Ben Ling, COO, Badoo & Robert Scoble, American blogger, technical evangelist, and author, Rackspace
Badoo is a sharing and location network – to find people and things. YOu can see interests and similar people., 150m users, 10s of millions monthly users. BL thinks it stands out as it is open platform and they have reached critical mass so friends get friends. RS talked to someone who had been stalked, she assumed this would enable new kinds of stalking. BL thinks the general space of social discovery is a new one. and people choose what to show. Badoo you can choose if to show location. Users share location, but Badoo only does approximate location. Thinks that is sufficient. The radius changes based on population density. Badoo wants to be the best, easiest and fastest way to meet people, It was dating, now it is more. Badoo think it is to bring people, but does not set what to do with them
The easiest thing is to chat with people, it has real time response. You can interact directly. RS asks if you can find people who are knowledgable in a specific area. Badoo are working on this. RS asked about the money. BL says they monetise by allowing users to promote themselves and to buy premium features. THey have been profitable for 2 years.
Badoo do not break out specifics, but mobile is growing faster than the web. When they think about the future, if everyone is on something like Badoo you can interact with anyone nearby with shared goal or common interest. Badoo looks to solve the problem of meeting people, to break down the barriers. As you grow, you add barriers about meeting people. THis is about reducing the friction.
RS asking about social glasses (eg from Google)…are Badoo thinking 2-5 years out? BL yes, they are. THey have a great opportunity. They are popular in EU and Latam, Opportunities in asia and North America. Nearterm they look to scale up and move into those markets
BL says they are partners with Facebook, and they can login with Facebook, add photos. It allows authentication of identity with Facebook. They are thinking about creative ways to leverage that.
RS asks about social proof, that knowing about friends let you know something about a person. BL says working on this. Badoo is largely leveraging the existing infrastructure – phones and location in an intelligent ways. RS asked if any games in plans. Badoo have encounters, which has game mechanics. But no plans for games. Looking at what G+ are doing with APIs, then Badoo goal is to allow access to it. Video chats is a frequently requested feature and looking to add this. Badoo thinks this is networking for everyone. Badoo thinks that the biggest problem is scale
Robert Scoble (Photo @adders)
