BigAdda launches regional language messaging

The social media site has introduced regional language messaging in eight Indian languages and it has plans to use local occasions to promote its brand

BigAdda.com, the social media site of Reliance ADAG, is eyeing Tier II towns such as Tuticorin, Bhilai, Amritsar, Guwahati, Surat and Nashik in India. And in order to promote its services in these cities, the site is offering its messaging service in eight Indian languages, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.

Regional language messaging is based on the transliteration concept, which converts a message written in English into other languages as the user types in English or using an online keyboard.

BigAdda launches regional language messaging

Siddhartha Roy

Siddhartha Roy, chief operating officer of BigAdda.com, explains the reason for launching regional language messaging, “48 per cent of our user base comes from smaller towns and this shows that youth from smaller cities are accepting social networking as a product.” He adds that BigAdda will extend the regional language feature in all its sections which facilitate text communication. BigAdda.com claims to have a user base of more than 1.25 million.

For now, regional language messaging is enabled only in the Scribble and Addas sections, which are similar to the Scrapbook and Communities sections of Orkut.com, Google’s social media site. Later, the feature will be extended to other sections as well, including Blogs and Forums.

Regional language messaging on social media sites is not new. In October 2007, Orkut.com introduced five Indian languages in its messaging service, Scrapbook. However, another popular social media site, Facebook.com, still does not offer messaging in any Indian language.

“BigAdda will offer its services on the mobile phone in the next few months and it will offer regional language services there as well,” says Roy.

The site is also planning to use regional occasions to promote its site among the youth in smaller cities. For example, it has tied up with Myntra.com to sell customised Holi T-shirts to its members. Myntra.com offers custom designed products such as T-shirts, mugs, greeting cards and posters.

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