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CHAPTER 4 INDUSTRIAL COMPETITION ANALYSIS
Section 4.1 Competitors Analysis
Our service is unique compares with the current industry. With the on-going rivalries, our vision for our product will continue withstands. To analyze our competitive advantages and niche, the following will be the list of indirect and direct competitors shown on Table 4.1:
Table 4.1 List of Indirect Competitors: Current Online Social Network – United States
Company Name Objective Description Estimated
Average Age Bebo Bebo is a popular social networking site which connects you to
everyone and everything you care about
28.4
Classmates.com Designed to assist members in finding friends and acquaintances from kindergarten, primary school, high school, college, work and the United States military. It includes content such as high school yearbooks, movie trailers, music tracks, and photographic images.
44.9
Delicious Social Bookmarking service, which means you can save all your bookmarks online, share them with other people, and see what other people are bookmarking
41.3
Digg Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our community
38.5
Facebook Inc. Connect and share with the people in your life 38.4 FriendFeed Real-time feed aggregator that consolidates the updates from
social media and social networking websites, social bookmarking websites, blogs and micro-blogging updates, as well as any other type of RSS/ Atom feed
38.4
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Friendster A global social network that emphasizes friendship and the discovery of new people.
33.4
Hi5 Social gaming and entertainment for the worldwide market.
hi5 is the world's leading social play network, focused on delivering a fun, interactive and immersive experience online to audiences around the world
33.5
Last.fm Last.fm is a music recommendation service. You use Last.fm by signing up and downloading The Scrobbler, which helps you discover more music based on the songs you play.
35.8
LinkedIn Professional Networking 44.3
LiveJournal A vibrant global social media platform where users share common passions and interests
35.2
MySpace Social entertainment destination powered by the passion of fans.
Music, movies, celebs, TV, and games made social.
31.8
Ning An online service to create, customize, and share a social network.
37.8
Reddit User-generated news links. Votes promote stories to the front page
37.4
Slashdot Source for technology related news with a heavy slant towards Linux and Open Source issues.
40.4
StumbleUpon A discovery engine that finds the best of the web, recommended just for you.
38.5
Twitter Social networking and microblogging service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface.
39.1
Tagged Allows users to send messages, leave comments, browse photos, watch videos, play games, give tags and chat.
34.4
Xanga A community where you can start your own free weblog, share photos and videos, and meet new friends too!
32.3
Source: Brian Solis (March 17, 2010) Re: The Age of Social Networks [web blog message]. Retrieve from
http://www.briansolis.com/2010/03/the-age-of-social-networks/ and Secondary Data Compilation
The data from above illustrates a summary of major users on the virtual
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Figure 4.1 Google Earth Viewing Functions
Standford University, Google is currently a multinational public corporation, with revenue of more than 29 billion US dollar in 2010. Google owns many subsidiaries such as the famous YouTube, DoubleClick, On2 Technologies, Google Voice, Picnik, Aardvark, and AdMob. Product includes AdWords Editor Google Chrome, Google Desktop, Google Earth etc., Google, the software majestic company, their holistic developing strength is inevitable or more of non-compete per se.
There are two major services Google Inc. has developed and operate successfully that match Funscouting’s direct competition; they are the online platform base Google Map and an installation required program called Google Earth.
Google Map is one of the main rivalry that threatens Funscouting if they proceed to, Google Earth are divided in four main function, the basic layer is the map view; a 2 dimensional map shows street address, follow by a much more detail satellite view;
a realistic satellite image and bird-eye feature, in addition in 2006, Google uses many satellite image that create a sketch of 3 dimensional imagery, such as Mount Everest and recognizable skyscrapers and tourist attraction. In 2007, Google launched Google Street View; which provides various positions panoramic views along many streets in the world1. Google also create image on dot, which ties images, videos and Wikipedia articles on a particular spot on the map, typically, these spots are within tourist attractions, attraction such as spots near Taipei 101, Musee du Louvre in Paris, France and etc. Recently, in 2011, Google announced, now they bought the Street View idea into a store, business owners now can have their store in 3 dimensional, and shopper can visit or purchase products in store virtually.
1 Wikipedia: Google Street View, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View
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Google Map is a main rivalry of the competition, however on the online platform, here are some of the distinguishable that can be identify on Google Map. Google Map is a mapping service platform, which contains detail information of local streets from street view, 3D images and detail information. Further, Map on the Dot connected closely with Google Picasa that allows users to share the photo they took. In essence Google Map is a direct threat to Funscouting in providing the detail information and imageries that allows users to view on.
On the other hand, Google Earth, an installation based program and is extremely similar platform to Google Map, however, it does exclude the Google Street View function, and include photo function from Google Picasa. Google Picasa would identify the GPS data photo collected on the camera; which to limit to those built-in GPS function cameras, and precisely placed the photo on the world. Further, the users may browse the other photo provider’s work. Google Earth serves the core concept of Funscouting.
Nonetheless Funscouting requires Google Earth and Map in order to operate and function. Funscouting sees the opportunity gap on Google Earth and Map. Rather continuously embrace Google Inc.’s strength, there are weaknesses.
Both Google Earth and Map are not inter-connected; each of the platforms behaves on their own. First of all, as for Google Map, the Street View currently embraces approximately 40 States in United States, and the major cities around the world. They neglected the smaller cities, and completely dysfunctional if there are not on the road street. Secondly, the Google Earth requires installation, although it provides an easy function to locate and post photos only with those GPS data, but cannot identify the photo without the GPS. Lastly, these two interfaces do not
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connected nor do allow users to interact. Therefore, Fuscouting has identified a niche gap that meant to exist.
Funscouting offers more than intergrading function of both Google and Facebook services, the product distinguishes as following: Funscouting provides beyond services from Google Map and Google Earth to puzzle a complete globe together in a community. Further, we provide an interactive gaming service that allows each user to interact with each other on a theme of travelling.
Competitor #2 Virtual Tourist
VirtualTourist.com is one of the largest travel information generated by the users around the world. The company was acquired by TripAdvisor.com, and now owned by Expedia, Inc., here are some of the website’s highlights, there are approximately 1.2 million registered members from more than 220 countries, 3.7 million photos, and 1.8 million travel tips and about 9 million unique users per month.
Based on the highlights, VirtualTourist provides abundance amount of information for travellers, it have listed each destination’s pros and cons and tips. This abundance of information is wonderful for travellers who plan to visit that destination in the future. VirtualTourist prompt to be the most competitive rival to the proposed platform.