While the site’s pretty well done, the success of the site will be entirely dependent on how well they are able to build the community and get musicians onboard.

Besides, there are some formidable competitors like Muziboo out there too.

One of my suggestions to both services would be to focus less of features and more on getting musicians on board - Just like the Myspace folks hit the club scene in LA (before MySpace was mainstream) and helped to lure in musicians and bands.

Indie music in India is definitely a long tail. The point is, is it big enough to support multiple services ? If you have any statistics related to how big the market size is related to indie music in India, can you please leave me a comment or drop me an email.

• Sunoh.fm launches platform for social discovery of Indian music
• BuzzinTown - a new social site to discover local events in India
• Khojguru - an interesting approach to local search

Comments

• September 24, 2008, Gatuam Kshatriya commented: Uhooroo - interesting that there's another Seedfunded startup called Uhuhoo. The latter's business model is completely different from the site that you've just reviewed - they provide content management solutions to corporates. I do feel that you're right in your concern around whether the niche music scene is big enough in India to warrant a site such as Uhooroo. The reason why sites such as Last.fm and Pandora in the US / UK are successful is because of such a huge music industry with new artists being launched everyday. I don't know where these guys are based - but if they can come around to Mumbai, there's a great new record label launched by this club called Blue Frog - that showcases niche acts. An alliance with them might make sense. They also have a group on Facebook. There's another great label in Delhi called Baba records. Gautam Kshatriya gautam.kshatriya@moneyvidya.com http://www.moneyvidya.com/blog
• September 26, 2008, Nav commented: I'm digging the look of the site. With Myspace music's recent launch and Facebook music's imminent launch ... the market is going to get pretty tough. Their barriers to entry will be tough to scale. Why not a DRM-free model? If I were these guys I'd look at wemusicstore.com and normative.com , the models they are playing with are scaled low right now ... but will be a place most ppl will trudging through in a year or two. Having a platform that allows new bands to push music, marketing and general web presence would be extremely attractive in my opinion. https://subtledisruption.com https://navajeet.com
• September 26, 2008, pranav commented: @Nav, I dont think that Uhooroo is in the same market as Myspace music of FB music. The market that Uhooroo is targeting is the indie and hindustani, classical genre in India

And after trying out Rhydhun, I can hardly contain my excitement. Very rarely do I go this excited while reviewing a website - product.

What is Rhydhun ?

Rhydhun is a desktop client you install on your system. Sign up for an account on their website and once you’ve installed the client, login and get instant access to a musical bonanza - about 107, 160 music tracks and 12,929 albums. The sound quality is at par with that of a CD. After testing it for several hours, I’m yet to see any hitch in the performance or the listening experience. I could very easily search for music titles and soundtracks and filter the results via genres, singers, music directors etc. The usage and feel of the desktop client is very similar to the iTunes client. Everything without the annoying pop-ups or being forced to install the latest Real player version.

The music library is pretty large and diverse as well - they have a pretty good collection of Hindi, regional and classical music (probably same as the MusicIndiaOnline library - read below for their association).

As per their website, Anand Aiyer, the founder is also behind MusicIndiaOnline. And the Rhydhun jukebox does appear on the MusicIndiaOnline website as well. I’ve asked Anand to elaborate on how Rhydhun fits into MusicIndiaOnline. Also, how they plan to monetize this effort - either via a monthly paid subscription or launching an e-store later down the line (they’re not charging nor using ads at this moment). As an aside, I wouldnt mind being a paid subscriber for such a service at all.

The one feature I’d request from Rhydhun is the ability to bookmark and save my playlists. So, if I access Rhydhun from a different system, I can easily retrieve my playlists and bookmarked songs. Briefly put, the ability to sync my playlists across different systems.

Go ahead and apply for a beta on their site. Give it a spin - you sure wont be disappointed. For the music fanatics amongst you, it may very well become one of the must-have apps you really cant live without.

• Sunoh.fm launches platform for social discovery of Indian music
• Share your music talent on Uhooroo
• TwitPay - payments via Twitter

Comments

• January 11, 2008, Hemant commented: Have you tried Dhingana (http://www.dhingana.com)
• January 11, 2008, Mystica Sugan commented: Hmmm !! But, this isn't a killer if you have tried www.hummaa.com. That website is smashing with great features on playlist, having your customized web url, like http://mystica.hummaa.com and the best part the quality of streaming is just like that of a CD quality. the Musicindiaonline's or the Raaga's are old generation sites which were pirates and being caught by the music IPRS society and made legal offlate. Hummaa is a web 2.0 product developed by Ex-Yahoo India employees. Check that out. You will become another testimony that technology is the head turner, not mere content alone (pirated)!
• January 11, 2008, akshat commented: i second dhingana.com. that seriously rocks.
• January 11, 2008, pranav commented: @Hemant, Yes -- Dhingana is good - probably one of the better web based Indian music site. I've used it for some time. However, I have to admit, the sound quality / listening experience on Rhydhun is better. -p
• January 17, 2008, abhishek commented: dhingana is too good...does not require download...wonderful such and features
• January 24, 2008, Ravi commented: Been using Rhydhun and as a previous user of dhingana and other online sites, Rhydhun is far better, in features, in sound quality, in ease of use, everything.