Category: All Worldwide (non UK/Euro/US)

Indian Bride Sites

Posted on October 30, 2006

Bharatlogo_2BUSINESS WEEK – Oct 30 — In September Yahoo and Silicon Valley venture capital firm Canaan Partners jointly paid $8.5 million for ~10% of BharatMatrimony.com, a nine-year-old marriage Web site that also has 50 offices across India to serve those without Net access. "BharatMatrimony will help us get a larger share of the Internet market" in India, says Yahoo India Managing Director George Zacharias. Microsoft hooked up with Shaadi.com a year ago, though it didn't invest any money in the site. "Shaadi helps attract huge numbers of users," says MSN India country manager Jaspreet Bindra. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers plowed $4.6 million into Info Edge, which runs matrimonial site Jeevansathi.com. Google is said to be prospecting for a partner. Some 7.5 million people use marriage sites, up from 4 million in 2004, the Internet & Mobile Association of India estimates. Registration is free. Users pay when they want to contact a potential partner. The sites are likely to take in ~$21 million this year. But there's plenty of room to grow. Indians lay out nearly $500 million a year for offline marriage services such as print classifieds. "Today the emphasis is on compatibility and being a professional, something the Internet lets you test, as opposed to the traditional contacts," says Anupam Mittal, Shaadi.com's founder.

The full article was originally published at Business Week, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: I have an interview with the CEO of Bharat Matrimony in the pipeline. There's a lot U.S. companies can learn from these innovative Indian sites.

Blatant Facebook Rip-Off Gets Acquired

Posted on October 25, 2006

Facebookclone_1MASHABLE BLOG — Oct 24 — Beijing-based social network for college students, Xiaonei.com (~1million users), was acquired by Oak Pacific Interactive (OPI), a Chinese Internet consortium. The plan is to merge Xiaonei with 5Q, OPI's own college social network. The two sites now serve 90% of the active online student population. Xiaonei is a one-year old startup founded by Tsinghua university graduate Wang Xing. Even the strategy was a clone of Facebook – Xiaonei focused on the top schools first, realizing that widespread adoption would follow. They received angel funding from investors that included an ex-CTO of Amazon.com. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE BLOG

China’s Baihe.com Receives Funding

Posted on October 13, 2006

Baihe20logoTHE VC IN ME BLOG — Oct 12 — I’ve recently made a few investments in internet companies in China with Mayfield’s local partner, GSR Ventures. Two of my deals are Baihe (the largest dating site in China that is focused on serious relationships – like eHarmony) and Qunar (travel meta search in China). FULL ARTICLE @ THE VC IN ME BLOG

Mark Brooks: I met Jason Tian at this years internet dating convention. His site has promising growth and is essentially, the eHarmony of China

Top Web Apps in India

Posted on October 10, 2006

Sahdipar_1READ/WRITE BLOG — Oct 10 — It's an exciting time for the economy in India. India has 1.1 Billion people and the average age of the nation is just 24.9 years. Indian GDP is growing 8%+. Their are 45 to 50 Million internet users in India making it the 4th biggest country in the world in terms of total Internet users – behind only the US, China and Japan. However due to India's huge population, its Internet Penetration is among the lowest in the world at only 4.5%, and only 10 million of those users are real power users who spend money online. Another challenge is that there are 23 mainstream languages that are spoken in India.  Matrimonial sites. Shaadi and BharatMatrimony.com are the most successful. India's eBay is Bazee.com (acquired by eBay). For Online Travel – MakeMyTrip, Yatra, and Arzoo.com (founded by Sabeer Bhatia, the co-founder of Hotmail. Jobs – Naukri. Real estate – 99acres. Online movie rentals – Seventymm.

The full article was originally published at Read Write Web, but is no longer available.

Comscore’s Canadian Internet Dating Rankings

Posted on September 28, 2006

Comscore_3 OPW — Sep 28 — The Canadian internet dating rankings are now in. Both Lavalife and PlentyofFish edge out further against their competition. Canoe ReseauContact and Mate1 move one spot to #3 and #4 as Spark reduces it's traffic and relegates to the #5 spot.  NETCLUB.FR and Yahoo Personals move up one spot in a similar fashion. LoveHappens reduces it's traffic and relegates itself down from #6 to #9. Match grows a little stronger and moves up into 10th spot. 

Social Networking Sites go Global

Posted on September 25, 2006

Cyworld_3HERALD TRIBUNE — Sep 24 — South Korea’s Cyworld got started in the U.S. last month. Started seven years ago, Cyworld, has spread out in China, Japan, and Taiwan. A German version will open by the end of the year. Chris DeWolfe, MySpace CEO, said it was on the verge of announcing its entry into "two large Asian markets."  In Japan, MySpace would take on Mixi, a 2.5 year-old social networking site (five million members). Mixi’s stock market debut valuation hit ¥220 billion ($1.8 billion) on Sept. 15.  In Taiwan, Wretch (two million members) stakes its fame on its list of celebrities. Members of Mixi can join only if invited by current members. Personal profiles are bas ed only on text, except for three photos (premium service allows more). Most members do not post pictures of themselves, opting instead for photos of celebrities, scenery or pets. Cyworld profiles are dominated by the Miniroom, a 400×200-pixel space that users can decorate with digital furniture, wallpaper and other objects. An avatar ‘Minime’ is also in the room. Users pay real money to buy the various virtual objects to spice up the lives of their Minimes. 

Mark Brooks: I hear Cyworld is extremely profitable. 

Group Dating Takes Off in China

Posted on August 30, 2006

Asian_dating_2BBC NEWS — Aug 28 — Group dating events, which draw hundreds of single men and women, have climbed in popularity since they were introduced in Chinese cities. One event in Zhejiang in April attracted 12,658 participants, Xinhua news agency said, while 10,000 showed up for another in Shanghai. Cities are full of young workers, but singletons who spend long hours at the office end up with no time to meet other people, said Wu Xiuping of the Beijing Municipal Women's Federation. The federation has been organizing sessions in the capital for three years. At the dating events, men and women are put into groups to get to know each other and, if they want to, can swap telephone numbers at the end. Ms Wu said group dating was particularly popular with women. FULL ARTICLE @ BBC

Mark Brooks: I visited China for the Asian internet dating convention in May this year. The city was dotted with building cranes and in some areas on the outskirts the entire skyline was lined with tall building cranes manically erecting the new Beijing 'burbs. I had a very pleasant girl chat me up on a bus. She went so far as to request that I call her. Times are changing in China. Internet dating is hot, but the challenges are significant. It's rather like going back in time to the late '90's, only in China, there's the prospect of reaching a billion people. Sites like Baihe.com and Yeeyoo.com are growing fast. How fast?  I'll see if I can get some ranking numbers from iresearch.

China’s King of Online Dating

Posted on August 18, 2006

Lg_ma_mNEWS.COM — Aug 15 — China's not the perfect place to try an Internet company, but Marine Ma's dating business is making slow and steady progress. Marine Ma is not yet 30, but he's already on his third company. Currently, he's the CEO of EFriendsNet, a social-networking company that also functions as a dating service. EFriends claims to be the market leader in China for Internet dating, in both membership numbers and revenue. Recently, I sat down with Marine…

Cliff: The last time I talked with you, you told me about Fanso, the first company you started.
Marine: That was from…1999 to 2001, founded by me and some alumni from Tsinghua University. We focused on providing information such as news, (and) music downloads to the students in universities in China.

Cliff: It was the first company in China that was run by students that was given permission to operate by the Chinese government, right?
Marine: Yeah. In the past if a student wanted to do some business in the university, it was…illegal. At that time the Education Ministry wanted to change something. They (had heard about) Microsoft in America (and how) Bill Gates quit his course while in university to start the company. So, we were lucky enough to get the chance.

Cliff: What kind of music downloads did Fanso support?
Marine: It was all free music–illegal–but at that time no one cared. The Internet industry was not mature, so no one came to us saying, "Hey, your music is illegal." I think the basic reason is we did not charge the users. In 2001, the bubble of the Internet burst, and no more VCs came to China–there was no more money; we'd run out. But I think another reason was more fatal: That is, we had never done business before, so we did not know how to do business.

Cliff: How much money did you raise?
Marine: Six million renminbi (about $750,000). It's not big bucks, but it's big bucks for students.

Cliff: How many partners did you have?
Marine: We had five. We used to have nearly 80 employees within Fanso, but we didn't generate any revenue, and the worst thing is that we didn't think generating revenue was necessary.

The full article was originally published at News.com, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: I had the pleasure of meeting Marine at the Asian internet dating convention this year.  Where do you think the Asian internet dating convention should be held in Asia next year? Shanghai, Tokyo, elsewhere? 

Cyworld Launches in U.S.

Posted on August 14, 2006

Cyworld_2CNET NEWS.COM — Aug 11 — Cyworld, a South Korean social networking site, kicked off a beta in the U.S. on July 27.  ~18 million people in South Korea (~30%) have accounts with Cyworld, according to Cyworld.  ~80% of 20 to 29 year olds in S.Korea visit daily. The service, which started in 1999, has since expanded into China (2 million users), Japan and Taiwan. Revenue is from advertisers, from hosting corporate-sponsored pages and also from selling background screens, charms and other graphics to for users to decorate their sites. The decorative services account for $300,000 a day in revenue / US $100 million a year. MySpace is expected to make $180 million this year, according to eMarketer. But MySpace has a base of 100 million members, five times as many as Cyworld. Cyworld has avoided some of the predator problems that hit MySpace by having users give their national ID number (like SS#).  However, it won't ask for Social Security numbers in the U.S.

The full article was originally published at News.com, but is no longer available.

Caramellounge Connects Africans and Caribbeans

Posted on August 8, 2006

CarameloungePR WEB — Aug 1 — Ogunkoya and Bassey-Oden created Caramellounge.com while completing their final year exams at Imperial College London. "Unlike other sites, which are mainly African-American, this one caters to everyone from every country and really aims to put the people of Africa & the Caribbeans on the map of the world,"  said Ogunkoya.

The full article was originally published at eMedia Wire, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: This is a great niche choice. Blackplanet.com is their main competition.