India's online social scene

To read the Business-Standard in India, you could think India owns the social Web, or at least is second only to the US in this space. “Close to a dozen social-networking sites focused on India – yaari.com, minglebox.com, reddiffconxions.com, zhoom.com and humsubka.com to name a few – have sprung up over the last three to four months.” Then there’s Fropper.com, one of India’s first, Saffronart.com “for those interested in Bollywood and Indipop music, techtribes.com for IT corporates, professionals and engineering students, Memsaab.com, and even a business networking site siliconindia.com.” Memsaab.com is a social site for Indian women based in Hollywood, with “chapters” in Delhi, Mumbai, Sydney, London, Toronto, and Johannesburg, according to a press release about it. According to the Business-Standard, an Indian market-research firm found that Orkut is in the country’s Top 10 “online brands” for India’s 23 million active Internet users, 9-10% of whom are active on social-networking sites.