I, for one am betting on it, when I released my Indian Premier League application, I did so on Facebook, not on Orkut, India’s leading social network which has its application platform coming out soon, and the reasons were manifold:
Firstly, while Orkut remains the social networking of choice for India, people are gradually moving towards Facebook. A year ago, Orkut was in the news for some controversies (which I shall not be talking about here), and people jumped on to see what it was all about. Wannabe networks like iBiBo jumped in with active TV and Radio advertising, with “enchanced” features that were basically “inspired” by Facebook. Now that people are finding out what the world uses, they’re jumping ship to Facebook.
Perhaps most importantly, Facebook was easier to develop for, plain and simple. Facebook provides a host of features, and by far the simplest integration with their system and interface. Moreover, Orkut’s platform is to go public in April, but its having trouble. Considering that the IPL kicks off on April 18, I ran the risk of working hard and creating an app that might never see the light in time.
People already know about Facebook apps, it’ll take some time for people to realize the potential of the Orkut platform when it finally happens, that said, those first to the platform can make huge gains, but the risk was not worth it for me, considering my app has a two month peak window.