaCircle? (InfoEdge’s Brijj claims 8Lakh users (800 CEOs) and LinkedIn had a million userbase 8 months back)
ApnaCircle Traffic:
What do you think of this deal? Distress sale?
Related: Another career networking site, Techtribe joins deadpool. Also, Times Group has a business networking portal, PeerPower.
Calling this a “sale” is a joke. Frankly, the whole thing is one bad joke…
Wow .. thanks for covering this Ashish. I think even sites like Muziboo have a chance now. But wait .. we need to take some big guy’s blessings first
Also you did not highlight the most interesting line from the press release – “Viadeo has today announced the acquisition of ApnaCircle.com – the number one business networking site in India.”
Do you have any reason to doubt this deal? Sabeer Bhatiya is the only technology entrepreneur India has produced. All should learn from him.
Aha! “Sabeer Bhatiya is the only technology entrepreneur India has produced. All should learn from him.” – Isnt he a one time wonder?
I remember he also launched an online office product – a ready for MS acquisition? (on the lines of live)..
I guess he was plain lucky with hotmail deal – and is cashing on that.
I know a early hotmail employee and from what I learned of sabeer from him is that HE is smart like hell and he is humble too.Hotmail was anything but a fluke. why wasn’t he able to pull a second act ?? not sure . that was his bad luck I guess.
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Why not create a poll and see how many pluggd.in visitors are using Apna-Circle …
Just can’t believe “350,000″.
== Why not create a poll and see how many pluggd.in visitors are using Apna-Circle
Good idea.
I have never heard of it, nor do I know anyone who has told me they use it.
Good idea. It will shut anti-sabeer camps mouth.
We are proud of you Sabeer. You are truly an Indian in league of Bill Gates & Steve Jobs.
I think in today’s time having 350000 members is not a big deal. Apna Circle has been advertising Google Ads for some time; they also have TV bottom scroll ads. And ofcourse, with the influence of Sabeer Bhatia, they have got decent press coverage.
I think what happnes for these sites is that people sign in, but they may not really be active. For example, when talking about facebook and myspace, it does matter how many members they have but more important is to know the activity on their websites. That’s why most statistics now focus on uniques and total traffic.
What’s happening to Big Adda by the way?
350,000? this is way too high for this site. Does anyone use apnacircle? i guess this is time for specialized professional networks. recently i came across jobeehive.com, which is truly a great product. if u dont create a niche, then u end up fighting with linkedin.. and there is no use. no value addition.
this sale is a distress sale for sure.. the promoters have good links to offload a linkedin clone..
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According to Me ApnaCircle Does not have Much Traffic According to Alexa Stats and that much traffic now days does not have much value it needs more traffic to get success and they should operate it all over world like LinkedIn.