WTF – MingleBox makes apps for Orkut ?

Yes – MingleBox powers two Orkut apps – iPoke and Teen Patti.

As screwed up as that sounds – MingleBox, which, is supposed to be a social networking site for Indian colleges and universities (they changed focus from being a generic SocNet site) makes apps for Orkut, another social networking site.

Strategically, it makes a lot of sense for Minglebox from a marketing perspective. Hope that the apps spread virally within the huge Indian demographic on Orkut and lure them over to MingleBox. But this sounds as whacked as MySpace building apps for Facebook.

If anyone can figure how Orkut benefits from this (other than getting two additional apps into their fledgling app repository), can you kindly enlighten me ?

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Comments

6 Responses to “WTF – MingleBox makes apps for Orkut ?”

1. Sachin says:

   May 10, 2008 at 2:35 am

   Hi Pranav,
   This is quite simple ..more people will play/use these games/apps and more they will be addicted to these and visit Orkut. Isn’t it? Then Orkut will earn via adsense.
2. Pawan Sahay says:

   May 10, 2008 at 9:52 am

   Hi Pranav,

   I agree with your point of view.It does sound screwed up.If you look at it…they probably had the applications ready and just integrated it with orkut on a later stage.(i mean not built it specificaly for orkut, as i have heard of the names before As orkut has more number of users and a solid community ,this is one way to market their applications out.

   But comparing Minglebox with MySpace wont be the correct thing to do…i understand the analogy (one social n/w website building apps for another one)…but if people do start using their apps on orkut and if it becomes popular..they have nothing to loose.
   Talking about monetary benefits, I dont see any….
3. Abhishek Goyal says:

   May 11, 2008 at 5:37 am

   Orkut has no reason to disallow their apps. And I am not sure if there is any disadvantage for MingleBox in building these apps.
4. pranav says:

   May 11, 2008 at 11:42 pm

   @abhishek – minglebox has everything to gain and nothing to lose. however, i dont see how orkut really benefits — other than getting 2 additional apps on its opensocial platform
5. Rabi Gupta says:

   May 12, 2008 at 3:01 am

   see, in my opinion Orkut is making MingleBox users (who most probably have an Orkut account too..) to cling to their site (and not MingleBox) for a larger time period.
   On, the other hand, MingleBox gets it’s own advertisement and tries to target users who are already over Orkut.
   But in my opinion, I dont need 2 websites (i already have an account over all of these SNS, but dont use more than 2 )…to just do Social networking.. Do you??
   Moreover I dont think that MingleBox has the competency to release their own APIs so as to support App building, since it’s a cool concept they tried it other way round …
6. debina says:

   May 28, 2008 at 2:14 am

   i’ll watch ramayan every day. i don’t missed it nor an day.if imiss,i’ll feel sad.infact’gurmeet&debi are cooooooool.