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Ibibo launches social networking - cafe ibibo

May 3, 2007 · Posted in India Social Networking, India Web 2.0, Mobile India, reviews 

ibibo.jpgMIH owned Ibibo launched two new beta products - online polls and a social networking service called cafe Ibibo. The polls is similar to Tezaa - any registered member can create a poll and other members of the community can vote for the poll. You can also view the top rated and the most popular polls and also embed polls into your blog or website.

The one differentiator that ibibo Polls offers is the ability to start a poll via SMS from your mobile.

Type POLL {question} and send to 676746. You can also change the answer options via SMS and view the results of the poll via SMS.
You can also vote for a poll directly via SMS.

Considering the recent interest in the social networking space, its Cafe Ibibo that intrigues me more. In terms of features, they seem to have the ability to add friends, join a fan club and create blurbs. Unfortunately, I couldnt take it for a test drive myself.

Why ?

Well, to join Cafe Ibibo, you need to validate your profile by associating it with a valid mobile number. Once you enter your mobile number, they will send a confirmation code to your mobile via SMS. You then enter the confirmation code to validate your profile. Based on this method of validation, they claim to become one of the safest social networks around - where every member is verified.

In my opinion, this method of verification could go either ways for Ibibo.

1) Since every member is verified, Ibibo would be less likely to be plagued by the problems that some of the other social networks are facing - sexual predators, spamming, anti-national groups, hate groups, impostors and the likes. This means of verification would add a dimension of credibility to each profile.

2) Mobile penetration is much deeper in the Indian market. Once they have each user profile associated with a unique mobile number, they can more effectively market their other mobile based services - polls by mobile, blog by mobile, photo upload via mobile etc. Based on the services and features they have launched recently, they seem to be edging closer to goal of integrating all these varied services to the mobile platform.

On the flip side, this method of validation may very well have some drawbacks:

1) I personally would see such a validation method as an invasion of my privacy. One of the big draws for other social networks is the fact that they offer relative privacy and anonymity. I treasure my privacy. I do not want them to be able to associate me with my mobile number, which I consider private - and would like to share as per my discretion.

2) I wonder if they have any means of keeping pranksters at bay. For instance, what if some prankster chooses to provide my mobile number for validating their profile ? Will Ibibo keep SMSing confirmation codes to my mobile number ?

What do you think ? Will this method of verifying a user click with the community ? Would you have any concerns with validating your profile by sharing you mobile number ?

By the way, its been six months since the Pixrat acquisition but Pixrat continues to have a lot of Not Safe For Work content. Whatever happened to cleaning up Pixrat ?


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12 Responses to “Ibibo launches social networking - cafe ibibo”

  1. Rehan on May 4th, 2007 5:03 am

    Excellent job done by ibibo

  2. Rajiv Harjai on May 7th, 2007 8:54 pm

    Rehan - Excellent job?? I think Ibibo is going to bomb.

    The companies worst marketing strategy for its blog contest has seen its end today. The Great Indian Blogger has come to an end in only 4 months, when it was supposed to run for a year. Shows it’s failure. The best part is that they have started another contest now IBQash which isn’t much different.

    I think the CEO, Ashish Kashyap doesn’t even learn from his mistakes.

    Furthermore as Pranav said, “What happened to cleaning up Pixrat?”

    Ibibo has been criticized all over the blogosphere. Webyantra, Rajiv’s BlogPost, Youth Curry, ContentSutra and of course me(Indian and Global PR) to name a few.

  3. pranav on May 7th, 2007 11:33 pm

    the mobile based verification may go either ways for ibibo - thats what I think.

  4. Rajiv Harjai on May 8th, 2007 10:25 am

    Looking at PIXRAT and IBIBO, it is more possible to go the wrong way.

  5. Raman Singh on May 8th, 2007 2:03 pm

    @ Rajiv,

    Obviously talking reasonably and in moderation seems alien to you — ironical, this for a guy claiming to be a PR expert! A botched, unfulfilled pitch, eh? And boss, I admire your attempt to rub shoulders with “all the blogosphere” — namely 3 bloggers! IIRC — in some forum you have also mentioned that — good internet products don’t need marketing, they need W.O.M which only PR (obviously through ‘experts’ like yourself) can generate. Sure buddy! Of course the world doesn’t know (hasn’t been PR’ed) about the contribution you have made to the success of YouTubes, Flickrs, Google’s of the world. And I am being sarcastic! Cheers. Oh and ’tis the season of sour grapes :-p

  6. Rajiv Harjai on May 8th, 2007 4:06 pm

    Raman, I am never claimed to be a PR Expert, but thank you for putting me on that pedestal. I really appreciate it. As a Student that is a great place to be on.

    Regarding the WOM comment, you should read my blog once again to see what I am saying.

    And Regarding “all the blogosphere,” come on mate, it’s a figure of speech. Lets talk about the current issue rather than each others credibility to say something on the topic.

    Lastly on your sarcastic comment, I think I have contributed to Google’s Success and am sure that you have done the same. Furthermore, everyone who I know (who uses the internet) has contributed to their success.

    So are Grapes still Sour : ) If they are, don’t stress you can always come over to the sweeter side ;) You’ll find me there.

  7. vineetbhargava on May 11th, 2007 3:05 pm

    Rajiv Harjai - Is talking through his hat! I was told about his blog recently by some one. And it is pretty shallow and useless. I agree with Rehan! Ashish Kashyap and team are doing a great job at ibibo.com.

  8. pranav on May 12th, 2007 4:09 am

    Guys,

    feel free to comment and participate without getting personal or offensive.

  9. Rajiv Harjai on May 17th, 2007 11:16 am

    Thanks Pranav. It is funny to see that people who attack personally are mostly anonymous.

  10. Raman Singh on May 18th, 2007 6:22 pm

    And it is funnier to see that people who perceive they are being attacked are mostly wussies looking for hits to their sites/blogs.

  11. Rajiv Harjai on May 30th, 2007 1:08 pm

    Hi Pranav,

    I got some very interesting comments on my Ibibo post. I invite you to check them out, especially the last two.

    http://indianpr.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/ibibo-mih-nasper-the-worst-marketing-strategy/

  12. Rediff launches mobile polls via SMS on June 19th, 2007 1:52 pm

    [...] Close on the heels of Ibibo’s launch of polls via SMS, Rediff has launched a SMS based mobile poll service. { If this service already existed, please feel free to correct me.} But from what I uncovered, it seems that this is a new feature. [...]