Yahoo Launches India Specific Social Network – SpotM still in Private Beta

Perhaps the success of Orkut in India (compared to its performance elsewhere) or the growing Indian mobile Internet market, whatever be the reason, Yahoo has started what’s currently called SpotM – an India specific, web and mobile powered social network.

The site is currently under private beta, which means you need to an invite to check out the features and use the system. SpotM plans to target the 16-24 age bracket which is often considered the most active Internet user base in India, especially when it comes to SNS.

It essentially differentiates itself by allowing mobile (SMS) integration to chat and have also added an anonymous friend feature. Even the SMS enabled anonymous chat has privacy features, so your number won’t be revealed to other users. So basically, keeping in with the trend of other India centric social networks going mobile, Yahoo has taken efforts to make engagement as connected as possible, and have concentrated on giving features that address to the concerns of potential users. Quite unlike other social networks that harp on the goodies while conveniently avoiding privacy concerns. The anonymous friend feature keeps your friends list private and won’t let others know about your secret friends.

The approach to my mind is certainly fresh and portrays a secure image, regardless of how important or fancy many users might find these.

This is perhaps Yahoo’s 6th attempt at social networking including its attempts to buy Facebook and Bebo and if you consider Yahoo groups to be an SNS as well. The only difference being this time it is India centric compared to Mash and 360 both of which were shut down after failing to elicit any worthwhile response. Though we would like to add here that Yahoo is already on its way to roll out a vastly updated Yahoo Groups in the future.

What makes this interesting is the fact that it is a portal backed social network, and India hasn’t seen any major success from any of the many portals in this department. The only name worth mentioning is Rediff Connexxions, but compared to the numbers that other networks report it is not even close to competition. So how people will take up to this effort from Yahoo India would be an interesting case, especially if it succeeds.

Yahoo India has been doing talks of social networking an going mobile in the past, almost year back, and so was MSN. WATBlog had in fact covered Yahoo and MSN’s social networking plans and ideas on the same table then. Another important aspect that might show up if the network generates enough activity is perhaps a better push for Yahoo’s Onesearch mobile search service. They had already tied up with a few Indian Mobile service providers earlier for Onesearch and it wouldn’t be all that difficult to include it in the scheme of things with SpotM somewhere down the line. For they have already plans to put SMS into action, so they can lure the users to connect on the mobile web once a certain level of volume and engagement is achieved.

Keep checking back here for more updates on this one.