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December 04, 2006
Skyblog Beats MySpace In France - Battle For Spain, Germany, UK Next
France's Skyblog, a free blog publishing service created by a youth-oriented radio station Skyrock, is featured in BusinessWeek and the news is that its expanding internationally. Recently acquired by a buyout firm, Skyblog went from offering free blogs to offering more community and communication applications: free e-mail, instant messaging, and cell-phone downloads, a bit like the way Yahoo developed its community features, but in reverse.
BusinessWeek writes:
...the success of Skyblog has thrust the company—whose radio market was limited to France—into a whole new realm. Skyblog already has 27% market reach in France, compared to just 5.5% for powerhouse social-networking site MySpace ... Skyblog is holding its ground in France thanks to a raft of innovations. Though it started out with basic blogging, the site has since added free e-mail (SkyMail), instant messaging (Skyrock Messager), and cell-phone downloads (Skymobile). These enhancements have helped Skyrock Chief Executive Officer Pierre Bellanger build a genuine Web community that keeps users on the site. In turn, that increases advertising opportunities and strengthens brand loyalty.
On its chances to compete internationally, we turned to Pete Cashmore, a new media consultant with an excellent blog on social networking sites at Mashable.com. In his blog he reviews it and gives some reasons why he thinks Skyblog has what it takes to compete if it opens up linguistically.
We have some links to other BW articles on European tech ventures. It has increasingly been cover Europe, with features on France's answer to YouTube, DailyMotion, and a couple on The Venice Project from the founders of Skype, and now France's Skyblog. BW has a news bureau in Paris so that is likely reason it covers more of the French market than it does other regions in Europe.
Read - Skyrock and Skyblog Acquired by Private Equity Investors (a:c euro)
Read - Can Dailymotion Challenge Youtube (businessweek)
Read - France's Blogging Phenom Goes Global (businessweek)
Read - Skyblog and Skyrock The French MySpace (mashable)
Posted on December 4, 2006 10:42 AM | Posted to Web 2.0 | Permalink
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