LOOK WHO’S BETTING ON A CARIBBEAN DOT COM BOOM

Alot of companies are betting on the rise of the Caribbean Web-those people and businesses in the Caribbean and Caribbean Diaspora and what they are and will be doing online.

Some of the companies are traditional, others are made-for-the-Internet startups, all, have spotted the trend, the key factors that indicate boundless opportunities for those who target these audiences. In fact the rise of the Caribbean Web is being compared to the start of a dotcom boom similar to that of the United States in the nineties.

SiliconCaribe.com has been tracking and writing about what Caribbean people and businesses are doing online since 2005 and personally I’ve been following trends since 1997 as an entrepreneur myself. What I’ve done is to pull out a number of posts that reveal five of the key indicators that are influencing the development of the Caribbean Web and exciting entrepreneurs because of the many opportunities.

1. Who’s Online that’s Caribbean?

With just under 40 million people living in the English, Spanish and French Caribbean, only 5.2 million or 15% of them are currently online, according to the stats from internetworldtstats.com. By just looking at raw numbers, the Caribbean countries on top are Dominican Republic with 1.5million people online, Jamaica (1.06m), Puerto Rico (1m), Haiti (600,000), Cuba(190,000) and Barbados and Trinidad (160,000). But when you look at the internet penetration rates which indicates the percentage of the country’s population are internet users in the region and compare, what you see is Barbados leading in the region with 59.8%, then Antigua 40%, Jamaica 39.4%, Aruba 34.1% and St Lucia 32%.

It is interesting to note that the Caribbean’s overall Internet penetration rate is three percent below the world average and also that of Central America, both are 18%.

Additionally, 70% of the United States-based Caribbean Diaspora Market is online based on a Western Union commissioned a study in 2007. Add to that, the Caribbean Diaspora market has money and sent US$5 billion to their homelands last year alone, and has an annual disposable income of about US$40billion dollars and according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, there was US$19 billion in two-way trade between the Caribbean and the U.S. alone in a single year. Need we say more.

This shows that firstly there is alot more room for growth in the number of Caribbean people online especially when coupled with the continued developments in broadband roll out and adoption in addition to mobile phone based Internet access.

2. Then let’s have a look at Social Media.

Caribbean Blog Revolution Brewing

The Caribbean is not untouched by the global phenomenon of blogs and blogging. Google check online shows there are hundreds if not thousands of Caribbean and Caribbean focused blogs online. There is also a Facebook group called Caribbean Bloggers Massive that current has 87 members and growing. Knowprose.com a blog written by a Trinidadian has the most complete listing of Caribbean blogs online as well. 

Blog Stats

• Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.

• More than 7 million Caribbean people living in the region are currently online

• 70% of United States-based Caribbean Diaspora individuals are online

• Over 57 million Americans read blogs.

• 9% of Internet users say they have created blogs.

• Over 120 thousand blogs are created every day.

• There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day.

• 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs.

 3. Caribbean Facebook Apps

We had previously reported on Caribbean Facebook apps, but as of this week the count is now five- the latest one to toss their sombrero into the ring is Caribbean Connection from Caribbeanaxis.com, the flagship Yahoo like portal from the TrinJam power posse at CaribbeanIdeas.com.  This app is the most elaborate of the ones out there right now. The app pulls the top stories from its news, professional and lifestyle sections of its site and adds a large lexicon of Caribbean terms and slangs, a trivia section to test your knowledge of the region and of course a tab to invite your friends to join in and take the Trivia challenge. I’m now listed as an Executive level with 1645 points, no real challengers for me yet. Bring it on baby!

That said, the three previous apps are live and doing their thing, the one definitely to watch is Jamaicanjokes.com which has had 33,000 users add it to their profile pages since going live in December ‘07. And while idletribes.com’s app maybe eating a little dust right now, don’t count it out, the site itself has 17,000 members and has some next level shit coming. The very first Caribbean app was by a bunch of Trinis, lawks dem first di Jamaicans dem. This app however was seasonal. Simply Intense Media had created VoteTnT, a virtual Facebook election for the November ‘07 Trinidad elections. You could add the application to cast your vote for the Government of Trinidad & Tobago. It tracked the votes, gathered them everyday to display on your Facebook profile. It was added over 2000 times and has over 1000 votes cast to date, according to the report on Allyuh.com. With only four Caribbean Facebook apps out there, we’re hoping for more out the door this year.

 Then on to one of out most read posts on Siliconcaribe.com

4. Which Caribbean social network will be number one?

The race to become the dominant Caribbean social network has become hot and heavy with players. From the pioneers and the newbie’s to the niche players – which ones are the real contenders in becoming the facebook.com or classmates.com of the Caribbean? We’ve been tracking the development of Caribbean social networks for the past five years and there have been some exciting developments over that time. Chief among them are, that first there is now easier access to social network software in a box and add to that, tech entrepreneurs have been recognizing more of the gaps in the Caribbean market and are gunning to fill them. Subsequently- social media in the Caribbean is mushrooming.

The Pioneers: There are the ones who got in the game before social networks were popular generally but particularly this side of the world. These sites competed with the mindshare dominance of the American based sites such as hi5.com and blackplanet.com. First there is vibesconnect.com, which was started by a Jamaican tech entrepreneur Delroy Frazer. 

Vibesconnect.com started out focused on snagging the Jamaican market, but evolved and is now more focused on challenging blackplanet.com for the general Caribbean and US-based African American online market. Then there is caribbeanmassive.com started by a Kittian tech entrepreneur Rodney Browne. This site made a direct bid for the Caribbean regional and Diaspora market from the start. We also have ackee.com, which started in 1997 and pitched the classmates alma mater angle, where Jamaicans at home and overseas could reconnect with their friends from high school. They have since extended the reach to the Caribbean. These pioneers have been a minimum of five years.

The Newbies: This group of social networking sites threw their hats into the ring less than two years ago some as little as 6 months ago. We have caribfriends.com the newest entrant, started less than 3 months ago by seasoned Jamaican tech entrepreneur. Caribfriends.com focuses on being a general social network but have also added the classmates.com angle. Also in this group we have caribgonewild.com, which focused immediately on the Spanish, English and French speaking Caribbean with their own distinct sections, partially in their own languages all under a single site. Caribgonewild.com was started less than a year ago by a Haitian American entrepreneur living in New York. 

This post was a long one, so please finish reading it HERE.

We also noted that dating sites where popping up more often than a McCain ad on CNN, this sector of the Caribbean web has been developing at a merry clip.

5. More Caribbean Dating Sites online-but is there a clear number one?

Let’s start with the list cause man, has it grown since my last post.

Hypedates.com  

Jampersonals.com 

Jamaicasingles.com 

Caribsingles.com 

Caribcupid.com 

Caribbeanmatch.com

Westindiandating.com

Caribbeansingles.org

Caribbeanconnections.org

Caribnu.com

Count them,we got 10 dating sites now online catering to Caribbean nationals globally. And since publishing this we have had more to add–rainbowvibes.com for Caribbean gays and lesbians, Caribbeandarlings.com and iriematch.com. I’m sure I’ve missed a few. So there’s no excuse for you to be lonely at home busy loving up your blow up doll or overworking your battery operated friend. That little bit of naughtiness out of the way, online dating is big business, just Google plentyoffish and see what I mean, this one site is a US$10 million a year business, started by one guy now run by about 6 people. Dating sites are about hooking people up, people are always seeking love, friendship or something in between and the ability to do it online, have access to people outside of your own country has made it that more appealing.

Additionally, I did a story a while back about Caribsingles.com now being the largest singles site in the Caribbean with over 30,000 active singles and also a profile of jampersonals.com which is the largest Jamaican online dating site.

While Web 2.0 and social networking are in the Caribbean like the rest of the world and we’ve already seeing more and more adaptations of existing American and European sites and platforms that will appeal to the Caribbean user- what is exciting is that there is almost an underground bubbling of activity-an incubation of news ideas geared towards meeting the needs of the Caribbean web user at home and abroad- a very underserved and fast growing audience and culture. There’s so much more to come.

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