During InternetCEE I had the chance to talk to the “big guys” in Baltic Countries, the men who did real success stories in this region, talking about millions and millions Euro. On the other hand they were complaining about their possible entry in Romania and the lack of a solid business partnership with a local company. They do not understand why Romanians are not so “in love” with social networks, and I responded : they are, but ALL the Social Networks projects in Romania were JUNK regarding name, brand, image, marketing, understanding of users as well as a good behavior in market.
One of the Social Networks was rate.ee, and they said they launched already in Romania and Bulgaria the Network under the name Limpa. I don’t know in Bulgaria, but in Romania is not an appropriate name in my opinion : “limpa limpa”.
Today i receive an email from a certain Mary at Yahoo Com:
salz, mi-au suspendat contu de mail :(( nu sunt akasa, o sa iti dau noua mea adresa, asta e a unei prietene. apropo uite un site nou al unui tovaras, inregistreaza-te si tu, e un fel de hi5: www.limpa.ro pune-ti si tu poza aici ca am si eu cont si ne dam voturi,comentarii etc hai k ne mai auzim, ciao, ai grija de tine!
( Hwei, they suspended my mail account :(( , i am not at home, i give you my new adress, this one belongs to a friend. by the way, look a website of a pal of mine, register as user, is a kind of hi5, www.limpa.ro, put your picture here because i have also an account and we vote each other, comments etc see you later, take care! )
Business Brief :
This is SPAM email no doubt : lack of resources
They use another brand name for promotion : Hi5 : no personal identity
Limpa is not a good name to be promoted: lack of local language knowledge
The arhitecture of the email is the same as other SPAM emails i receive : lack of inspiration
The domain name doesn’t belong to them: lack of image, somehow underground business
The company is in Cluj and nobody heard of it : lack of credibility
Conclusion :
Even if rate.ee is a good name in Estonia, in Romania they are very addicted to some old fashion legal-at-limit methods and they benefit of the know-how of … one guy … I thought million dollars business are different but they aren’t !
update : 7 oct 2008 – Limpa is still spamming and doing the business like this
