Mobile-First Social Network Eskimi Reaches 1M Users
Social networks are today's darlings: a lot of us use at least one and many strive to build one of their own around a certain aspect of their lives. Eskimi belongs to the second camp: the company offers a mobile-first social network. Eskimi's main purpose is to help users meet new people. To that end, everything is made simple in the service: creating a profile requires only a username, date of birth, your location and gender. Thus, you are free to chat with other users after 30 seconds of using Eskimi.
You can also share photos and send gifts or private messages. Even though the service works both in a browser and as an app, being mobile-first means Eskimi gets most of its traction from mobile platforms. Most of their users come from the emerging markets like Asia, Africa and Latin America. Founded only a year ago in Lithuania, the service today has 1M registered users who generate over 300M pageviews and 60M messages per month.
Eskimi was founded by ActiveSec, Lithuania's leading mobile content provider by revenue. Eskimi's business model is based on virtual goods (like gifts or new skins for a profile) and targeted mobile advertising. The company generated its first revenue back in March 2010 and with so much traction by now it should add up to a substantial sum (no numbers have been disclosed so far).
Going for the mobile platforms in the emerging markets is a smart move. A lot of Internet users in those countries use mobile devices as primary means for online browsing and social networks are growing everywhere. To harness this potential, Eskimi provides a service that is specifically targeted at mobile users and is localized for each country's and culture's specifics.
Ease and accessibility seem be to Eskimi's motto. Though, as Chatroulette's example has shown, the low barrier to entry and the anonymity of the service can turn Eskimi into club for sexual predators. Few advertisers find that demographic attractive and few users would bother buying virtual goods in a service like that.
Eskimi is currenly funded by ActiveSec but it would need to attract more investment from external sources to grow their userbase and establish themselves in more markets. Today the service is growing organically with more than 10 000 new profiles created every day. If that trend continues, Eskimi would easily reach their goal of having 3M users by October this year.
With all respect - you should dedicate more time for facts collecting before writing such articles. I am loyal Eskimi user, therefore I know, that Eskimi was launched 2 years, not 1 year ago. I don't know why they say "just 1 year ago" everywhere - perhaps it's marketing trick to show how fast project is growing. Because 1 mln in 2 years doesn't look so impressive, huh? :)
Thank you for sharing the information, Gadget! According to our sources Eskimi was internationally launched a year ago by the time of the article. Have you been using the service perhaps locally in Lithuania?