I’ve written before about how I find it fascinating that country-specific social networks and tools exist. I suppose I shouldn’t be so amazed, given that company-specific and other group/interest-specific networks are springing up all around.
My fellow Pole-espoused friend Chris Dalby pointed out blip.pl, which appears to be a Polish-language Twitter clone / microblogging service. I’m already aware of the massive popularity of Nasza Klasa, which is kind of a cross between Friends Reunited and Facebook. There’s also a Polish IM service called Gadu-Gadu. While I don’t think that everyone should be made to speak English, I do find it intriguing that there are so many of these language-specific networks, and that they appear to be profitable or at least able to continue in the face of consolidation – when you look at the fact that a giant like Facebook has a Polish-language setting, for example, it’s interesting to ponder why Nasza Klasa continues to be successful.
(side-note: I heard the interview with Jeff Yasuda, CEO of blip.fm, on net@night episode 91 – he pointed out that there is no relation between blip.tv and blip.fm – now there’s a third blip in the mix!)
Andy – blip.pl is owned by Gadu-Gadu so they don’t have to worry about financing. There is also a growing ecosystem of applications which uses blip.pl API (for example setting the same status on blip and Twitter).
Ah! Now that’s fascinating, that blip.pl has grown out of GG. What’s their finance model though – I thought GG was free? It sounds like blip.pl is a fairly close copy of Twitter if they are opening the API – my thought on that is that it is yet another status app to update, but of course that might work if you don’t use both English and Polish language networks.
The interesting thing about social networks is how they are so often linked to real life social networks.
We in the UK are so used to having UK/US/AUS people in our networks, but the key to that is that we have or know people that have so many connections with these countries. They speak English, and so the barriers to crossing the boundaries are low.
Social networks appear to grow best around physical networks. These can be both real life relationships and business relationships. It therefore makes a lot of sense that networks grow around a language group, because that is our natural physical network.
“I do find it intriguing that there are so many of these language-specific networks” c’mon Andy, it’s not a discovery that there other (in fact thousands of spoken) languages in the World and that people use those languages in the net.
There is a number of various language and country specific applications that English-speaking people never heard of.What I noticed in Poland is that people seems to think only in terms of polish-language-specific internet: “different language, means abroad, means not for me”. Even financial PayPal-like companies works in a different way.
Thanks Jakub. I think that’s what I meant, and I think you’ve just put it far better than I did. I think there’s more of a interest in Poland in the homegrown sites, technologies than in other countries, although of course it’s also true that it’s not the only country which has it’s own “local favourites”.
“Now that’s fascinating, that blip.pl has grown out of GG.”
Nope, it was bought out by GG. It was a startup.
“What’s their finance model though – I thought GG was free?”
GG is ad supported, they also have other projects I know nothing about. Blip.pl is currently selling place in “recommended” but that’s more an experiment than way of cashing in.
“t sounds like blip.pl is a fairly close copy of Twitter if they are opening the API”
Blip is far more advanced that Twitter is. Twitter is meant to be used via external applications and Blip is powerful via its web interface. It’s really day and night, as I use both. API is open. I even wrote a silly application to test it.
“my thought on that is that it is yet another status app to update”
Blip has Facebook application that would sync your status, there’s also beta feature that integrates Twitter timeline into Blip.