MingleBox has launched two Orkut apps – iPoke and Teen Patti
“With iPoke, you can interact with friends using Indian lingo. Get caught in cricket with college buddies. Bowl a maiden over, fox a friend with a googly, or get hit wicket. Resume the chalk-piece war from your old school days. Missed your friend on his birthday? Smash a birthday cake on his face!
Teen Patti is an Indian version of 3 card poker, also known as flash. It is a must play before and on Diwali for many Indian families. Even losing is supposed to bring you good luck!”
While one can always say, sleeping with competition is a screwed up strategy (and the company has simply given-up on competition), I look at it as a very gutsy step.
First of all, it means a clear differentiation in terms of one’s positioning.
Here is what I mean:
MingleBox has positioned itself as a fun place for college kids and Orkut is still looked upon as a social networking space. While Orkut apps takes it’s own sweet time to gain adoption , MingleBox can still ride the Orkut wave and get more visibility and users.
Is the differentiation in positioning is more clear than ever before? Or is this a survival guide for MingleBox?
Infact, Orkut apps gives MingleBox an access to tons of users without burning too much of marketing $$s. And value to Orkut? Well, they call it OpenSocial, so they better keep it that way, i.e. open+social.
Feel free to disagree and share your point of view.
Hi Ashish,
For a change I dont agree with you.
Its not being gutsy. Its being stupid. They are saying that we are no longer a social network that caters to kids. We are yet another company on the Internet that is trying to get as many eye balls and page views as possible.
Regards,
SG
@Saurabh:
I do understand what you are saying, but I guess MingleBox must have realized by now that they cant compete with orkut!
so prbbly its time to change the gear and use orkut for their own advantage – and a diff. positioning.
what do you think?
i don’t think its will be that easy to hijack users from orkut .
#1 their app has nothing new , iPoke is a copy of DesiPoke on Facebook and TeenPatti on Orkut ?? not sure if it appeal me .
#2 Zoosk is a leading Dating Application on Facebook but their entire user base is on FB ver few of them are on their own site and other soc nw . Hijacking them from FB to Zoosk portal is tricky and improbable
#3 majority of usage of Twitter is Not through Web Interface its either through desktop client like Twhril,Twitterefic or by Txt. can Twhirl hijack Twitter’s user base ?? Not in my life .
why they are doing it ? God Knows . We are mere mortals
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I can be on orkut and minglebox at the same time. The challenge for minglebox is to provide an altogether different value proposition than orkut. Probably a gaming community network or a fun place. The move to me looks more of a fight for survival.
what are you guys trying to say?
Prashant – I think you are just sharing some weird stuff here – Twhril is not an alternative to twitter – it compliments that
Whiel MB is an alternative to orkut (that’s how it was started) and I dont see anything wrong with them launching orkut app.
Why did yahoo test google adsense?
its all about thinking out of the box – and yeah..as poseidon says, this could be the last option for MB.
With the continuing trend of increasing openness of SNs, the networks or the social graph would end up as being a commodity/utility and the social applications leveraging these networks will generate consumer value and delight.
Social graph/network is just like a adressbook with information on personal linkages, Its applications (scrap, poke, scrabalous, etc) on top of it that engages the user and makes the system valuable.
So, It make sense for players like MB to not re-build the network but create applications that users like.
my aqpplications are having problem in retrieving
there r some problume in orkut chess .when i open my chess bord he says error the erorr is stop scrirt .what is this ………..tell me what i do plzzzz tell me