What Do Globe Philippines and PT XL Axiata Indonesia Have in Common?

Aside from they're both TELCO (telephone communications),

* They both launched a social network site last year, 2009 -- PIXLINK for Globe PH, and funbook for XL Axiata ID.

* Both their social network sites -- PIXLINK and funbook -- have, more or less, similar format, look, and even the features.

Both the format of their home pages are strikingly similar -- list of features on the top, a picture on the left side, then the recent, most rated, and most commented pics on the lower left. Then, top tags on the lower right side of the home page.

Both PIXLINK and funbook have the same list of features except for one feature. They both have: My Media, Friends, Public Media, and Upload. But they differ with PIXLINK having Get PIXLINK, while funbook has Media Map.

Get PIXLINK is for you to download a PIXLINK widget into your mobile phone, while funbook's Media Map is a display of map with the pictures so you can see pictures based on location. I'm not really sure if I get the Media Map right, though.

* But scrolling down the home page of PIXLINK and funbook, you will see another thing they both have in common -- both are powered by Pixsense.

 So who is this Pixsense?

Let's just say that with people now more active using their mobile phone -- browse, upload pictures to their different social sites, email, and IM. They are now posting more contents to facebook, twitter, google, and other user-generated-content sites. Then, these social sites monetized the users' contents via Ads. 

So if you look at the equation of who gets more profits. TELCO can only earn from the internet data charges, while social sites and other media sites earn from ADS and other way they can monetize from their users. So it can mean that social / media sites may have a bigger chunk than the TELCOs.

A lot of data -- SMS, MMS, images -- pass through the TELCOS line but they cannot make money out of it, except for the SMS / calls / internet fees. But who does not want an extra income from ADS? TELCOS kind of have a google-envy. Well, the local TELCOS used to provide us ADS, which they called it information text or VAS (value-added service) to sugarcoat it but then Sen. Enrile axed it.

This is where Pixsense enters. They are provider of Mobile Social Platform (MSP).

"PixSense MSP™ (Mobile Social Platform) enables mobile operators to monetize user generated media through social networking

PixSense provides a media-management platform to mobile operators for monetizing user-generated mobile media. By providing a tight integration with the operators’ billing and messaging infrastructure, PixSense’s MSP platform allows rapid monetization of social-media services and third-party applications. A developer API exposes these capabilities to third-parties who can seamlessly integrate into the service and create compelling applications and revenue-generation opportunities. PixSense offers MSP in a unique operator-friendly business model based on revenue-sharing." (Quoted from their Products page)

So TELCOS can now have their own social sites without having to build from scratch. So instead of facebook, twitter, google making money from the pictures and data that pass through their fiber optics, they can now also profit from it.

So now what?

This can be interesting. Because instead of building your own social network site, and doing the marketing to get users to use your site. You can also do it like Pixsense, create a generic social network site platform then offer it to TELCOS or anybody interested. Then, the TELCOS or other parties can then do the marketing part.