MANILA, Philippines — In the world of social networking, Facebook is king with 750 million active users, while Twitter is at close second with around 200 million users worldwide.

Facebook ranks the Philippines seventh country in the world that has the most number of users with more than 25 million users. As of April this year, the country is ranked ninth in the world with most number of Twitter users.

These statistics clearly show that with a brilliant idea, social networking sites can rake in millions and even billions of revenue for its creators. Facebook made US$2billion last year while Twitter made US$140 million in the same year. These sites have made Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter whiz guy Jack Dorsey very, very rich young men!

So it’s not surprising that Filipinos have started trekking on the same path of social networking entrepreneurship since the country always ranks high in these sites.

Life in pictures

One of these promising Filipino-made websites is Piclyf (piclyf.com), a new kind social networking site/blog where you tell your life story through pictures.

Piclyf is like Twitter but instead of 140 characters, updates are in photos. A user’s feed is updated with photos and descriptions by the people he/she follows.

“Piclyf is more like a diary with the picture as the starting point. Ang inspiration namin sa blog, pero ‘yung blogs needs words and paragraphs. Sa Piclyf, there’s pictures, it’s like Flickr but it has a story so puwede ka mag follow ng people and when people follow you when you update, lalabas sa feed nila,” shares Piclyf co-founder and product manager Erik Clark Su.

Established nine months ago, Piclyf is showing promise and already has thousands of users mostly in Davao and Cebu.

Although there are dominant photo sharing websites like Flickr, Tumblr, and Instagram, among others, Piclyf wants to distinguish itself as a photo diary of person where one can tag friends, add notes, put the location to a picture to make it more memorable.

“This is a better way to keep track of my family. We’re not trying to replace Facebook or Twitter, you can link the site to them, it’s complementary. We exist side by side with social networks,” says the 29-year-old Su, BS Information Technology graduate of John Paul II College in Davao.

Photos can also be added under “Topics” for easy organization. They also made the website fun by rewarding its users with badges like “Dog Lover badge” that they can earn while using the website.

“Ito ‘yung problema sa diary, mahirap i-maintain so we invented the game layer so lahat ng stats mo irerecord namin. We have a leaderboard, so tinatally namin kung sino ‘yung top 10, ‘yung pinaka sikat. Then we have badges, like if you had 10,000 views you get a special badge. Pero ang maganda sa badge, it’s not just a gimmick, ‘yung real-world activities we also celebrate,” he explains.

Piclyf also recently released beta testing for the site’s smartphone application for Android and iPhone users.

Silicon valley, Here they come!

More interestingly, several people have already invested in this venture. A Singapore firm has committed a $500,000 investment and Skype co-founder Toivo Annus has also invested in the website. Since the company is only a startup they need more investment to really keep the ball rolling.

Just recently, Piclyf was chosen as one of the five finalists and an early favorite who pitched their startup enterpreises at the ON3 Nationals Pitching Competition, Tech Funding Olympics held at the Department of Science and Technology Expo 2011 at the SMX Convention Center.

Organized by the Science and Technology Advisory Council, Silicon Valley (STAC-SV), the competition is looking for three promising technology-based startups and immerse them at Silicon Valley, California USA, which includes a dedicated three-month training, mentoring and coaching at Plug and Play (PnP) Tech Center in Sunnyvale, California, a company that helps start-ups grow.

The young companies will also be able to participate in one of the iExpo conferences; attend one Plug and Play University program, and be introduced to Silicon Valley venture capitalists with the opportunity to pitch to potential investors.

The other four finalists include GSMetrix an agricultural micro climate monitoring automated system; Khaos Manufacturing, which offers fuel-saving devices; RAD Green Solutions, which invented a pyroclave that turns medical waste to charcoal; and Arnichem Corporation, which introduced Vitalin a nature-friendly bio fertilizer.

The three final startups will be chosen later this year.

Going global

PnP co-founder and vice president for operations Jojo Flores is a Filipino who has made it to Silicon Valley. There is nothing that he wants more now than to bring young Filipino geniuses to the world out there to see what is in store for themselves.

“The plan is for us to find the finalists here, continue to vet them for the next five or six months and then choose the final three to go to Silicon Valley in 2012 for three months. Once we choose the companies we still have to give them some milestones to achieve before we actually take them to Silicon Valley because there’s a lot of preparation that needs to be done.

We want to train them first here before they compete over there because we are using public funds to support their living allowances while they are there,” explains Flores.

ON3 hopes to become a venue for companies with new technological advancements that the government fails to support. Countries with fewer resources, like the Philippines, are given the opportunity to compete globally.

Plug and Play believes that the Philippines is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the world‘s transformation. The country‘s cultural strengths — passion for creativity, an appreciation for high quality services and products, deep value of education, love of family and entertainment, strong social circles; and favorable geological characteristics — all contribute to the potential to have a meaningful place in the global markets.

“There are a lot of ideas here. We are seeing a mix, there are still hardware companies in agriculture, biotech, greentech space but what we’re also seeing is emerging new technologies in ICT like in internet cloud, digital media, social platforms,” Flores says.

Flores says the ideas are very, very promising.

“We just need to crystallize those ideas and get a better team around it, define the business model before we have them vetted at Silicon Valley. But yes, the core ideas are very promising,’’ he adds.

In the meantime, Plug and Play sees the pitching contest becoming a yearly thing in the Philippines. “And hopefully we can get not only government support but private companies support that could sustain the whole program.

More importantly give them the opportunity to pitch to investors from where they can get their funding,” he ends.

The future is bright indeed!