This lecture is a case study on an effort to develop social networks in developing countries

1. The rise and fall of Ghanaian
hiplife.com: Lessons from a failed
business model
Idongesit Williams PhD Student
CMI Aalborg University Copenhagen

2. Outline
• Reasons for starting the Ghanaian Hiplife
social network
• Operational concepts
• Platforms used
• The business model
• Challenges
• Successes
• Failures
• Lessons learnt

3. 1.Inspiration for the business
• The business was inspired by 'success' of
social networking hence there was a need to
create a Ghanaian identity online
• How to attract Ghanaians. (niche creation)
-- what do they like most (Hiplife, Highlife music)

4. Opportunities for starting up
• Video sharing using Youtube
• Free social network platform provided by ning.com
• You can start the network with little or no cash
• Domain name was $10 a year
• Possibility of gauging traffic free via Google analytics
• Flexibility in the importation of applications to the site
• Possibility of using the text box to put up
advertisements

5. Conceptual flow of content
Picture sharing (this was the most popular)
Blogging (not used much)
Ability to customize your personal page and add
applications (lots of wizard applications)
Birthdays
Walls
Badges
Sample Ning platform
Usercontentpipe
Usercontentpipe

6. 2. Operational Concepts
User centered approach
• Online video concert festival
• Broadcasting of member announcements
Broadcasting member posts
• Encouraging members to brand
themselves

7. • Technology platform: A technology that enables the creation of products and processes
that support present or future development
• Main Technology Platform was Web 2.0 - is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information
sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site allows users to
interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual
community, in contrast to websites where users (consumers) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created
for them. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web
applications, etc
• Economic platform: Two sided markets/Two
sided networks: These are economic platforms having two distinct user groups that provide
each other with network benefits. Example markets include credit cards, composed of cardholders and merchants; HMOs
(patients and doctors); operating systems (end-users and developers), travel reservation services (travellers and airlines);
yellow pages (advertisers and consumers); video game consoles (gamers and game developers); and communication
networks, such as the Internet. Benefits to each group exhibit demand Economies of scale. Consumers, for example, prefer
credit cards honoured by more merchants, while merchants prefer cards carried by more consumers.
3. Platforms used

8. Economic Platform
Content Producers
• Youtube
• Metacafe
• Daily motion
• Users
NB. The Ghanaianhiplife.com
becomes an extended
platform for Youtube,
metacafe and Daily motion
content
Content Consumers
• Users
Ghanaianhiplife.com was meant
to be a homogenous platform as
users were to create and use
their content. However it was
also a two-sided market as
content came from elsewhere
which had nothing to do with the
users.

9. 4. The Business Model
(Faber et al (+Osterwalder): Business model
ontology) so called business model canvas
• Service architecture
• Technology architecture
• Financial architecture
• Organizational architecture (actors)

10. Service Architecture
• Video sharing and the ability to upload videos (Hiplife
videos)
• Picture sharing (this was the most popular)
• Blogging (not used much)
• Ability to customize your personal page and add
applications (lots of wizard applications)
• Birthdays
• Walls
• Badges
• News Rss feeds from Google yahoo and some local
news (users not very interested)

11. Technology Architecture
• Internet Service Provider (MTN)
• Web 2.0 platform (Ning)
• Web hosting (Ning, Godaddy and later name
cheap)
• Mobile and internet payment platform (
Alertpay)

12. Financial Architecture
• Income
Income from Google AdSense and other AdSense programs
Income from price differentiated advertising
Planned for later - income from subscription and specific content access
• Expenditure
Paying for ISP services (Pay as you go service)
External advertisement,
Monthly payment to Ning (a year after the free package, I upgraded)
Yearly payment to Godaddy and later Namecheap (domain names)

13. Domain name providers
at a cost
Advertisers on the
site
Advertisment to get users
Service platform
Internet Service Provider
Expenditure
Advertiser that never
came on
Offline corporate
bodies
Income

14. Organizational design
• Ghanaianhiplife.com (Me)
• External platform partner (Ning)
• Internet Service Provider (MTN)
• Content support from Youtube, Daily motion,
metacafe, Facebook etc (Free)
• Advertisers
• External advert platforms

15. Challenges
• Impossible to post reward to those who deserved to be rewarded
• I lived in a country that was not supported by PayPal and other online payments
• Google and other online advertiser, refused to allow other advertisers compete on the
same platform. My AdSense account was suspended for anti AdSense activities
• Users were only consumers of information and not producers. There were 4 active producers
• out of 4000 users and about 50 or thereabout who were only interested in posting pictures.
• Local advertisers were refusing to come on board even when we had about 17000 clicks a month on our
Google Adwords advertisement campaign. They wanted a brand that they hear on radio and TV. That
was their way of testing your popularity. I had to contract an external advert personnel to help out.
• Expenditure bill was going up, there was very minimal income from Google (this was lost during the
account suspension
• The other competing advertisers, like Yahoo, Bidvertiser, etc could not deliver a cent
• to augment for the loss of the Google account (which was almost nothing).
• Users got tired of seeing the same old content and were also not willing to post more.
• This was because, most users accessed the site from internet cafes. Some didn't know how to use the
site.
• The 3G pre-paid modem had little capacity to upload tutorial videos that was produced to help those who
are not able to use the site.
• Illetracy.
• NIng platform wasn't very flexible
• I had to ward away spammers
• Competition with TV. The artists were seen always on TV

16. Success /Failures
Successes
• 4000 in three years
• Network effect among people
Failures
• No revenue came in

17. Lessons Learnt
• Culture affects the success of the niche you chose to provide
service.
• Path dependency in thought of users are important
• Critical research is needed into the behaviour of potential partner
platforms especially when they are big. Will their strive to protect
their territory hurt you terribly.
• Lack of funds hampered the lack of innovation which was possible
• Business models must be flexible as issues like partner policy and
government policy can
• knock you out in a day.
• Incentive planning for users should be factored into the initial
development of a business model
• Have a proper understanding of how the value chain in the business
you intend to join works

18. Things to note
• Interdependence of business models coming up
as the business world converges.
• Competition this days is about business models
and survival of the fittest
• The future of product and services platform is
being guided by the force of digitization. Hence
businesses develop their business models around
emerging technologies as a way of reaching a
wider audience. However, they also build
protective covers around them to enable their
ever evolving business model survive.

19. Exercise
• What do you think should have been done in
the case study that wasn't done to keep
the company afloat? Was the business model
good or bad?