Net has made social networking a global concept

It’s over half a decade now, since it has slowly emerged on top and built a unique image among Indian netizens, particularly the youths and now also has found number of followers in social networking business. Navin Mittal, business head of Fropper.com talks to Pankaj Maru of CyberMedia News and shares interestingly saga of Fropper.com’s steady journey in the fast lanes of Internet...

Since its launch in 2003, what are the changes that Fropper.com has undergone in terms of technology, site’s look, user interactivity and usability to attract new users as well as to sustain business against other sites?

Fropper.com has been in existence for nearly five years now and has over four million user base. When launched in 2003, it offered features like online profile, chat rooms and message boards that helped people connect, interact and network.

With time we have felt the pulse of the Indian youths and their need to have a virtual identity, which is possible only through social networking sites.

In the last few years we have introduced new interesting features such as photo sharing, videos, authenticated groups, real discussions and customizable personal pages called Zones.

In 2006, we came up with the concept of ezBlogs - a unique spin on blogging that de-emphasizes English and invites people to write via simple templates.

In 2007, we introduced SMS social networking via the service MobiFun that allowed members to be connected with their friends through mobile SMS and access Fropper.com at will.

Later in January 2008, we introduced ezMoney feature that allows bloggers earn money via blogging. This service is in association with Google Adsense that automatically places relevant ads on ezBlog pages. Ad revenues generated from these pages is shared with ezBloggers.

Our latest offering is Fropper.com on mobile that enables social networking on the go. It’s a GPRS-based service that will allow all users to actively network through their mobile phones. We feel it is important to constantly innovate so that our members can enjoy the best possible avenues of social networking.

Do you think the growth of IT industry in India has played a vital role in giving a strong platform to social networking concept and shaping it into a segment of online business?

IT has played an important role in creating successful platforms like HTML, JavaScript etc that most social networking sites work on. Also, applications like Adobe Flash / Flex are popular technologies for rich media and graphic-rich applications on social networking sites.

Apart from this, it’s purely the power of networking and communication that has made Social Networking a rage across the world.

Which are the key technologies that you think are vital to social networking concept and without which the socializing on the Internet would have been impossible?

Fropper.com is based on the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP) architecture. LAMP is a combination of technologies used for deploying web based services / applications. Innovation is critical to every business and by constantly monitoring the pulse of users, one can create solutions that offer compelling value to the end user.

Innovation is the key to a sustained competitive advantage. By understanding how a new technology can meet an unfulfilled need and/or simplify existing processes that creates value for the end user, innovation in technology or use of technology can help create a market space and/or develop an advantage that others may not be able to copy immediately.

Case in point being Gmail from Google which used the same web based technologies as others but the way they used it, differentiated the service and made Gmail a preferred option for many.

What's the future of social networking business in India? Is the concept of socializing moving beyond the realms of Internet and gaining more importance across business verticals as a strategic tool?

Internet has made social networking a global concept and it is monetarily very lucrative. Enterprise is a large part of social networking, and we see new ideas and concepts coming into play everyday which eventually gather enough interest to be able to attract massive funding.

Who would have thought that a startup like Facebook would end up selling 1.6 per cent of their stake to technology Goliaths like Microsoft for a whopping $240 million within three years of its inception? Or that Myspace would sell out to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. for $580 million?

Most of these sites are grappling to come up with a foolproof business model that specifically addresses the needs of a distinct community, which will make the applecart perfectly balanced.

With social networking slowly turning into a medium that enables companies to identify and target their niche audience with higher accountability, the social networking scene in India is simply touching the tip of the iceberg.

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