Lotus - “Make in Vietnam” social network

The social network "Lotus" - a social network centred around content developed and owned by Vietnamese people, will be officially introduced to users on September 16.

Nguyen The Tan, General Director VCCorp JSC – the developer of the social network.
Nguyen The Tan, General Director VCCorp JSC – the developer of the social network.

The social network ‘Lotus’ project was established, invested from capital of domestic businesses and individuals with the commitment and orientation to become a social network centred around content developed by Vietnamese people,” according to Nguyen The Tan, General Director VCCorp JSC – the developer of the social network.

According to General Director Tan, most social networks operating in Vietnam are not truly professional, with too much focus on news reading but not on users’ feelings, making them unfavorable. Therefore, ‘Lotus’ will overcome these drawbacks to meet the demands of many different users.

The project has been developed by over 200 technical engineers of VCCorp, who are working in various fields of mobile applications, artificial intelligence (AI), Big Data and Cloud Computing. When joining the social network ‘Lotus’, users will gain protected account and identity, and provided a specialized CMS (content management system). “Lotus does not directly compete with Facebook. If Facebook can be considered as a tool to connect people, Lotus is a place for users to track issues and interests that they care about”, explained the investor representative.

In order to obtain high-quality initial content, in this period, VCCorp cooperated with over 500 content creators in 20 different fields like education, economy, photography, story writing, blog and vlog writing, lifestyle, entertainment, music, marketing. It also makes good use of more than 30 sources of formal news.

In addition, the content management system of social network ‘Lotus’ helps content creators design and edit their products to reflect their unique styles and characteristics. The developer has built toolbars to help users can easily create more beautiful, new and vivid content.

Regarding bad and illegal content, Lotus has a mechanism to detect and use many convenient technologies and a censorship team to immediately handle issues, especially fake news. Particularly for information that has not been clearly verified, Lotus will prioritize displaying official news sources such as press agencies or insiders.

The beta version of Vietnamese social network Lotus is expected to be launched on September 16, lasting three to six months. Developers also allow users to use the web registration function to become one of the first to receive an invitation to download the application at www. lotus.vn. After this time, ‘Lotus’ will adjust minor mistakes and formally accept new users. It will also receive feedback from the public to add more necessary features or content.

Developing social networks of Vietnamese people, for Vietnamese is the orientation that was urged by the Ministry of Information and Communications, which called domestic technology enterprises to participate in the construction with the goal of 50 percent of Vietnamese social media customers to use domestic social networks by 2020 or no later than 2021.

The social network is a game that requires money investment and creative content to attract users. Social networks will hardly exist without users and content to share.

In recent years, several social networks have been launched by domestic businesses, including Hahalolo and Gapo.

According to Vu Hoang Lien, Chairman of the Vietnam Internet Association, the building social networks and search engines by Vietnamese people not only benefits the society and users, but also brings economic benefits from revenue of digital advertising, thereby creating many opportunities for domestic businesses.