The launch of Linda Ikeji's extremely own social networking website - Linda Ikeji Social - nearly broke the Nigerian internet on Tuesday.

Bearing a remarkable similarity to Facebook, Linda Ikeji Social (LIS) permits users to create a profile, post images, add and search for pals, as well as share what's on their mind.

The long term plan for LIS, supposing the execution is flawless, will be to competing Facebook in Nigeria. Obviously it is a burden, however it is not likely anyone will bet against Linda Ikeji Social (LIS) pulling it off all the exact same.

Even tech 'heads' who (seemingly) know better are scared to prophesy doom for Linda Ikeji Social.

- ִ (@xylemic) November 1, 2016

LIS is using rewards including shared ad earnings and $3 rewards per initial user-sourced news to catalyse engagement.

According to Linda Ikeji:

"There's a great deal of cash from advertising on social networks, a great deal of brands put money on popular online platforms and we want to share a few of the cash we make on this platform with our users,"

The strategy appears to be extremely reliable. Barely two days after it first released, the platform currently lays claim to over 50,000 users and counting.

Almost 50k users on LIS in 24hrs. Chuffed! Thanks guys! If you haven't registered, please join us on https://t.co/7vKviiDjzG

- Linda Ikeji Blog (@lindaikeji) November 2, 2016

And from all signs, most of these users are not just small, they're quite active.

Why Linda Ikeji Social might pull through

In all this, Linda Ikeji is not resting on her oars. She has actually currently started mounting enormous billboard campaigns to create interest and awareness around LIS.

Besides, if there's something we've gained from the entire story of Linda Ikeji, it's not to undervalue her audience. With an audience that is mostly driven by selfless love for the famed blogger, Linda appears to have gained a set of patriot to her course. While Linda Ikeji's Blog (LIB) has actually grown for almost a years for this factor, the shared income technique will just serve to include brand-new sets of patriot to this exact same course.

However, running a social networking platform needs heavy investment in tech. This includes assembling a group of world class engineers to keep an eye on the platform daily. The site went offline briefly, hardly two hours after in released on Tuesday. Following that was a prolonged period of over 12 hours where early adopters were not able to trigger or login to their accounts. These are indications of how things could fail if the tech side isn't accorded due importance.

No doubt, LIS is still far from a completed product. The site still requires a lot of improvement in the location of usability and engagement.

For example, Facebook algorithms are so powerful that they can determine the tone of one's feed; either by making sure that the feeds consist of only the important things particular to the user or by developing special features that keep such user completely engaged. This is presently doing not have in LIS. But then again, Linda Ikeji's economically incentivised method to user engagement might well prove reliable in the long run.

I keep informing these "intellectual" to study the Linda Effect as a part of modern social sociology. https://t.co/q3xJzW5NDU

- Funmi Iyanda (@Funmilola) November 1, 2016

The media company twist

Indeed, LIS does take the mould of a social networking website. However, its true nature still remains evasive. While the failure to anticipate the real form of LIS is a bit worrying, it likewise what makes it unique perhaps.

In August, Linda Ikeji announced she would be expanding her business to include other forms of media like online TV network, an online radio station, a music site, and something else she called "LIS." Even so, the gesture was praised. But truly, everyone was clueless about how this was going to happen.

But somehow, LIS mentions Linda's lofty intention and how she was going to bring them to fruition. Still at its early days, it remains to be seen what LIS will evolve into, but there's every possibility that it will be a moms and dad platform to Linda Ikeji's growing army of subsidiary companies; enabling her to integrate all of these functions in one single platform.

Being that the case, the possible stream of untapped wealth this will open up for Linda Ikeji is actually frightening. In all of this, one questions if LIB might well wind up as her least appealing platform.

While Linda Ikeji stated clearly her intention to handle Facebook in Nigeria, the practicality of that stays to be seen. For all we know, Facebook hosts a meagre 18 countless Nigeria's 97 million strong web population. There just may be adequate area for both of them.