Indian SNs loosing ground

Green:fropper Blue=minglebox Black=goyaar Red=yaari

First let me confess that I don't know about any free tool other then alexa to measure the progress of of web 2.0 sites.Consequently I had excepted Alexa with all its flaws :).

Now as we can see from above graph most of the sites are loosing ground.I know its too early to declare anything ,for most of the SN sites are less then year old.But still there is noticable consistency in fall ,specially in case of fropper. Other 4-5 sites that like DesiMartini, Pihook, Snehah, Humsabka, Jhoom are almost dead.Only SN site that seems stable other then orkut is minglebox which is most evolving among all SN sites.

Some of my observations (as a user ):


Poor design or UI
Many of them are very heavy sites with lots of graphics.If site is not using AJAX browsing will be slow and hence boring.Since we don't enjoy the real broadband ,India focused SN must be design their sites accordingly.

Lack of visibility
Many fail to invest time, energy and money in PR and marketing. As a rule if you are new but not first or biggest player in a market you must define ,differentiate and make yourself visible.Viral marketing is ideal but in a crowded market branding required more then just viral marketing.

Monetising too early
Many of them started monetising before gathering a minimum base users.I guess lots of creativity is needed in designing a site with lots of add that will not irritate users.Even the some better known and growing SNs like hi5 failed in this area. Google is better player when comes to monetising its sites without irritatinig its users.

No Localisation
Although most of the sites claim to be Indian there is hardly any Indianess in there site.I was expecting MTV like cultural makover of myspace into indian myspaces.Indian langauges support could have add personal touch.So much could be done to personalise a SN.Since indian sites dont have supporting web community to give addon to their sites like layouts they have to do all the innovation which is a challenge. Without locatlisation every indian SN have to compete at global level.

I am suprised with thse slow learning of most of players.If you are loosing users there must be some valid reason.They have access to user data that can be very weel expoited to enhance user experience every time he login to site.Lot more innovation is required from site designers.

Presently SNs are success becoz they give presence on web to its user.But they must evelove to add more value and find define a worthy purpose for its users.