In a world where scale matters and players must continually reinvent themselves, it saddens us to see that not all make it through the metamorphosis.
Multiply Marketplace was a social networking service that first started in 2004 and built a 11-million strong community around blogging, photo sharing, videos and more.
In 2012 they moved their base from Florida, USA to Indonesia. The task at hand was to offer e-commerce services to the 350 million strong market in Philippines and Indonesia, while also discontinuing their blog services.
Fast forward just a few months and they were left with customers numbering less than 10% of their community. May 2013 marked the closure of their operations. Customers in the Philippines now move to Sulit.com.ph, those in Indonesia to Tokobagus.com. I wonder, was their community considered to be a key stakeholder to be consulted as decisions were taken? In these days when every business represents precious employment and productive flows, a decade of loss of precious goodwill, destroyed in a matter of months is a matter of some regret.
There is no doubt opportunity in online payment, mobile payment, other forms of digital payment and the over 32 services we describe on this site as part of what we term digital money. The danger may lie in burning bridges too soon, and expecting new lines to be an extension of old ones. While internal strategic and tactical adjustments are no doubt essential for achieving success, the most important consideration is your customer – is what you plan to do really the kind of evolution they would be delighted to hear about?
If you are considering an expansion or venture in Digital Money, you may find assistance in the knowledge base we’ve shared in this portal. Over 15,000 content pages are available including profiles, market data, regulatory inputs, case studies and detailed competitive analysis. This is continually refreshed and laid out so as to be fully searchable and in-context. Do try the Search tool at the top of the page. Over 2013 we hope to have fewer blogs that talk of closure, and an explosion of successes! This portal is in beta mode, so I apologise if it takes you time to find the good stuff. Ping us if you need help in finding something you need.
What do you think?
Congratulations Charmaine on setting up this fantastic portal on Digital Money!
About a decade ago, I got fascinated with the very concept of money: what is money? How does it work? I could never understand money like I can understand mathematics. The best answer we got was a self-referring one: Money works because it works.
If people can trust and assign value to a piece of colored paper with funny signs and majestic pictures of leaders, then that paper is worth a lot to the holder of that paper. A different form of value can be a hard good: a metal like gold. Or if we all agree on and trust the numbers in a computer’s storage, or on printed sheets (even if fraudulently produced by a Bernard Madoff) , then that too is a form of money. That is digital money, and it has been around for a few decades. Of course, once money is a bunch of digits protected by another bunch of digits (SSL, digital certificates, etc), then it can move really fast and easily among computers around the globe. People called it hot money. Now money is getting to mobile computing devices to create digital wallets. And then something else will come. Those that continue to hold on to any fixed notion of money are bound to go the way of Multiply Marketplace.
Once again, congratulations on creating a great portal to inform people about digital money in all its forms and processes.