A recent marketing survey conducted by the
Evans Data Corporation reveals that in spite of a low key promotion strategy, Google?s social networking platform
Orkut has outdistanced its rivals
Facebook and
Myspace in terms of popularity amongst Indian software developers.
The report indicates that out of more than 300 Indian developers polled, 73% declared they had used Orkut, 35% said they had signed onto Facebook and 32% advised they were MySpace subscribers. These findings show that Orkut?s popularity in India mirrors its success in Brazil.
Comment by John Andrews, president and chief executive officer of Evans Data Corp does not attribute this success to a more aggressive or better targeted marketing effort. He says, "While Facebook has been heavily promoting its platform to developers, Google's Orkut has quietly taken the largest share of developers in India."
The study states that Indian developers display a higher level of interest in social networking sites than their counterparts in other corners of the world, emphasizing the value of the market they represent. "Capturing mindshare with developers in fast growing emerging development markets like India and Brazil gives (Orkut) a strategic advantage going forward in further cultivating this very important community," analyzes Andrews.
Other results include the fact that Indian developers consider technology or platform vendors to be the most credible source of information on emerging technologies, and that 47% take part in coding contests. Evans Data Corp also concludes that Indian application delivers are mostly single and younger on average than their European or North American counterparts.