Facebook, Badoo and Twitter: Where Nigerians Can Find Love, Lust And...Fraud?

[Vunderkind]

So we hear that the average cost of using a dating website is 20 pounds (that’s N5439.48 by today’s conversion rate). Wow. No wonder a lot of singles are boycotting dating sites to find true love on free social networks like Facebook.

According to Jana (a marketing firm), Facebook tops the list of websites single people patronize in search of Aphrodite’s magic. Sampling 1,500 people ranging from 18-30 years of age in nine countries has turned out some interesting results we are all too eager to share.

According to stats – drawn from DailyMail.co.uk – Facebook is the most popular ‘dating social network’, with Twitter coming second, and MySpace (surprisingly) jogging in third place in certain parts of the nine countries.

The nine countries used in this study are India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Kenya, Nigeria, Mexico, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico.

IBISWorld might be filled with myriads of data, but one is striking – the online dating industry is pulling in cash, and is said to be worth in excess of $2 billion worldwide.

Twitter is the third site of choice for people in Nigeria, South Africa and India. It would appear that the Vietnamese are more outgoing than most, with the highest percentage of people who have met someone online (67%).

The general consensus, however, is that online dating allows you glimpse the motley group of humans around, giving you the rare connoisseur privilege of meeting a lot of people with different tastes and lifestyles. However, for others, this is exactly the disadvantage of online dating: you have to search through millions of people to find the right person.

Most people say they fancy Facebook for their online trysts as the Facebook people tended to be more honest in their profiles than people on dating sites.

Nigerians are the Number Three Most Famous Online Fraudsters

With online dating fraud costing the victims more than 24.5 million pounds yearly, caution needs to be applied in these matters. Love might be blind, but the e-Love probably requires contact lenses.

In the scene of online dating fraud, the most fraudsters come from England, then the US, followed by Nigeria, Ghana and Russia.

 

[LequteMan]

I don't think badoo is that popular in Nigeria. Plus twitter is catching on fast.

 

[Vunderkind]

Well. Perspective. Social media junkies (of which I am one) don't think much of Badoo, seeing as it inches closer to being more of a dating and random hookup site than a strictly social media website.

However, believe me on this - Badoo is very popular in Nigeria. Last year's (December's) Alexa listing of Nigeria's 100 most visited sites (here) puts Badoo as the 11th most visited website by Nigerians.

 

[LequteMan]

However, believe me on this - Badoo is very popular in Nigeria. Last year's (December's) Alexa listing of Nigeria's 100 most visited sites (here) puts Badoo as the 11th most visited website by Nigerians.

I just checked the site on alexa. Seems it's traffic rank is dropping again.



It's only a matter of time before Twitter displaces it from the second position.

 

[Vunderkind]

That, I agree. Badoo cannot compete with Twitter, and now that we have discovered Twitter has made a loss of more than $600 million from 2013, we should expect a more aggressive marketing strategy from them...

 

[LequteMan]

^^Good for Twitter.

However, 2nd position is the best for them. The number one spot is for Facebook and I don't see it changing for a while.

I hope Jack Dorsey is contented with that.

 

[The_Astutian]

That, I agree. Badoo cannot compete with Twitter, and ...

What do you expect? Badoo is for Fornicators while Twitter is for Social Majors.