No ads, but we love celebrities
Rating: a slap in the Facebook?
According to The Guardian, a British newspaper, social networking site Badoo has the UK in its sights. Badoo is different from other social networks in that it guarantees to be ad-free – recognising that lots of inveterate social networkers have almost a rabid dislike of advertising – oh yes, and to corner the celebrity market.
Badoo was recently rated second on Google’s “fastest rising” - in its annual report based on the most popular web searches; behind the iPhone and ahead of everyone else, including Facebook.
How does it make money? Members can pay as USD 1/EUR 1/GBP 1 to have their profile moved to the top of a rolling rota, using a function called Rise Up. Or as The Guardian put it, “in a blend of Digg and a Reuters ticker – that all users can see.”
Neil Bryant, the managing director of Badoo, was quoted saying, “With
Badoo users don’t have to add friends - they have immediate access to
get their profile in front of the site’s entire online community.” He
claimed that 20% of Badoo’s 12.5 million users use Rise Up once a month
on average, although apparently until the UK market establishes a hard
core of 100,000 Badoo users, Rise Up will be free. So far, Badoo has
developed a strong following in Latin American countries, as well as
France, Spain and Italy.
Badoo is trying to carve a niche in the celebrity market, just as
MySpace has in music and Bebo has with youth. Badoo UK will launch with
the endorsement of a Hollywood celebrity, who will have their own
official profile page the company says, adding that it is currently
negotiating a deal with the star.
Nice to have the analysis I wrote of the disconnect between advertisers
and communities in the December issue of Mobile 2.0 supported by this
story. The key to Badoo is how well it succeeds in cornering the
celebrity market, which is where it comes unstuck. Imagine, for a
moment, you’re a Hollywood A lister, your motivation for signing up to
a deal with Badoo would be what, exactly? Sackloads of money? Probably
not, compared with what George Clooney is getting for those coffee
machine or Martini ads, for instance. The illusion that fans have
access to you? A paid-for feature in Hello or OK magazines are surely a
better bet in terms of coverage and income and a healthy distance from
the hordes, and, after all, if you wanted to be on a website, you’d put
up your own that you control absolutely, right?
The only angle that makes any sense to me is to get an A lister to
invest and play at least what looks like an active role in day to day
site activities, and invite their best 200 friends to contribute from
time to time. Oh yes, I nearly forgot, and to do something really smart
in the mobile space, ahead of all the others. Anyone heard of Avot Media? You
will, you will.
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