Badoo.com history:
Badoo is a social networking website and was launched in 2003 and owned by an offshore company based in London. It was run by Badoo Services Limited. It was relaunched in 2007.
Badoo claims that it has 46,953,527 users as of September 26 2009. This website was also listed in the top 200 websites by Alexa Internet. Badoo is distinct from other social networking websites as it does not display advertisements. All content on it is user generated.
Russian investor Finam acquired 10% stake in this website for an amount of $30 million on January, 2008.
Development:
Badoo was relaunched in 2007 and it upgraded its features and several options. Badoo offers a distinct feature from rest of social websites, by use of Rise Up feature a member can be placed high in the profile search for a limited period.
Badoo generates revenue from Rise Up feature rather from advertisements. It charges an amount of $1 for Rise Up feature. Badoo offers photo, video sharing and also instant messaging to its members and has its most of user base in European countries. It was also offered in the following languages: Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish.
Current usage:
Badoo offers numerous options for its users to connect with friends and also make new ones. The minimum age to register at this website is 18 years. Members can share photos, videos and also chat with friends who are online.
Badoo members can get instant publicity by using feature Rise Up which give high ranking in profile search. Member profile displays updates from his/her friends. Updates includes new friends, photo’s added, events, etc.
Photo’s can be voted on Badoo and every one can vote anyone’s photo. Members should the photo on a scale of 1 to 10. One shortcoming of this social media website is that it does not include group or community section and you cannot meet people with similar interests.
Future developments:
Badoo offers a lot of features to its members. The following features may be added in future:
1.Including groups feature: Currently Badoo does not have groups, in future it may be included.
2.Reduced spam messages: Members receives high amount of spam messages, the security may be increased in future to reduce this.
3.Increased security: Security and privacy need to be tightened in the future.
User benefits:
1.Badoo connects members who have similar interests and hobbies.
2.Members can use it to maintain blog where he/she can express their interest/opinion
3.This website includes an instant messenger using which its members chat from their profile.
4.Members can share their photo/video with others and also be rated by them.
5.Members can send Gifts to other users to show sign of friendship or admiration. The gifts sent to user will appear on their profile page.
Technical explanation:
User needs to register in order to use features of this social networking website. You register by clicking on the Become a Member link on home page.
During registering you need to provide your email address, password and date of birth. After registering it sends a verification email. After you confirm and login to your account you can fill your profile.
You can search for other people by searching for users, chatting with currently online users and viewing newly registered members.
Members can add another user as friend by clicking on Add to Friends link on the desired member profile. You can view your friends from Friends folder. Badoo members can view recent visitors to your profile by going to your Messages->Your Visitors folder. Member can give messages to others (people in your friends list or others) by visiting their profile page and clicking on Write me a Message.
You can view your messages from other members by going to Recent Contacts folder here you can view the members who left a message to you. Badoo members can post a blog entry by clicking on Create New Entry on top of home page. You can choose a title and blog body.
You can add photo album by clicking on Photo and Video Album. You need to name your album and also give description.
Worldwide usage:
Badoo has extensive user base in European countries. Badoo claims that it has 46,953,527 users as of September 26 2009. Badoo has been ranked 134 based on web traffic by Alexa.com(as of 27 September, 2009).
Badoo website visitors are from Italy-16.2%, Spain-12.6%, France-11.0% according to Alexa.com as on 27 September 2009.