Mumbai, India based social networking site Vebbler which calls itself a ‘personal network’ uses a ‘Crowd Layering Model’ as the core framework. This model enables people to segregate relationships into different layers so that they get an entirely separate sharing space for each of those relationships without one aspect of their life spilling into another.
Vebbler opened to public beta on November 12, 2013, they were in private beta since August 2013. The platform claims to have crossed 45,000 users from 80 countries and 713 cities across the world. “We see an average of 45% of people returning every day sharing new content, posting new photos and creating new waves (equivalent of hashtags on Facebook and Twitter),” added Sahil Bhagat, Founder of Vebbler.
On what makes Vebbler different from the many similar social networking platforms out there, Sahil answers, “We are trying to make connecting and sharing online similar to how real world relationships work and have thus built the ‘Crowd Layering Model’ which enables people to connect with different relationships on one network itself through different layers, so that one aspect of their life does not spill into another. If other networks are ‘newspapers’, Vebbler is more like a ‘personal diary’, a place where you can be yourself and express yourself freely.”
Users from Asia account for 30,000 users shares Sahil. Growth in Mainland China has been slow compared to other Asian regions such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Taiwan and Pakistan.
“Our growth strategy is to focus on the rapidly expanding Asian social media market rather than expanding in fairly saturated markets of the West. Asia-Pacific has the largest social network user base, with an audience of 777 million people and a share of 44.8% of social network users worldwide expected by the end of this year. This is more than triple the size of Latin America’s social network audience. Analysts have predicted that the largest user growth is going to come from countries like India and China and our aim is to capitalize on that,” adds Sahil quoting an eMarketer report.
Since the launch in November 2013, Vebbler has launched a mobile version and added features like Layered Chat and Private Messaging. Chat and private messaging offers the ability to instantly communicate with your connections and those within the network. It also uses the Crowd Layering Model to allow people to switch on / off any particular layer, depending on how one wishes to share with the people around him. For example, a person could be on vacation and would like to switch off from workmates while still connect with friends and family.
“The key for us is to crack China’s market, and this is a big challenge for us considering the fact that several social media platforms from outside the country have been blocked,” shared Vebbler founder Sahil Bhagat about specific plans for China.
Vebbler is currently available only in English, and the team plans to offer the service in more languages in the coming months.
Croud layering model is nothing but a exxagerated name of what google plus already offers.