TekChakra.com

As mentioned in my previous posting, it looks like local search is heating up with the entry of Google Local India. It seems that Google preferred not to acquire any of the leading players in the market - but preferred to use its muscle to fight directly instead of gaining an advantage by teaming up. They seem to be confident that they do not need to shell out money to gobble up any of the leading players - in order to get an advantage.

For this there could be only two reasons. (1) They believe they can do this alone in India (2) The current local search offerings are inferior and will give Google limited value addition.

For some reason, I think their reasoning may be skewed more towards the second option above. They probably have seen the results of these local online engines and figured out that the technology provided and search results provided were very limited or inferior to their own or even “piggy backed” on their search results. To find out, I embarked on my lazy Sunday noon analysis, searching for keyword “fish” on each of the local engines, although I am a vegetrarian :-).

Just Dial - www.justdial.com

• Very neat and quick interface
• Based on a highly successful business model of providing directory assistance and information to users through a regular phone call… the popularity of which spread like wild fire and is a lesson to all on steroidal viral growth.
• Should give direct results on the first page itself, along with further category choices, rather than have user drill down to 3 levels before displaying the data of the match found. The whole “category” level should be removed and combined with a direct search listing results along with the category listing option. This is what Google does. Perhaps JustDial could not figure out the perfect technology to get “deep search” system into place… or is there some inherent advantage in having the user drill down into the categories manually? Why not display both - category matches and first 20 intelligent results?
• I hate companies that have a tag line that says “India’s No. 1 whatever”. Its so tacky and so old. JustDial folks, if you are reading this - please spend some time and effort in coming up with a better USP.
• If a user feeds in all the three data entry and selection boxes in their search - it should display direct results rather than drill down categories again. I’m sure, this can be achieved as its not rocket science.
• Its good to see that they have gone mobile with their SMS offering

Guruji - www.guruji.com

• Probably the number one in the area of local search combining general website / Internet India search and local search.
• Very neat interface and quick blazing results
• Language Search option a BIG plus, although only available for IE, and they should port to Firefox quickl Language Search is only available for Internet website searches, not for local search.
• Search results are very apt and on the dot and colors work well
• I’ve been a big fan of theirs from the day I heard about them and am hooked to them for all website searches of India, and hopefully for local search too now.
• They have the backing of Sequoia Capital India, so funds for scaling up, advertising and bringing on local advertisers should not be difficult.

OnYoMo - www.onyomo.com

• Neat categorization into Local, Maps and Business search. This should help people get to the information they seek faster.
• The Map it and Text it features are good, although the Map future needs to be improved and provide more detail. A tie up and API integration with MapMyIndia may be a good move and much needed feature.
• The technology powering their engine needs a lot of improvement. A lot of assumptions are made. For example, I searched “fish”in city Mumbai and got a list of Restaurants only in Mumbai. How did they assumed I am dining? I was looking for outlets that sell frozen and raw fish.
• The interface for may be good but the performance in terms of results is lacking and needs a lot more improvement.
• The name needs to be more catchy
• They need to do more branding / marketing - as this is a winner takes all market

Dwaar - www.dwaar.com

• Run by the folks over at MIH
• Neat looking colorful user interface
• Search results neatly grouped into separate sections in the result page.
• Something tells me that their results are not very accurate, and their engine is not powerful.
• The results were very sketchy and not well described / laid out, with basic text description info lacking - which prevented me from clicking on a result link even though it may be the right link.
• I was not too pleased with the “Job Results”section - specially because it was in the top half section of the results. Why would I want this? The probability is very low - and they should just put a “search for fish jobs”at the bottom.
• I wasn’t too pleased by the fact that they used the same colors as Google in their search results.
• They also had a very tacky Yahoo Answers type feature, where one could ask others to help in the search results. I clicked on it - and it took me to ibibo - a clear cross-selling tactic. The Ibibo page asked me to register! How frustrating… I wonder how many people would.

Laila - www.asklaila.com

• Not a great homepage look. Very boxy and it appears to be offering search as well as directory browsing services along with reviews service
• They are only limited to Bangalore
• The search result page only showed name, address and phone number. And had a link saying Click for more - which shockingly gave me no other information but only displayed the single clicked result on a different page.
• They have tossed in a “rating” area for users to rate the resulting “business” on a scale of 1 to 5 star… this is absolutely pathetic. How am I going to rate the business when I am still in the search phase.
• The people behind this site don’t get it at all, and they need to seriously revamp the entire site and features if they are to save themselves from deadpool2.0
• They have a catchy name, and I hope that Matrix Ventures didn’t back them based on that. Matrix needs to re look at this investment with a more serious and keen eye or its going to end up as a dud.

I have not reviewed Burrp (review and rating of local restaurants in major metros) and Zook (very limited mobile content browsing and search) - as they are local searches limited to a specific topic or media and did not classify as general local search engines. If I have missed out anyone, please post a comment, letting me know and I will review them shortly.

My final take? Guruji wins by a mile. Guruji and JustDial are somewhat at par.

I have changed my opinion after Chetan Saigal pointed out some specific searches in which Guruji failed to give relevant results and where JustDial excelled. Thanks Chetan. Also, I had initially included India specific Internet website search too as a criteria for local search results, but have since then revised the post.

So……. Guruji and JustDial - keep it up and go beat Google at their own game!!

— Vishal Lamba    Filed under: Uncategorized