Tech blog Gigaom recently broke the news that social networking site Hi5 has received $20 million in VC funding. For those who have not heard of Hi5 it is a wildly popular international social network that claims to have 30 million members and 200 million page views a day. *whoa* so why do so few people talk about Hi5? Either Hi5 has poor PR efforts (internally or outsourced) or, the blogosphere and/or media in general does not give the time of day to sites that are more popular overseas than they are in the US. While not as large as MySpace and Facebook, Hi5 is nevertheless a very big social networking site even in the US. Who knows, maybe the valley frowns upon Hi5’s un-2.0hh roots which began as a matrimonial site for the Indian Diaspora. =)
Let’s face it, living in the US there is sometimes an arrogance towards things that are popular overseas or not based on our soil. Look at Markus’ PlentyofFish and how much self-promotion he has to do in order to get the media attention that he deserves; the poor guy is beating his poor chest more than King Kong. He’s in Canada and is basically the Rodney Dangerfield of online dating despite running one of the most trafficked singles sites on the web. Somehow I sense he relishes this roll =)
While on the topic of Hi5, the site proves that there is brilliance in simplicity. The navigation is basic and as a result, even prior to localizing the site,they gained traction overseas. Ditto with Orkut. Anyway, looking forward to hearing more buzz about Hi5; their traffic is certainly worthy of it.
Life is good.
