More recent post: Nasza klasa and facebook

Monetto was kind enough to send me their press release, announcing partnership that they concluded with Nasza Klasa (Polish equivalent of classmates, but more of a Facebook phenomenon in terms of popularity).

Not that I could do anything with the material while in the Ukraine, but still a point for their PR.

One curious thing is the homepage screen shot they attached to the press release.

Some static elements are evidently in a “draft” state at the moment, and it’s not clear if the core functionality (transactions) has the same status. Placeholder for press snippets shows that Monetto has really high hopes. Folks at bankier should take note.

Back to the main point. From the press I understood that:

• Monetto signed letter of intention with Nasza Klasa regarding the partnership, which will work as the following (in my understanding) -
• Users of Nasza Klasa will be able to “confirm” their profile using Monetto capabilities (more info on blog entry: “test” money transfer and sending ID scans by email)
• Additionally, NK user will be able to indicate on his profile that he wants lend/borrow money
• Nasza Klasa hopes that it will improve credibility of the service (validation of profiles) and reduce problem of fake profiles
• Monetto hopes that users redirected from Nasza Klasa will in part get interested in P2P lending and use its intermediation
• The actual contract between two sites has not been signed yet

Meanwhile the release was picked by Gazeta Wyborcza, which reprinted it, without hesitating to spin the point about raising Nasza Klasa credibility to describe it as a site which “more and more often raises mixed feelings”. Get over it, Gazeta.

But in the end they comment that the deal has a high potential for both sites and can harm competitors a lot and especially kokos.pl.

My first thoughts on the deal below.

• Clearly having a user flow from a popular social site would be of tremendous advantage to Monetto
• But is profile verification really an attractive driver for users of Nasza Klasa? Why would anyone want to verify a profile on NK? It is used to post vacation photos and comments on forums, hardly a credibility-driven activity
• Moreover, if someone joins my class with a proper name of a classmate and his photo, then I’m pretty satisfied with the chances that this is the actual guy, and even if not, who cares
• Don’t get me wrong, fake profiles might be a problem for NK itself, but is it really for its individual users?
• Are “friends” on Nasza Klasa a good group of potential lenders/borrowers? In my case for sure not (lending to people I haven’t seen for 10 years?). Are younger people using NK? I don’t know
• Antyweb adds that NK users will not appreciate being marked as “in need of money”
• On the other hand, portals like Goldenline have more “serious” profile, and users might it attractive to “add value” to their profile by validation (for example in hope to increase chance of being picked up by headhunter)
• Surely Goldenline has less users, but they are more “business” oriented – but still with plenty of students – and Monetto wants to target more serious loan tickets (at PLN 3,000)

I’m sure Monetto will benefit from marketing point of view, not so sure about target group. As for Nasza Klasa, I cannot see practical advantage, on a first glance (money from referrals to Monetto probably neglectable).

Interesting comment on netto post – Ols suggests Allegro as a better partner, because additional verification makes sense for an auction site. My first thought was GL because it’s social network, but allegro also makes quite a lot of sense.

Anyway, I found it while looking up some unexpected contact of today. They had a salsa group so I registered out of curiosity (haven’t been to salsa for ages, I prefer horse riding lately because it’s in the open air, even if there are hardly any girls to be met).

Ok small update: after 5 minutes, while breaking from writing this to read some blog entry about unsolicited invitations in goldenline, I got unsolicited invitation from a headhunter. Heh.

Anyway check my profile, with the most dressed-up picture I got (scanned it today for a proposal).