Uberme, a -like blogging/social networking service from Samsung Mobile, has launched. Featurewise, it's got the whole pakcage; videos, photos, blogs, groups, etc. But the key differentiator of Uberme might be its focus on mobile: Uberme aims to provide as good an user experience on mobile phones as on the online.
All in all, the service looks similar to Myspace and Bebo. But then, none of the big name social network services of the US have established a very strong foothold in the Asian market, perhaps except for Windows Live Spaces. This gives Uberme a chance to become a big player in Asia. Uberme is available in 8 Asian countries and now they are doing an interesting promotion called "Uberhot: In search of Asia's hottest guys and gals". Samsung could be the right company to provide this kind of service, given its mobile phones are sold everywhere in Asia.
Although I'm the CEO of a 20 person company now, up until 4 months ago I was with a 200,000 person company - guess where, Samsung. When I was at Samsung Mobile, I was part of this Uberme project. The team behind Uberme, based in Korea and Singapore, are of "uber" quality both professionally and personally.
Team's quality aside, I should ask the long-term viability of this service (Being outside of Samsung, now I can be more objective). Will a manufacturer-driven service be more successful than that of the specialty players (i.e.Youtube for video, Flickr for photo, etc)? For example, If I had bought a Sony digital camcorder, even if Sony offered a video hosting and sharing service, I would probably just want to post my videos up on Youtube than on Sony's service.
Obviously Apple is an exception here: their device-service integration (iPod-iTunes, iMac-Mac.com) have been enormously successful. So, taking a page from Apple's playbook, Samsung will have to do two things very well to make its Uberme service a hit across the Asia: Make a damn good service, and have the service combined with devices (ie. Samsung's superb mobile phones) seamlessly and beautifully.
All in all, the service looks similar to Myspace and Bebo. But then, none of the big name social network services of the US have established a very strong foothold in the Asian market, perhaps except for Windows Live Spaces. This gives Uberme a chance to become a big player in Asia. Uberme is available in 8 Asian countries and now they are doing an interesting promotion called "Uberhot: In search of Asia's hottest guys and gals". Samsung could be the right company to provide this kind of service, given its mobile phones are sold everywhere in Asia.
Uberme.com main page
Team's quality aside, I should ask the long-term viability of this service (Being outside of Samsung, now I can be more objective). Will a manufacturer-driven service be more successful than that of the specialty players (i.e.Youtube for video, Flickr for photo, etc)? For example, If I had bought a Sony digital camcorder, even if Sony offered a video hosting and sharing service, I would probably just want to post my videos up on Youtube than on Sony's service.
Obviously Apple is an exception here: their device-service integration (iPod-iTunes, iMac-Mac.com) have been enormously successful. So, taking a page from Apple's playbook, Samsung will have to do two things very well to make its Uberme service a hit across the Asia: Make a damn good service, and have the service combined with devices (ie. Samsung's superb mobile phones) seamlessly and beautifully.
