Amazing. Twenty-year-old student Jerome Uy of the Mapua Institute of Technology has built his own Friendster / MySpace rival for his country, the Philippines.
The site is called Oyaye (pronounced Oh-ya-yeah) and has about 8,000 members since November last year.
According to Inquirer.net:
While attending his National Service Training Program class, he found it impossible to keep up with the information posted by their professors on Yahoo Groups to collaborate the events and assignment on the Internet. So he went ahead and developed his social networking website.
It doesn’t appear to be a replacement for Friendster’s popularity in the region, but the potential to corner the local market is definitely up for grabs.
It’s always great to see young talent taking the first steps in leap frogging both technology and culture.
Filed under: Social Media
You might also consider and give credits to other filipino site like http://WWW.KABERKS.COM as one of the first Social Networking Site in the Philippines.
I highly salute the team behind Kaberks! a pinoy site that we can be truly proud of.
Mabuhay mga Kaberks!
Visit their site at:
http://www.kaberks.com
i know another filipino social networking site. They just launched this month. Check them out and see if they have cool features. http://www.Punkai.com
Have fun!
A great Filipino networking site is http://www.zettapod.com. You can put up your online shop in Zettapod, unlike in other sns where your profile is strictly for NON commercial use. Filipinos being keen on online business sites, Zettapod is one place you can store both business and personal accounts for free. Support Pinoy!
The site Oyaye was up and active for a time. I was a member of Oyaye before. But then it was shut down by the founder last year. There are also many Ning based social networks that came up which are more focused on niche areas of social networking.
I wonder why he shut it down. I’m guessing Facebook (and Ning as well) probably made lots of Filipino social networks obsolete.
Facebook is currently strong in the Philippines as well as Multiply. However, most are still maintaining their accounts in Friendster. I think the irony with Oyaye is that after it disappeared, more than 20 new Pinoy social networks showed up (focused on their own niche areas). Most of these are based on Ning as it is very easy to create one’s own social network there.