Greg Tseng and Johann Schleier-Smith created Tagged.com
in October 2004 by with
ambitions of “[building] a Teen Yahoo! or the next MTV.” They launched the site
with about $1 million from their savings (Businessweek).
In just two months, they managed to reel $7 million in venture capital
from Mayfiled Fund of Menlo Park, California. It was also in this short amount
of time that Tagged.com’s traffic hit 1.6 million unique page views.
Tagged started off much like Facebook, but struggled to retain site
loyalty and their identity by adding (but not gaining traction from) similar
features like Facebook’s ever-popular news feed function to their social
network. Growing tired of chasing after the ascent of Facebook, the founders
soon made the decision to reinvent the company to help people make new
relationships in a short amount of
time, rather just keeping in touch
with existing friends.
What kind of channel is it?
Tseng and
Schleier-Smith coined Tagged as a “social discovery” channel. With 75 percent
of users using Tagged to meet new people, they worked to facilitate
interactions that people weren’t getting on Facebook. Their success is in part
due to honing in on this differentiation and building off the idea of social
discovery.
Target audience, user numbers, and growth
Hitwise ranked Tagged as
the third largest social network in the U.S. in 2011, behind Facebook and
MySpace. Originally targeted at teens 13-19 years old, Tagged opened its doors to all ages to increase its
range of potential users in October 2006. According to company statistics, 74
percent of users are over the age of 21, and the vast majority of users are
evenly distributed between the ages of 18 to 44 (HowStuffWorks.com).
After acquiring social network hi5 in 2011, it became available in 220 countries and
18 languages, with more than 20 million monthly unique visitors, 100 million
registered users and revenue exceeding $32 million (Entrepreneur). Collectively,
the users form over 100 million new connections and consume over 5 billion page
views per month. As shown in the screenshot below, Tagged visitors are on
average on the site for about 20 minutes, with almost 16 daily page views:
 |
| Statistics from Alexa.com |
In Greg Tseng’s article, How A
Startup Pivots: The Tagged Story (So Far), he admits that Tagged’s growth
was made possible by their pivot into the new space of social discovery. With a
mission “to enable anyone to meet and socialize with new people,” they focused
efforts on the core human need of meeting and socializing with new people that
had been neglected online before Tagged’s existence.
What does it do?
At Tagged, businesses can use filtered search to meet others for sharing
activities. In this way, it acts as a content community and businesses can use
the Groups feature for common interests, social games, and a “What’s New” news
feed to focus on meeting people with an “Everyone” tab, where users can see the
updates and photos from anyone on Tagged, subject to their filters. Powerful
recommendation algorithms back these features, deciding which 100 of 100
million users are recommended to users.
In an effort to expand on
services, Tagged acquired Digsby in
2011, allowing users to
interact with social networks, webmail and instant messaging. Also realizing
the key matchup in social and gaming, Tagged purchased WeGame to bolster
their own gaming prowess. Both of these features make brands much more
accessible, interactive, and fun.
How does it work?
Accessing Tagged can happen one of two ways: going
to the website directly and registering for a free account, or by receiving an
e-mail from someone in your contact list inviting you to join Tagged so you can
see a friend's newly uploaded Tagged photo album.
After finishing the registration process, the user
is brought to an interface similar to Myspace to fill out a personalized,
public profile with a picture of himself or herself. Once that’s complete, they
can begin using the following features:
- A journal which serves as a blog,
- Sending bulletins to friends,
- Games such as poker,
- Watching videos,
- Collecting "pets" (other users on the site)
For $20/month, a brand/business could upgrade to a VIP
account, letting them see who’s viewing their profile. They can have access to more features by earning virtual
"gold" for completing certain actions (such as answering a marketing
survey), and then using that gold to buy digital gifts for their new friends. This informal engagement with friends will make for plenty of evangelists for your brand.
Integration with other social channels - It's mobile-friendly!
Since Tagged fought so hard to distinguish itself as a viable social
network, there is no integration with other social channels outside of its
recruiting email. This does not mean that a business cannot create an automated
post or tweet mentioning how the user is interacting with the company on
Tagged. The post/tweet uploads itself upon user registration if the user
registers with Facebook or Twitter. 80 percent of Tagged members also use
Facebook as an alternative service, so there is a good chance of a company “shout-out.”
There was once hope that this overlap would allow for the two to grow in tandem,
but Facebook simply overhauled the market share.
Increasing mobile connectivity options and
offerings for Tagged users was a major priority in 2011, and led to Tagged launching a new mobile website at http://m.tagged.com, and
creating an Android app that further
complimented Tagged products and services for consumers to meet new people on
the Internet. This suite of
mobile Tagged products lets users handle some essential features like friending
and sending messages, as well as location-based,
real-time chat, a redesigned user profile presentation, and a grid view for
friends. Brands will now be accessible via mobile when the app is used.
In Kim-Mai Cutler’s article, Tagged Adds Some Great Features to its Mobile
App, I found that Tagged’s usage leans more toward the mobile web and Android
than the iPhone. Forty-six percent access the site through the web, 32 percent
through Android and 28 percent through an iPhone, with some people using more
than one method.
From a
business perspective, Tagged profiles also offer more customization and allow
users to engage in more personal and open behavior. This makes it a bit harder
for a big corporate brand to break in, but it gives small personal businesses
like personal trainers, media personalities, photographers, cosmetologists, and
other businesses a place where the personality of the owner can contribute to
the bottom line.
Sources:
Armstrong, M. 11 July 2011. “Tagged Adds Some Great Features
to its Mobile App.” Mario Armstrong: TV Host, Digital Lifestyle Expert, &
Entrepreneur. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
Arrington, M. 19 Apr 2011. “Tagged Buys Popular
Social/Instant Messaging Client Digsby.” Tech Crunch. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
Chandler, N. (No Date). “How Tagged Works.” HowStuffWorks.
Retrieved 28 June 2014. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/social-networking/networks/tagged.htm
Cutler, K. 13 April
2011. “Social Network Tagged Adds Mobile Website, Touches Up Android, iOS Apps.”
Inside Mobile Apps. Retrieved 1 July 2014. http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2011/04/13/social-network-tagged-adds-mobile-website-touches-up-android-ios-apps/
Hempel, J. and Lowry, T. 26 Feb 2006. “Who Says Money Can’t
Buy Hipness?” Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
Tseng, G. 3 Jan 2011. “How a Startup Pivots: The Tagged
Story (So Far).” Tech Crunch. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
Wang, J. 20 Oct 2011. “How Tagged Made a Turnaround for
Growth.” Entrepreneur. Retrieved 28 June 2014. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220449
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