Why Bigadda.com failed?

With the re-entry of Google into the social networking space with Google Plus and Facebook already dominating this space, there is little space for other social networking players to make their presence felt to users. Constant innovation is the key to survival and the Internet space has proved this time and again. Google with its Orkut was once a giant in this space, but with the rise of Facebook, it faced a dearth of users and today is almost on the verge of being extinct. No wonder the Internet giant came up with Google Plus to secure its place in this competitive space. But all are not as lucky as Google and Facebook. The Indian social networking site Bigadda.com is one such victim of this war and is now under transformation in an effort to survive in the Internet space.

Bigadda.com, started as a social networking site in 22 August, 2007 for the Indian youth by Anil Ambani's Reliance group. Many youth icons such as photographer Atul Kasbekar, actor Dia Mirza, director Madhur Bhandarkar, singer and lyricist Shankar Mahadevan and golfer Irina Brar were roped in to promote and help the site grow. But with the entry of Google Plus and Facebook creating a mark in this space, it scattered the dreams of Reliance to ride on a bigger broadband revolution.

Hence, in search of greener pastures, the company has decided to enter the e-commerce segment which is in boom by revamping Biadda.com to Shop.Bigadda.com. Operational since last three months in the pilot phase, the company claims to have witnessed a reasonable number of orders compared to any recent e-commerce players in India. The site offers items like phones, cameras, computers, gaming and lifestyle items, among many others and has already crossed 2 crore gross value transactions in June. Now it aims to be one of the leading players in India in the next few months with its readers' offers and e-tailing business models combined together.

Bigadda feels that local social networking site will not grow in India, but the sites which have global presence and are popular among youths will be on rise. Many Indian local search engine sites failed to make significant mark in the social networking sites. As Facebook and Skype are into entering a deal to bring video chat service to the social networking site, it definitely is going to bring a big challenge for other social networking sites to withstand this competition. Though with the revamp, the plan is to leverage the increasing penetration of the e-commerce market among the youth, the success or failure of Shop.Bigadda.com will only be told by future.