TekChakra.com

I believe that the first wave of BiggAdda spamming has commenced. The first phase of media budget is probably all spent, and now Reliance may be focusing on other (almost) free blackhat methods - including spamming user mail boxes. As you can see on Alexa, the growth and traffic on BigAdda has about flattened and has no real ongoing explosive potential despite the onslaught of their media campaign. Had their model been virally successful it would have skyrocketed much higher on a continual basis with saturation point still way off. The real success and viral potential in this model comes from members inviting other members to join in - because they are very excited with the concept and the experience. This has obviously not happened with BigAdda - and I predicted this downfall and failure in my blog, shortly after when BigAdda launched. BigAdda is just a shameful “wannabe” product, and big waste of money. They are not going to move the earth nor migrate users from the well established Orkut.

This morning I got a spam in my mailbox from supposedly a member on BigAdda called deepika singh <noreply@bigadda.com>. The email was sent to an email address which had absolutely no name attached to it and was published on one of my websites as a email to get in touch with incase of site violations (violations@mysite.com). How ironic. The spider they are running probably picked up this address from my sites about page.As you can read the message below - this is definitely a spamming tactic being executed by Reliance / BigAdda under a pretense of a site member. Reliance - dont feel to ashamed - as this is being done by plenty of “virally” growing sites. Its a black hat technqiue and acceptable by many businesses.

Now, here’s the spam message…

to violations@mysite…..com
date Oct 5, 2007 8:26 AM
subject deepika invites you to BigAdda

Hey Buddy!

deepika is a member at BigAdda & can’t wait for you to get your fix of fun right here.

deepika says:

You’ve just gotta check out BigAdda.com! It’s got loads of cool stuff - a huge stack of videos, hajaar photos and some rockin blogs! Imagine all of these things in just one spot… BigAdda.com!

I’ve already signed up as a member on BigAdda and the gang keeps growing. You’d better join right now before you feel left out!

Click here to join:

http://bigadda.com/?L=registration.invite-register&id=1730750&node=dmlvbGF0aW9uc0B2aWRlb2R1YmJhLmNvbQ==

—————————————————————————————————————————————
If clicking the above link doesn’t work, just copy and paste it onto your browser’s address bar.
—————————————————————————————————————————————

We can’t wait for you to plug into India’s hottest Hangout Zone!

The fun has begun.
Boss
@ BigAdda

—————————————————————————————————————————————
P.S.: This is a system generated email. Please do not reply to this message.

Disclaimer:
If you believe you received this notification in error, please ignore this email, and write to customercare@bigadda.com.
If you have something to share about BigAdda, do mail us at customercare@bigadda.com

— Vishal Lamba    Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

I often ask myself if Social Networking sites are going to be a threat to th existing top matrimonial websites. There has been a fair amount of discussion also in this area, and obviously the executives of popular matrimonial websites, like in this interview with CEO of Bharatmatrimony, are going to defend their baby, and say that there is little threat.

I tend to think otherwise.

Matrimonial websites are going to be threatened and will lose a large chunk of possible business arising due to current members and new people migrating to Social Networks in look for a life partner. This effect and decline will not be felt for the next 2 to 3 years, because there is still a large population that has yet to go online and the traditional way to find a match in conservative families will still be the local family matchmaker or the online matrimonial website - which offers specific features for this very specific need. The whole experience is very different from that found in Social Networks - and thus very niche and probably existing as its own vertical.

However, this will change in the coming years, as conservative families open up and allow siblings to mingle with friends and new acquaintances that they find online through their “trusted” network of friends. I cant seem to figure out why people will not flock to these free and exciting services in the long run as conservative views gradually open up - and accept casual online communication through the online Social Networks as a norm.

Today, the Matrimonial sites are justified in charging users monthly subscription fees because of the value they bring to the table - that Social Networks do not. However, I see people migrating to Social Networks in the long run - just as they have done overseas with Match.com and other dating sites that charge pretty steep subscription fees. This will happen in India - sooner or later, not only because people will accept and enjoy the new fun alternative discovery process, but also because it is completely free and more engaging - allowing one to get to know acquaintances better - before taking the next crucial step of proposing.

I invite readers to pitch in their own personal views here. Does my thinking above have any truth in it? Do you see the matchmaking process panning out in a similar manner?

— Vishal Lamba    Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Yes, yes and yes! I do firmly believe so.

Anyone who has had their license confiscated is well aware of the difficult process the RTO has in place in order to recover confiscated licenses. One firstly, has to get the day to retrieve the license right… if you go too early to the RTO office - you are told that your license has not arrived as yet… and if you go on time - your license is filed deep inside somewhere and takes many hours to be returned - as you get bounced from one table and government official to the next. This, in my opinion, is somewhat deliberate and results in a high bribe rate when one is held up for traffic driving violation. Currently there is no strong smooth system in place that facilitates recovering your confiscated license. You are issued a “temporary slip” - called a “pauti” in Hindi and you have to visit the RTO office to get your license back and pay the fine. Although sometimes, you can pay the fine on the spot to the officer on duty - your license will always get confiscated as a rule. This is unlike overseas western nations - where you are to pay the fine and the electronic database automatically notch up your traffic violation points - which if cross a particular number - result in your license confiscation and a loss of driving privileges for x amount of time as a penalty.

In India, the system chooses not to go electronic. Reason? Officials are probably happy with the current system, as it leads to more corruption. Frustrated citizens choose to “bribe” officers who hold them up for traffic violations - as they do not want to undergo the utter time-wasting and frustrating procedure to recover a confiscated license. This frustration, I believe has been deliberately put in place, or is consciously being chosen not to be improved or modified - as a lot of officials are enjoying bribes - from frustrated citizens. Most of us who are caught for a small mistake - DO want to pay the official fine - but DO NOT want to undergo the process of retrieving confiscated licenses.

So, how do opt to avoid this frustration (that can take away almost an entire day of work) ? Well, majority of us choose to bribe the official… even though we can afford the fine and would prefer to be ethical and legal - we choose the easy way out… avoiding the frustration and headache of visiting the mostly inefficient offices to recover our license.

This blog is a message out to the government to take the process of enforcing fines to traffic violators and the following license recovery procedure - online.

Yes, I firmly believe that if this is taken online and the license recovery procedure is made more smooth and user friendly - then majority of the citizens will pay the fine - and not mind visiting the office to recover their confiscated license at a specified appointed time. Knowing well in advance, when to go, will help the government schedule their load and citizens will be pleased to know that physical license recovery will not frustrate them and should happen within an hour (or x amount of time) at the RTO offices.

I just read this morning that the Ministry of Home Affairs, has taken the information of Police and Prisons online in a single website at www.bprd.gov.in . The Times of India advertisement said that “Information on Policing is Just a Click Away! Police Stations and Police Offices of 10 States, including Delhi are now on our website, for their telephone and contact information”. Great job!

Now, please take the RTO and license recovery online too! I firmly believe it will help reduce corruption in the form of bribes by over 50% … what do you think?

— Vishal Lamba    Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Popular Star News program called “Red Alert”, recently directly targeted the most popular heavily used Social Networking website in India - Orkut, with a 20 minute long dramatic report. They had some very alarming and disturbing facts about how criminals, drug users and people were using Orkut.com for sex, drugs, criminal acts and to rope in the innocent. This may harm / affect Orkut’s growth rate of signing in new users, because Indian parents (who know very little of the Internet) may clamp on strict parental control prohibiting the use of Orkut - after seeing this program. See the dramatic video that aired on Sunday 26th August 2007 .

PART 1 of Video

PART 2 of Video

My concern… will this hurt all other Social Networking sites too like BigAdda, BharatStudent and Minglebox? Orkut was the only one targeted - probably because it has a very huge and buzzing online community of all sorts of people In India (and globally) - unlike its competitors who are still very small and almost insignificant. However, these are lessons for them - and they will definitely need to pay heed to these alarming issues in the long run as their diverse communities grow.

— Vishal Lamba    Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

I’ve been reading a lot about People Interactive aiming to go IPO in 2009 - either in the domestic market or on NASDAQ. The main reason their executives say is to have money to acquire other players in the area for faster growth… the goal is to finance acquisitions in the online classifieds and communities spaces with the funds generated.

I beg to differ. This does not seem to be a good enough reason, in my opinion. I’d like to know which other matrimonial and classified sites they wish to acquire for further growth? Are there any other players than the top 3 to 4 players who matter significantly and have a large membership base. Who are they? I see 95% of this market controlled by the top players… and I don’t see any other players “worth” acquiring for “significant” growth. Perhaps, I missed something? Are there huge thriving local community matrimonial websites that they plan to acquire?

I’m sure they are looking for more growth in the area - but something tells me that their market share and revenues in the matrimonial space are going to be gradually eaten up with new social networking models that are aggressively entering the Indian market - and as the popularity of the concept of Social Networking and dating grows - with the infiltration of western culture through electronic media. Yes, there is still a huge segment of families who strongly believe in arranged marriages, but this is changing slowly and will reduce dramatically in the next generation.

Further, I fail to see why people are equating the online matrimonial space to the job space (and Naukri’s highly successful IPO) - as the revenue potential and market size for matrimonials is nowhere near that of the job market or even the online travel industry. Matrimonial and classifieds is a distant last with hardly 1/10th market size in comparison. This is from a Business India article I read and clipped. (I’ll look for it and post the link here shortly).

Another main and very obvious reason to go IPO, is an exit for their VCs, and option to for the shareholders to cash in… yes! its finally payback time!

So, will online matrimonial sites suffer the same declining fate that match.com is experiencing? Time will tell. I invite all readers to pitch in their thoughts.

People Interactive also seems to have another trump card. That of Mauj - which is primarily a mobile content provider - developer and aggregator. They have a few basic models. One is to collect games, ringtone, wallpapers etc from other mobile content developers (overseas and local) and put them on wireless carrier decks - for consumers to download and purchase. They also do some direct mobile content development… but I believe this is mostly restricted to brands they license. For example - they’re known to have paid Rs 1.5 crores for the rights of the Bollywood movie KANK (Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna) and burnt away Rs 60 Lakhs as they were only able to recover around Rs 90 Lakhs in revenues by sale of mobile content. They also provide various promotion related services through their four digit short code 7007.

Being an aggregator may be something that works in the short run. I don’t think that Mauj has a long term business model that will be very profitable. Having moved quickly in the mobile space and having clinched deals with nationwide wireless carriers before overseas competition lands up on our shores , will only buy you so much time - IF your products are not up to mark. And this is their Achilles heal. Their mobile content - some of it although branded, is not up to mark when compared to international standards. Wireless Carriers today are enjoying stellar growth and hence the real picture of frustrated mobile consumers who complain of substandard quality - will not reflect in the figures or be felt or even heard. One can get away by pushing substandard (although branded) content in the market. This is where overseas more advanced markets differ. They do not tolerate substandard mobile content (games specifically). This is because the market has reached a high saturation point and consumers are more aware. A single call by an angry consumer costs them $3+ on average. Three calls, and your game is black listed and taken off the “game deck” of the carrier. This is unheard of in India. If a game doesn’t work on a paanwallah’s handset in Bihar and he sees it work on his friends handset - he is going to think there is something wrong with his phone - not the game. In reality the game has not been ported over properly. Forget about him calling and complaining. Consumer awareness is something he is unaware of.

So, the party, in my opinion will last only for a couple of years more, unless local mobile content providers clean up their act. The big players like EA Mobile, Gameloft, Digital Chocolate, Glu Mobile, amongst others - are all setting up shop in India. Their content is AMAZING and puts mobile content developed by companies like Mauj to shame. Branded and unbranded games have fantastic gameplay. They’re in it for the long run - and thats what I admire. They are thinking long term… they know a bad mobile gaming experience will stick in a consumers mind in the long run. Further, these mobile publishers don’t see the wisdom in the aggregation model, and are prefer signing direct content distribution deals with Wireless Carriers. Therefore, mobile content aggregation will take a hit in the long run as mobile publishers choose to go direct to carriers. Its true some carriers choose to work with select aggregators and publishers - but the quality publishers will be the ones who win and prove their games to be successful - therefore opening up direct channels with carriers. The middle man, as in many models, will eventually be displaced. Therein lies the danger in Mauj’s model - unless of course they focus on developing quality content and not just collecting a large quantity of mostly substandard content.

— Vishal Lamba    Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

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 | 12 Comments »

The local search market is heating up with the latest entry of Google Local India. For some industry pundits, it seemed that Google would simply gobble up and acquire one of the current players in the market amongst - JustDial, Onyomo, Dwaar, Zook, Laila, Burrp and Guruji - which wouldn’t have been a surprise to many. But, instead, Google chosen instead to dominate (their very core area) without any acquisition and a solo entry.

Later this week, I will visit each local search offering in India and present their individual pros and cons and value proposition. I will also try and predict which of these will live long and which will be part of the future dead pool. As always, reader comments and heated discussion will be much appreciated.

— Vishal Lamba    Filed under: Search | No Comments »

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about blatant errors made by Business2.0 in their August 2007 issue… and my blog got picked up by Techcrunch’s Arrington who found similar errors in the same article in countries overseas. This time Redherring has made some incorrect nominees (in my opinion).

There are at least 5 companies that don’t deserve to be short listed (amongst the top 200 for final winners) in the Redherring Asia 2007, for obvious reasons. It seems that American media and journalists are not doing their homework when it comes to reviewing global sites and businesses, or is it that they are just hiringthe wrong people to do it?

The site says - “Congratulations to this year’s carefully selected 200 finalists. For 10 years, Red Herring’s editorial team has diligently surveyed entrepreneurship around the globe. Technology industry executives, investors, and observers have regarded the Red Herring 100 lists as an invaluable instrument to discover and advocate the promising startups that will lead the next wave of disruption and innovation.” and “The Top 100 award winners will be announced at the Red Herring 100 Asia Award Ceremony on August 29th.”

In my opinion and from my experience here are the mistakes below. This is from the domain expertise that I have knowledge in. I am sure there are many other errors, in areas and countries that I could not evaluate due to lack of data.

• Gameshastra.com - A Game Development services company. My take - there are other front runners and game services companies here doing better work… Dhruva, Indiagames, TrineGames.
• Nautanki.tv - An online video sharing portal. My take - probably selected because of hyped traffic stats on their homepage - there are many other video sharing portals that are better.
• NetAlter.com - An IPV6 concept company with a concept of building a world with their Alternate network. My take - I didn’t see much potential in their model (as yet)
• Kerela.com - A state portal. My take - why choose them? What innovation do they provide, other than being an standard information portal and hub?
• OnYoMo.com - a local search engine for directory type assistance only. My take - I believe Guruji.com should’ve been selected instead, as it is far superior and offers local directory search results as well as general information / search engine results.

— Vishal Lamba    Filed under: Uncategorized | 17 Comments »

Why on earth would anyone use my.indiatimes.com when there are countless other better personalized homepages out there with global rss feeds and better features. I still dont get what the strategists behind ideas at IndiaTimes online initiative are up to. They seem to wake up late, just like a lot of other dot com Indian companies. If they were serious about this, they should’ve done it over24 months ago when the first wave of RSS customized pages hit the net liek wild fire. In the Web1 world - Yahoo! and the likes did have my.yahoo.com but with very limited features. On the advent of RSS, a lot of companies and portals jumped on the bandwagon of customizable and personalizable start pages - like igoogle, netvibes, yahoo, MSN, amongst others.

— Vishal Lamba    Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Every week we get to see a new India specific Social Network springing up. Many of them will fail miserably, and a few may somewhat succeed, but probably just a couple will wildly succeed. While, I admire the fact that some of the big names are taking this huge step and some big names are behind the VC funding - I still think 9 of 10 sites are not justified in trying to do what they are, given the fact that they have woken up over 2 years late other than the fact that their services offer no additional benefits or features - that their already wildly popular global competitor sites are offering. The value in such a model is in the network of friends and associates users create, and once they spend all that valuable time and effort in building their chain and network - members are just not going to switch over - unless you provide them with something that is very radical and that they don’t have at the site they are hooked onto. Also, in this global networking (business and friendship) era - just launching a India specific Social Network provides little additional value and limits people to only friends from India and of Indian origin, something probably only about 10% to 20% of Indian people will be seeking.

While, some may argue that, that there is a large number of people who have yet to get online in India - and they could probably be the apt target of these new Social Networking sites, I have a counter argument for this thought. Lets take for example Orkut. They have built a very strong presence in India over the past couple of years. The fundamental fact is that people only go to the bars and parties that are crowded, and those that their friends are using. They will not go to someplace where they know nobody. And which sites do newbies sign up at? Well, obviously the sites where their friends are at… and the sites their friends invite them to sign up.

Local new brands are going to have a very hard time getting people on board. This is a winner takes all model (for each specific social network niche - college students, business, mature audience). The college student niche has been snapped up by Orkut, the business network niche by Linkedin (with techtribe.net in India and Rediff connexions making a little limited headway), and the mature more sophisticated crowd is now flocking to Facebook.

Here’s my stab at local India specific social networks in the market. There are probably over 200 desi Social Networks already out there, and I’ve only reviewed the ones that are making somewhat of a buzz in the online space. If I missed out someone, please do make a post and I will review them. The reviews are in no particular order of preference or performance.

Minglebox.com -

• Launched very early on in the piece.
• One of the initial front runners.
• Controversially funded by Sequoia.
• Not too hot, with basic features and steady traffic.
• Needs to increase membership base and traffic.
• Very basic social networking features offered.
• Steady low traffic - not increasing or decreasing. Very dormant.
• Verdict: will take a while to becoming part of the deadpool, unless Sequoia gives them some more money to live for another year. They have the potential to turn things around - but they will have to really think out-of-the-box and come up with a “winner feature” to turn the tables. Are you guys listening?

BharatStudent

• Funded by guys behind Axill.in / Europe Ad network
• Heavy media ad campaign in progress - online, TV and offline
• Claim to have garnered over 1 million members in 4 months (highly inflated in my opinion)
• Very basic standard features
• Traffic increasing to some extent
• Verdict: Has a fluke chance amongst desi competitors to succeed. Although the name is not too catchy, its apt to some extent… and this *may* just work for them. Alexa rankings may be a bit skewed, as they also control a large ad network.

Fropper

• Launched early in the piece by People Group, the company behind Shaadi.com
• Early mover and the pitch is to be more of a dating site
• Some good features offered with a buzzing and active forum
• Traffic to the site is steadily declining
• Verdict: Will stay the way it is. Won’t increase or decrease in popularity. Will not turn out to be a money spinner for them, but their database and eyeballs can be used to funnel traffic to their other site ventures.

BigAdda

• Reliance Entertainment initiative
• Rs 3 cr to Rs 4 cr media campaign planned, that will create a spike in membership base
• Basic Social Networking features offered, nothing “wow”
• Verdict: This is going to blow up on their face, like Zapakmail. They need to stop trying to do get into any and every area with publics money

Yaari.com

• Launched by a 24 year old Indian Standford student while in college
• Steady amount of low traffic, with not much growth potential
• Verdict: Will become part of the deadpool soon

Desimartini

• Heavy media campaign and somewhat of an early mover in the second wave of budding sites
• Has a mobile angle, which wont work. (at least not just yet)
• Ripped of the Facebook.com look, but obviously has no idea on how to develop a “platform” like Facebook
• Trying to be a Facebook feel for Orkut users
• Verdict: Is probably almost already part of the deadpool, and I wont be surprised if they put it up for sale on Baazee / Ebay India.

Saffronconnect

• One of the early movers
• Very mediocre, and based on a $300 readily available script
• Verdict: already part of the deadpool

Techtribe.net

• Business networking site for local IT professionals
• The people running it seem to “get it” to some extent
• They should have purchased the .com TLD too
• Traffic is not too high, but very targeted to their niche
• Verdict: May be a winner in their vertical… probably already is.

Rediff Connexions

• Very early mover, for basically local business networking
• Large number of members, exact number unknown
• Will succeed somewhat as they have all their portal traffic to hit
• Even if it does not become wildly successful it will help in increasing Rediff’s stock price and value
• Verdict: Will not be wildly successful, but may continue to be alive as all portal traffic can be funneled here.

Brijj

• Very late entrant in the Social Networking scene
• Initiative of Naukri.com folks (Info Edge)
• Trying to pull off a local Linkedin.com
• Features and interface are all very basic, bland and unimpressive
• Will experience an initial blip because of media strategy and cross-selling to Naukri users
• Probably have a lot of money from their successful IPO
• Verdict: Too early to say, but they wont make it.. as their fundamental idea is incorrect - as in todays networked era, Business Networking is Global and not local. They may not be able to provide users with a good enough value add. And even users who initially sign up, may probably end up moving to Linkedin - once they hear of it, leaving Brijj deserted.

Campus18

• Not much traffic and the site homepage is not user friendly or inviting.
• Traffic to site is minimal.
• Verdict: already part of the deadpool

My overall response to the scene is that this is going to burst in a lot of people’s face… and the global sites like Orkut, Facebook, Myspace, Tagged etc are going to run away with the trophy, with probably just one or two desi sites, at max, generating some buzz and popularity. Who will it be? I invite feedback from readers based on their experience.

Is there some scope in setting up specific narrower community based social network sites - which could be support regional languages too? Perhaps a Punjabi or Konkan or Cricket based Social Network - as users will not mind being on Orkut AND on a niche community network. Or, do sites like Orkut and Facebook already cater to this with their user created local “groups”?

— Vishal Lamba    Filed under: Uncategorized | 8 Comments »