Netlog’s Growth Fueled By University Students’ Efforts
By Robert Andrews - Fri 02 Nov 2007 05:40 AM PST
Wall Street Journal talks with Netlog, one of Europe’s broadest and best-populated social networks by virtue of its availability in 13 different languages. Headquartered in Ghent, Belgium, the site claims 28 million members. It’s strengths - geolocalisation technology that serves up only local content across the continent and, WSJ finds out, hiring university students to do site localisations on the cheap.
WSJ: “When Netlog wants to launch in a new language, it just hires freelancers, usually foreign students at Ghent University, to translate the words. Turkey is an example of how quickly Netlog can move ... (Co-founder Lorenz Bogeart) found two Turkish exchange students to translate the site. Four months later, the site has 2.5 million users. Mr. Bogaert estimates that it cost about €1,000 to launch.”
£692 is not a bad start-up cost, but pan-European startups that exploit the majors’ lack of focus on the more fragmented, linguistically and culturally diverse arrangements on this side of the pond also face a problem - the cost to the big boys of rolling out around the nations is equally low (Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has its own volunteer translation programme, for example).
As MySpace Europe SVP Jamie Kantrowitz told us in September, that site opened up nine European local versions in 2006, and there are “a couple more to come”. Facebook, meanwhile, is also gearing up to offers its first versions other than English. The smaller competitors will need to safeguard their slim competitive advantage - especially this Russian Facebook clone.
Posted in: Countries, Europe, Belgium, Social Media
