Microsoft launches India-focused social networking site WindowsLivePlanet.com
08 July, 2009
by Satrajit Sen
Microsoft India has launched Windows Live Planet, a social networking site designed for the Indian internet users in the 18 to 25 years age group. The company claims that WindowsLivePlanet.com is not just another social network and is devised as a new way to connect to new friends.
“People in India spend a lot of time on social networks looking out for building new connections. But most of the time they are not sure whether the profile they are visiting will be interested to have new friends. Hence, we have introduced a new feature called Match Meter which automatically suggests profiles who can be your friends,” Guneet Singh, lead - integrated marketing and communications, consumer and online, Microsoft India, told AlooTechie.
“There are also other features like the messenger service which are not to be found on other social networks,” informed Guneet Singh. “The website uses the Messenger Web Bar, where users can chat with their Windows Live contacts.”
According to Microsoft, users can sign in to WindowsLivePlanet.com using their Windows Live, Hotmail or MSN account or else can use their Gmail, Yahoo or other email ids to create a new account. After logging in, the website will help users find people with similar interests depending on the data provided by the user at the time of signing up. The users can also import contacts from other social networks like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Hi5 and Tagged.
Microsoft expects WindowsLivePlanet.com to capture a large chunk of the youth between 18 to 25 years of age. “Youth between 18 to 25 years age contribute around 40 per cent of the online population in India. We are targeting that segment,” said Guneet Singh. He also said that WindowsLivePlanet.com is currently launched in India but it can be taken by any other international subsidiary of Microsoft for launching in the particular market.
Yet another social networking site. the only difference is the feature to chat. however the major advantage for microsoft is the existing msn/hotmail users. hence getting the users, which is the most challenging task will be taken care easily.
Great creative work done by MS creative team. Well i think this portal will be able to pullout some youth crowd from others SN portals.
Thanks for this post. I just checked out Windows Live Planet and found it very cool. The web based messenger and match meter are amazing. I found so many interesting faces! Definitely going to spend more time exploring it.
hello all,
Its great to know, that windowsliveplanet.com is only for indian youths. Although i have crossed 25 years of age, i still feel that i can join this social networking site(@29. The homepage design is very lively and colorful.
Hope it turns out to be a successful story.
Best Wishes,
Rahul Sutar
quite a sad UI and user experience . The home page looks with no objective and is pretty poorly equipped to entice a user to go any further. Very disappointed !!!
It’s a place where u can find new & interesting people thru the Match-meter …,quite innovative…..automatic friend suggestions…… sending winks/ask outs…… carrying my buddy list with the web messenger….. lets see what they come up wt next!!
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