OpenSocial App Developer Mentez Expanding into China
February 20th, 2009 | Published in Google OpenSocial
2008 was a great year for OpenSocial, with dozens of social networks all over the world adopting this standard as their technology of choice for open application platforms. This has greatly expanded the reach of OpenSocial applications to over 600 million users, and social app developers stand to benefit from this global expansion.
At Mentez, our goals are to create useful apps for consumers and to help international brands extend their reach. With OpenSocial, we have learned a lot about building social apps for global audiences, especially for users in Latin America, Europe and Asia.
Late in 2008 many top Chinese social networks, namely xiaonei, 51, MySpace.cn, Tianya, and YiQi all rolled out their support for OpenSocial. We helped sponsor OpenSocial hackathons in December in Beijing and Shanghai, China. Since then we have successfully migrated some of our applications such as 好友方格 (FriendGrid), Popularity, Soccermania to xiaonei and 51.com.
Through this experience we have learned a lot about the market of Chinese social networks. For example, as app developers, it is very important to know who these users are. Xiaonei has a strong presence among university students while 51.com is especially popular with young people who frequent Internet cafes, each with over 30 million monthly active users.
A second critical stumbling block for foreign apps ported to Chinese containers is network latency. Finding local hosting can help here. We are currently on track for procuring servers inside China for large scale deployment as we execute on our goal in 2009 of reaching over 1 million users in China. Visit the OpenSocial wiki for more info on resources (e.g. hosting) about Chinese containers.
Another common issue that app developers face, especially on new social networks that support OpenSocial, is how to monetize. To this end we at Mentez bring a network of 200 developers and a strong team of business developers that let brands and their agencies integrate social channels and networks within their online strategy. Through our deep-rooted connections in advertising industry, we bring advertising dollars, especially from big brand names, to the application ecosystems on social networks, and we are looking forward to working with both social networks and app developers to enhance monetary value for the entire ecosystem.
As OpenSocial continues to take root and gains stronger adoption around the world, we look forward to many exciting opportunities in 2009 and beyond.
At Mentez, our goals are to create useful apps for consumers and to help international brands extend their reach. With OpenSocial, we have learned a lot about building social apps for global audiences, especially for users in Latin America, Europe and Asia.
Late in 2008 many top Chinese social networks, namely xiaonei, 51, MySpace.cn, Tianya, and YiQi all rolled out their support for OpenSocial. We helped sponsor OpenSocial hackathons in December in Beijing and Shanghai, China. Since then we have successfully migrated some of our applications such as 好友方格 (FriendGrid), Popularity, Soccermania to xiaonei and 51.com.
Through this experience we have learned a lot about the market of Chinese social networks. For example, as app developers, it is very important to know who these users are. Xiaonei has a strong presence among university students while 51.com is especially popular with young people who frequent Internet cafes, each with over 30 million monthly active users.A second critical stumbling block for foreign apps ported to Chinese containers is network latency. Finding local hosting can help here. We are currently on track for procuring servers inside China for large scale deployment as we execute on our goal in 2009 of reaching over 1 million users in China. Visit the OpenSocial wiki for more info on resources (e.g. hosting) about Chinese containers.
Another common issue that app developers face, especially on new social networks that support OpenSocial, is how to monetize. To this end we at Mentez bring a network of 200 developers and a strong team of business developers that let brands and their agencies integrate social channels and networks within their online strategy. Through our deep-rooted connections in advertising industry, we bring advertising dollars, especially from big brand names, to the application ecosystems on social networks, and we are looking forward to working with both social networks and app developers to enhance monetary value for the entire ecosystem.
As OpenSocial continues to take root and gains stronger adoption around the world, we look forward to many exciting opportunities in 2009 and beyond.