Social/Mobile Platforms have Changed the Game in the US (but not India yet)

I was looking at some stats on growth of consumer social and mobile platforms between 2008 and now. Even though it's an obvious point, the contrast is quite stark and shows how much the world has changed in a short time.  It's almost hard to imagine a world where Facebook was a startup much smaller than it is today, LinkedIn and Twitter had very small user bases and iOS and Android each had less than 10M users. But this was the case in early 2008.

The numbers above are based on Crunchbase, SEC filings and news reports - I think they're directionally correct although there may be some numbers that are not exactly right.

While all these above-mentioned platforms or quasi-platforms (and others I have not mentioned) have impacted startups in the US and Europe, I think Facebook and Android are the real game-changers in India as opposed to LinkedIn, Twitter or iOS.

Why Facebook and Android in India?  Here's why: When I think of consumer platforms (a much abused term), I think of a few criteria:

1. a large, engaged and fast-growing audience (100M+ users)
2. a developer friendly culture and technology base
3. a monetization vehicle that is providing enough return to developers for their time

In my opinion, three platforms stand out today and meet this criteria - Facebook, iOS and Android - in many parts of the world.  However, they all fall down in India when it comes to #3 (monetization) and (for now) #1 (audience size).  I have no doubt these platforms will get to the right audience sizes in India in the next 12-24 months - Facebook claims ~50M users and Android has <10M in India. In the meantime, Google reigns supreme for reaching users. 

So, the upshot is that now is the time to start companies leveraging these platforms in India.

Comments

[Vishnu Prasath]

a monetization vehicle that provides enough income would be some social ad-networks(radiumone)/audience engagement platforms for social media. For mobile, I don't think there are any ad-networks with no misleading ads.

As we hear, FB is now building an ad-exchange which will allow the networks/agencies to bid directly on their inventory. I think, there will be much demand for a product that will allow the advertisers to do Real-time bidding on social media by using the data from DMP's(bluekai).

[Anu Anand]

you are right. my bad. i must have been having fits of retardedness or something (reading alok's non-sense comments on sangeet's post on pluggd.in had my head spinning), i didn't even look at the most important aspect for being a platform - something that others can build upon. i may have just thought that if you have linkedin on the u.s./e.u. list, then why not on the india list.
that still leaves the question about your definition of "game changer' here. of course any new platform thats as big as and applicable to the indian market as facebook and android are, changes many games.
one can, still, use just the linkedin userbase and profiles as something we can probably call a centerform - something you can build around but not upon. or a plugform - something you can plug into your system/app.

[Dkhare]

By my definition of platforms, LinkedIn does not have a monetization platform for third-party developers which is why it does not stand next to FB & Android.

Enterprise-wise, I think different platforms come into focus, including Salesforce.com's Force.com, Google's Apps Marketplace and so on. For these, of course the 100M criterion does not apply.

[Anu Anand]

what do you mean by "gamer changer" as talked about in this post.
also, why don't you think that linkedin deserves to stand next to facebook and android? purely based on the 100mn criterion? should that criterion be applied even to enterprise platforms (you youself have talked called it as being for just 'consumer platforms'- linkedin is clearly not a consumer oriented thing).