Tutlub is an Arabic word meaning “to ask” and is also a social network where Muslims can connect with other Muslims supplicate and learn together as a Muslim family.

Yusuf Hassan, founder of Nigerian start-up Tutlub, launched this social network start-up out of the desire to give Muslims a stronger media base. Late last year, the app was softly launched, allowing Muslims to connect with other Muslims to supplicate, communicate and learn together as an online Muslim family.

Hassan shares with Appsafrica.com the five key areas to watch in social networking;

1. Emerging markets concentration
One major reason many are predicting that the next 1 billion mobile apps users, especially in relation to social network new users, will not be like the last 1 billion users is because these users will be coming from emerging markets. This will shape the development we will be seeing in the social network domain.

2. Data free social networks
The next 1 billion users of social network do not have the financial capability and cheap internet data availability compared to the last 1 billion and for that purpose to penetrate faster social networks such as Facebook will continue to find away to solve this such as the Free basics or Internet.org

3. Advertising will remain main business model
Despite the fact that the per user advertising value of this new 1 billion users will be smaller than the last 1 billion users including United Kingdom, USA, and Germany, business advertising and sponsorship will remain the main business model. The next 1 Billion users are unlikely to pay for usage, by gated features or in App purchase.

4. Concentration on localisation features
Most of the social networks that we have of today represents the social life in the western world and the fact that they are moving their concentration to emerging markets will force their hand to build features that represent this new set up.

5. Niche social networks
I don’t see any new or current social network taking the top position from Facebook. However, I see people switching to or spending more time on social networks that represents their normal daily (offline) life. Representing the amount of time they spend talking about religion, business and many other social activities in real life. And the social networks that represent this will take more of their time. Religious affiliation and religious social Graph forms the basics of social interaction for the majority of emerging market population (example: Brazil, UAE Nigeria, Indonesia and India). We are taking advantages of this at Tutlub and this will make us a force to be reckoned with.