Times group has ‘soft’ launched it’s business networking product, PeerPower.
PeerPower is targeted towards senior level professionals:
PeerPower is an avenue for Senior-Level Professionals to build new business contacts and to keep themselves updated with the latest happenings in the industry..It has unique networking features that enhance the interactivity of an individual with his/her peers in current and previous organisations, professional institutes and area of specialization.
The product is currently in closed beta (i.e. ‘invite’ only mode).
PeerPower will face stiff competition from LinkedIn as well as Info Edge’s Brijj and HT’s Shine – what sort of product differentiation do you think can beat LinkedIn?
Recommended Read: Brijj claims 8Lakh users (800 CEOs) and LinkedIn’s India focus | LinkedIn’s growth in India
I might be wrong at this observation but still its an interesting observation to share
I looked at the home page of peer power and it looked vaguely familiar to me . though i was not able to place it but it looked like i have seen a template like that somewhere . curious I checked the page source ( hoping to find a reference to NING ) but actually i found a reff to “peopleaggregator”.its a white lable soc nw platform from Broad band Mechanics and when i checked their site (http://www.peopleaggregator.net/homepage.php)that showed a Advertisement saying TOI is their client .
this shows how much of a commodity this whole Soc Nw thing has become.
Hmm..thats an amazing finding dude!
very keen observer
.
Prashant – agree that soc networking has become quite the commodity. Indeed forget large players such as PeopleAggregator and Ning, there are several smaller startups out there that are approaching everybody from Schools, Colleges to Professional Organisations to sell them a social networking / content management application.
The problem is that most large organisations in India have the Microsoft and not the Google mentality. The Microsoft mentality is this: don’t have to be the first to market, in fact *don’t* be the first to market. Be the second or the third to market, and harness your existing brand name and marketing firepower to plaster your product in every newspaper, TV channel and mainstream website.
I’m not convinced that this strategy will work when taking on players that are as established as LinkedIn. Unless the offering is something new / different, why should I bother with joining PeerPower and hope to build new connections rather than just use the existing LinkedIn platform?
Gautam Kshatriya
gautam.kshatriya@moneyvidya.com
http://www.moneyvidya.com/blog
As far as the soc Nw thing is concerned its almost dead for VCs as a market to put money into.
I had the privileged to talk to a senior advisor with a leading VC to get some advice on my venture and one thing that he specifically mentioned dont introduce it ever as Social Networking. VCs or any investor will not even look at something tagged as social networking.
Most current players in SN from India are backed by cash rich business houses who can afford big ad budgets, but I am sure returns on the same over long term will be none.
I did receive an invite from the PeerPower folks (shamelessly on my LinkedIn account!) and enrolled just to check it out. It’s a copy of LinkedIn, looks the same, as pretty much the same features. A few new things or visual representations of data that is there on LinkedIn here and there, but nothing great….nothing that an app on LinkedIn cannot achieve.
I agree with Gautam, I think they are stuck in the Microsoft mentality. But the thing they dont realize is this – it’s the connections that make LinkedIn popular, that is their capital – not the features!
They could have done better with apps that worked with LinkedIn, or at least used OpenID or some application connection method to work with existing networks. I don’t think people are upto creating a whole new profile, finding whole new contacts from stratch anymore.
My 9 1/2 rupees (2 cents?)
Sameer
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