StartupDunia » India Web 2.0

Kreeo - semantics based knowledge manaement

pranav — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:23:26 +0000

Kreeo is an interesting Bangalore based startup working on sematics based knowledge management. Their goal is to create a platform where users can discover new knowledge, share their knowledge and collectively harness the knowledge gained from the social interaction. Think of it as Mahalo, the human powered search engine, but with added semantics.

In Kreeo, the core concept revolves around a BOK - aka, a Body Of Knowledge. The BOK framework is simply a set of predefined common terms. Each BOK item is a knowledge item.

For example, consider the following screenshot about the BOK on AJAX Programming. Not only does it have various knowledge sections related to AJAX like Introduction, History of AJAX, Features of AJAX, advantages- disadvantages, popular AJAX frameworks etc, it also has various sections like Questions related to AJAX programming, quick examples, tips & tricks, links to external news and blog items etc.

Here’s the section for each BOK which adds the additional semantics:

While these sections add the semantics to the data itself, I wasnt able to figure out if the site is making use of actual semantic technologies (like RDF / Sparql etc.) and if so, how.

Kreeo is definitely a promising startup with some great technology. However, getting new, quality knowledge on the site will remain a challenge. Companies like Mahalo, Wikia, which fall in the similar domain are well funded and have some accomplished entrepreneurs behind them. Mahalo also has paid editors for content generation.

I have two main suggestions for the Kreeo team -

1) Simplify the concept and navigation on the site. It took some time for me to grasp what BOK was all about. I dont expect a technically less savvy individual to easily understand what the site is all about

2) The Site is pretty darn slow at times, but considering that they are in alpha, getting this corrected shouldnt be difficult. The sooner the better - not to alienate the early adopter crowd.

Give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Comments

August 19, 2008, Sumeet commented: Thanks pranav for an encouraging review. Their are a lot of things still not in order, we are working on it continuously and updates are being made daily. We will soon introduce a animated demo to simplify understanding the BOK way of sharing. Kreeo has been brought to its current stage with minimal resources. We are just hosted on a c2d box. A small glitch was their that we have fixed, the site is now performing better. The current design is an outcome of suggestions of alpha users over the past 6 months, our development philosophy is to keep on evolving Kreeo based on the feedback and suggestions of users, so that professionals can ultimately create a platform based on their ideas and have the power to change it.
August 20, 2008, vBharat.com » Kreeo - semantics based knowledge management commented: From vBharat.com » Kreeo - semantics based knowledge management... Kreeo is an interesting Bangalore based startup working on sematics based knowledge management. Their goal is to create a platform where users can discover new knowledge, share their knowledge and collectively harness the knowledge gained from the soci...

Orkut Apps - Indian apps dominate

pranav — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:59:08 +0000

Its been almost three months since Orkut apps went live. It seemed like a good time to visit and review some of the most popular Orkut apps and see how well they’re faring.

Orkut has the largest Indian audience amongst all social networks and not surprisingly, it seems that Indian apps seem to the dominate the top 10 list. At the time of this writing, six out of the top 10 Orkut apps were either targeted towards the Indian audience or were built by Indian companies.

Lets look at three of the most popular Orkut apps below:

Chakpak Movies: This Erasmic funded company’s Orkut app seems to have caught up with Indian Orkutters like wildfire. Install the app and you can rate - review movies, view celebrity wallpapers, compare movie tastes with friends etc. One of the most popular and engaging features of this app is the quizzes — I’ve seen so many friends within my own social graph taking the Chakpak movie quiz.

As per Chakpak folks, below are stats related to their app:

Number of app installs: about 0.5 million users have installed the app

Average daily signups: 20 - 25 10,000 - 20,000 average new signups daily

Time spent on the app (engagement): exact number not provided, but in the lower double digit minutes (ie, between 10-20 minutes)

Slapster & Crapster:

Games2win is behind these two time-sink apps, where you can slap your friends and crap on your friends (you read that right) instead of just scrapping them. Dont know why or how - but they seem to have caught on to people’s fancy. Stats related to these apps follows below. While I wont be surprised if these numbers are exaggerated, but having two apps in the top 10 is none the less giving Games2Win some great street cred.

Slapster:

Number of app installs: 1.5 million users have installed the app

Number of daily plays: 50,000 plays daily.

Crapster:

Number of app installs: 0.5 million users have installed the app

Number of daily plays: 30,000 plays daily.

SMS Me:

This app is developed by MyCantos, a SMS based social networking company. Using the app, you can send SMS to your friends or to any numbers in India.

Number of app installs: 0.5 million users have installed the app

Number of SMS sent via app: 6 million

It is likely that the current top 10 list may change pretty soon, considering that apps were rolled out for all Orkut users just last weekend.Â That might push some of the apps focused on Indian users down the list and bring others into the limelight.

I’m not a huge fan of applications for just one reason - they dilute the user experience. Its for the same reason that my Facebook usage spiraled downwards - all the application related updates from my friends was screwing up the entire experience for me. At one time, I had several Facebook apps as part of my profile. Then, one fine day, I just went and removed every single one of them.Â If I had lots of spare time at hand, probably I would have indulged in all those time sink Facebook apps.

Comments

July 22, 2008, kerala commented: Hey Pranav, The app directory is different based on your language preference. In simple words, Brazil users see a different app directory and buddy poke leads there. In the India specific app directory chakpak and slapster leads I guess.
July 23, 2008, pranav commented: Kerala, if that is indeed the case, then all English users should see the same app directory..and the Indian apps seem to dominate that list then. Are you 100% sure about this language based difference ? -p
July 24, 2008, tech2blog commented: strange to see sites like chakpak,minglebox flaunt their alexa ranks based on orkut page views beacuse of their apps. how good are they for their stand alone site.iAM NOT SURE IF THEY SHOULD BECOME SO DEPENDENT on other popular social nets.
July 24, 2008, kerala commented: Pranav, Just go to your orkut profile, change your language settings to English UK or English US and then see the app directories. Both will show you different listings. Indian users by default gets English US under the new orkut.co.in domain. same for brazil with co.br domain and rest of the world gets on orkut.com .
July 28, 2008, pranav commented: thanks for sharing that tip kerala. I wasnt aware of it.
August 23, 2008, Kalinga commented: Orkut is able to attract Indians but Facebook is not able to attract Indians. I have few Indian friends on Facebook.

Tagg.in - another group microblogging service

pranav — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:37:16 +0000

Tagg.in is a new SMS - web based microblogging service for India.

With Tagg.in, you can

- create a TAGGivity (group)
- update your TAGGivity
- invite members to the TAGGivity

Just follow the command format and send updates to 99801 99801 and your TAGGivity will be updated.

Tagg.in also runs several groups by themselves. Join these groups and you’ll get the latest business news, stock updates, cricket scores etc directly on your mobile. You can also set a particular group public or private so that the updates are visible only to those who are part of the group.

Tagg.in will face an uphill battle competing against the increasingly popular SMS GupShup, which recently was close to securing their 2nd round of funding.

Comments

July 13, 2008, vBharat.com » Tagg.in - another group microblogging service commented: From vBharat.com » Tagg.in - another group microblogging service... Tagg.in also runs several groups by themselves. Join these groups and youâ€™ll get the latest business news, stock updates, cricket scores etc directly on your mobile. You can also set a particular group public or private so that the updates are visibl...
July 27, 2008, Prakash commented: Ugaldo.com is another Free Form Micro-blogging Service in India.
August 29, 2008, Nimshid commented: Very good site

Haggle away for everything with LootStreet

pranav — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:05:55 +0000

Indian consumers are one of the biggest bargain hunters in the world. For all ye bargain hunters, there’s good news. LootStreet is a new startup that’ll hopefully satiate some of your appetite for haggling. Founded by two IIMA grads, LootStreet offers a marketplace for buyers and sellers to come together.

Unlike eBay, LootStreet is not an auction service. Instead, sellers list the product they’d like to sell and for what price. Buyers can then ‘haggle’ for a lower price with the seller. If both parties agree, a deal is struck. Else, the bargaining continues. Every quote that the buyer makes must be higher than their previous attempts. Currently, they dont charge for listing your products except for the 4% transaction fees charged by payment gateways. As traffic grows, they’ll take a percentage cut for listing the product.

While the biz model makes sense, the biggest challenge they’d face is from eBay. eBay is an established brand and most of the folks have gotten familiar with eBay’s auction model. Attracting seller inventory will be a challenge, but it seems that they have already signed up partners like GizmoBazaar, Gadgets.in, gadgetsguru.com etc.

One of the biggest plus for the startup is that they’ve managed to rope in Deep Kalra, MakeMyTrip CEO, as their mentor. That should not only bring in some savvy business acumen, but some great business contacts as well.

It will be good to revisit LootStreet in 6months time and see how well they’re faring.

Comments

July 8, 2008, Rabi Gupta commented: I heard of this one during the Eureka at IIT Mumbai this year. One of my seniors (and Entrepreneur) was talking about this idea. This is what he called reverse of Ebay (i.e. here the buyers have an advantage over the sellers, rather than sellers having it in Ebay)!

Chinese firm TenCent signs deal to acquire 50% of MIH India Global

pranav — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:10:07 +0000

TenCent Holdings, a leading Chinese portal, has secured an option to acquire upto 50% of MIH India Global Ltd. MIH operates the portals iBibo, Dwaar and OneFamily.

TenCent plans to invest $7.5 million in MIH India Global over the next three years.

MIH India Global is backed by media conglomerate Naspers, which, also owns a 35.5% stake in TenCent. Nice !!

via release

Comments

June 20, 2008, Sonia Malhotra commented: $ 7.5 Million for 50% stake in MIH seems unbelievable......so many startups get this much in their first round itself. There's much more than seen here. I think the Balti is worth more than that..... :-) Sonia Malhotra Internetpreneur www.GhumiChale.com India's First Hotels Comparison Engine

Move over Digg clones, time has come for the Indian Reddit clones

pranav — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:02:41 +0000

When Pligg, a popular open source Digg clone, was launched, countless sites popped up on the map, wanting to be India’s Digg.Â With time, the most lame ones have gotten weeded out. But that still doesnt deter others from launching a Digg clone even today.

Now that Reddit is open sourcing their code, I’m hedging my bets to the possibility that within the next 1-3 months, we’ll see a lot of Reddit clones pop up for India related content as well. The only hindrance towards Reddit adoption and deployment is that it is Python based as opposed to the popular PHP.

None the less, keep a lookout and expect to hear about HumReddit, BharatNews, IndoNews, Indyanews or something similar in the next few months.

Comments

June 18, 2008, Ram commented: Congrats for getting in to Techmeme
June 23, 2008, pranav commented: @ram, if you know how techmeme works, its not to difficult to get on it.
August 9, 2008, Jay commented: Nice post. Have you seen http://indiahacker.com? It is based on reddit for the Indian audience.

Yulop, Vakow, CommonFloor - A few startups that I wanted to write about

pranav — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:52:53 +0000

There are a few startups - Yulop, Vakow, CommonFloor - that I wanted to write about way back, but due to time constraints, never was able to do so.

However, considering the pace at which these startups are innovating, I thought it might be a good idea to revisit them and write a few words about them.

Yulop

Yulop is a portal for the city of Bangalore. Since its humble origins, they’ve added several great features like CityFind, CityEvents, traffic reports, mobile support, geotagging and Location Based services. They have close to 150K geotagged business listingsÂ for Bangalore and a fairly large number of event listings as well. I’m impressed by the way they’ve customized Joomla and how they continue to innovate at such a rapid pace. I guess the next step would be to expand beyond Bangalore as well ?

Vakow

Vakow is a sweet, microblogging service that packs quite a punch. “SMS blogging and sharing” is how they describe themselves. Vakow started out as a place for users to share interesting SMS’es.Â However, more recently, they seem to be evolving into a full fledge microblogging service as well. You can send updates via SMS / web, make friends, share interesting SMS’es, send personal SMS’es and even post Twitter updates (cheaper than Twitter’s India short code) using Vakow. They have a pretty neat integration into Orkut and Facebook as well. Check them out.

CommonFloor

CommonFloor provides secure online space for apartments and apartment associations, where residents can avail easy access to locality information and make apartment administration hassle free. Residents can post online notices, make club-house booking online, stay connected with events going in and around the apartment, find neighbors sharing common interests etc. Owner’s Association using CommonFloor can send SMS alerts of useful notices and updates to all residents; discuss issues and agendas concerning maintenance and manage expenses.

The concept seems a bit untractable at first. After all, convincing apartment associations and selling the concept of online management & apartment administration, is not an easy task. But from what I hear, CommonFloor is doing a pretty good job at getting apartments on board. If they can pull it off, it’d indeed be a great feat.

Comments

June 12, 2008, manuscrypts commented: ..and yulop is now on wap too... watblog had a story a couple of days back.. common floor, if succesful, would be useful to a lot of brands... a kind of one stop shop as far as apartment promos etc are concerned...
June 13, 2008, rg commented: Hey Pranav, thanks for the plug. cheers rg
June 16, 2008, pranav commented: @manuscrypts - i agree. If they can pull it off like how Redbus is doing, they'd deserve a standing ovation. @rg - you're welcome

Beta test outside the early adopter crowd

pranav — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:49:49 +0000

Depending on who your target audience is, it is so very essential that you do beta testing within a subset of that targeted audience. If your web app is designed for the general audience (read: outside the realm of the early adopter crowd), I’d say you better get your friends-family (assuming they fall outside the early adopter crowd) test out your web app for usability and workflow.

I know, this post may seem somewhat random, out of the blue. And moreso, pretty darn obvious.

The topic originated from an entrepreneur friend, who’s developing a site targeted towards stay at home Indian moms. Adhering to the de-facto Web 2.0 trends, he had all these buttons for Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon etc. While his wife was taking a test drive of the app, she asked him a simple question - ‘ What is Digg’. It took him a good 20-30 minutes to exactly explain to her what Digg is and what the “Digg it” button actually does. This incident made him revisit his app and approach and design it more from a layman’s perspective.

Moral of the story - what may seem obvious to you or me may not be so obvious to someone who’s technically less savvy. And the usability perspective of that person may be crucial to the success of your app.

Comments

May 27, 2008, divakar commented: I know companies who are doing this.

Indimeme - meme tracker for Indian blogosphere

pranav — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:03:20 +0000

If you closely follow technology news, TechMeme has gotta be in your daily reading list. Indimeme is a similar effort at developing a meme tracker for Indian blogosphere. The ‘hot’ stories from Indian blogosphere are presented in a semi-clustered way. The site is a project by Raj @Teknobites and currently includes 100 Indian blogs with plans to include additional blogs later.

The site is a good start but is different from Techmeme is several respects. The biggest difference is that Techmeme follows links and trackbacks from blogs and uses this link structure to build its clusters. Indimeme, meanwhile, seems to read the blog feeds and uses text summarization to build the clusters.Â This method does not always generate good quality clusters and a lot boils down to how effectively the text is summarized.

It isnt very difficult to build a site that uses document clustering. Using open source software like Carrot2 & Nutch etc. you can put together a similar site as well. Its the quality of the clusters and the fine-tuning that actually matter. If document clustering sounds interesting to you, see my earlier post on document clustering algorithms and related technology.

Comments

May 16, 2008, Sachin commented: wow..good news..thnx Pranav for sharing this site.
May 16, 2008, Paras Chopra commented: I've made a similar site on Indian Startup Scene. It currently aggregates content from 19 websites (including this blog). Have a look at it: http://india.startuplogic.com
May 16, 2008, Ram commented: Pranav thanks for the review. Yah you are right, it is different from techmeme, it just reads feeds. The problem with following links is i will end up with all blogs, not specific to India. The site is built on open source tools and developer APIs. One correction i am "Ram@Teknobites" not Raj
May 19, 2008, Debashish commented: Nice analysis. Any PHP based alternative to Carrot2 & Nutch?
May 19, 2008, Nikhil Pahwa commented: I've been through Indimeme twice in the last hour and a half, and the top story is still the same. frequency of updates is critical. secondly, they've got to get the timing sorted out. we did a story at around 8:50am, and others followed up, and yet we're not leading the news for that news.
May 19, 2008, pranav commented: @ram - sorry about that...will correct it later today. @debashish - dont know about php alternative to nutch..but you can use carrot2 in your php code via their REST interface. I had a working model for carrot2 quite some time ago - but never got the time to fine tune the noise. @nikhil - indimeme, in its current form, is definitely not a killer product. thats why i didnt give it a raving review. all the stuff that you mention above -- that is a part of fine-tuning the meme tracker...and it is lacking in indimeme currently.
May 24, 2008, Ram commented: @Nikhil "the top story is still the same." where is the breaking news in India, except you and 2 or 3 other blogs no one is reporting current news in the same timeframe (with in 24 or 48 hours). That is one of the reason the front page is not changing very frequently.

CafeStocks, another attempt at social investing

pranav — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:33:08 +0000

CafeStocks is yet another startup trying to marry social features and Indian stock market investing. The goal is to use wisdom of the crowds for buying and selling stocks. Users can collaborate and seek out opinions and ask questions related to any particular stock.Â Each user can maintain their virtual portfolio and based on the performance of their portfolio, earn karma points.

While there’s little novelty regarding the concept, the problem lies with CafeStocks’ poor execution. Be it design, content or utility, the site feels somewhat lacking - I guess they should have waited some more time to seed content before opening it to the public. Without proper focus and execution, it may vanish into oblivion, especially since others seem be executing quite well.

Comments

May 28, 2008, sameer commented: Well said parnav,, execution is what really matters as more and more palyers come in this space. Buth others are not doing that great as well. market hero have over done ajax and many things don't work on many browsers. I would say khelostocks is better that way. They are a simple and clean website with some content as well as you mentioned.

Dhingana launches games, awesome new UI - interview with founders

pranav — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:01:20 +0000

Dhingana has just launched a games section with games like Cricket, Holi Tamasha etc and have refreshed their landing page to a great new design.

As popularity of Dhingana soars, I thought this would be a good opportunity to interview the Dhingana founders on their entrepreneurial experience thus far. As per Compete, US traffic to the site is down ~5% from January 2008, but is up by about 700% over the last year.

Interview follows:

1) How old is Dhingana today ?
More then 1.5 years old.

2) Can you share any interesting insights into your audience - like which are the top 5 countries you are seeing the traffic from ?
Sure. Our user base is spread over the world in more then 185 countries. Top countries are India, US, UK, Canada, UAE, Australia, Pakistan, Singapore, Germany & Japan

3) Any interesting info related to how many monthly hits / pageviews ?
4) How manyÂ MB/GB’s are you currently streaming a month ?
This is a very exciting time for us. We are experiencing phenomenal growth rate and we have grown by more then 880% in terms page views over the last year.

5) What revenue model are you following ? How do you cover hosting and streaming costs ?
Though we have a few interesting revenue models planned for the future, as of now, it is Internet Advertising. We offer CPM based advertising inventory as well asÂ ‘Exclusive Sponsors’ ads for advertisers. We drive a very niche audience all over the world, as most of the users who come to Dhingana are interested in entertainment.

6) What kind of response are you seeing from the community and users in general ?
Users are really enjoying the experience on Dhingana. 100s of users join Dhingana everyday and we receive a plethora of compliments via email feedback every day.

7) What kind of licensing issues do you guys need to deal with for streaming music, if any ?
We work with the licensing authorities in India and we have secured licenses for streaming Indian music over the net.

8 ) A lot of folks are curious - who is the team behind Dhingana ?
Can’t say much at this time :). All we can say is our core team brings a creative and diverse set of experience from Yahoo! and Microsoft. By the way, you are the first one to know this.

9) What features can we expect to see in the future from Dhingana ?
We started off as a music streaming site. We then went a step further and added a lot of interesting social features like Public SmartLists, Public mGreetings & Musical Profile Pages. We saw fabulous response from our users and got some nice feedback from them. We are now extending Dhingana even further & converting it into a social platform around entertainment. The main facets of our entertainment platform would be Music, Movies, News, Videos, Photos and Games. There are a lot of cool features planned and we will definitely keep you updated on this moving forward.

10) What are some of the challenges you’ve faced while developing and scaling a memory and bandwidth intensive site ?
Streaming media has its own challenges and requires a very solid infrastructure to stream reliably - especially if you are streaming high quality songs. It was not easy and we have learnt a lot as we have grown over the last year and a half. 6 months back we re-wrote Dhingana from scratch and what we have now is an extremely flexible & highly extensible platform. We expect to learn even more moving forward and scale & load-balance our platform as we keep growing to best suit our traffic loads.

11) Any word of advice for other wannabe web entrepreneurs ?
Follow your passions. Always try to make meaning and money will follow. Simplicity and reliability are the founding pillars for building a beautiful product. Lastly practice the 5C mantra http://www.dhingana.com/info/aboutUs

Thanks guys for your time && good luck with Dhingana !!

Comments

May 9, 2008, Harsh commented: wow.. these guys are ripping off games from Indyarocks... look at the xclusive games list (above their logo)... They picked up games straight from Indyarocks featured games.. They even have that stupid Holi Tamasha game from FXlabs (recently FXLabs and Indyarocks partnered) so much for the 5Cs :-)
May 9, 2008, Harsh commented: Hey just digged deeper. They even copied the same game categories in the same sequence and the same thumbs up ad thumbs down icons (changed color) and quite a few design similarities. Good luck guys.
May 9, 2008, step2blog commented: whats the big deal guys even orkut is cloning face book app ,its not copying, the term is meeting market demands its common on net :-)
May 10, 2008, Sachin commented: Hey I am also starting to use some cricket games on my blog..is this legal?
May 10, 2008, Jitin commented: Harsh, no point criticizing dhingana when u dont know the complete picture...the design scheme they used for games section is same they have been using everywhere else on their site...its their unique and clean design...i have been using this site for an year now and i know these guys are doing an amazing job...they dont need to copy anyone...also games are user uploaded...there are quite a few game sites out there...and u can find common games on all these sites...more over most of the games are developed by 2-3 big game companies that every one else just hosts...even indyarocks are doing the same...no bigee there...i love dhingana more of its social network around music and the unique way they are handling things...just my 2 cents...also why are u showing compete graph and not alexa graph? compete is not that accurate as far as i know...
May 10, 2008, Jitin commented: I dont see a drop here :) http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/dhingana.com
May 12, 2008, pranav commented: @harsh, thnx for sharing your observations..It looks like games on dhingana are user uploaded. And like Jitin points out - there are only a handful of game producers -- others merely use games from the catalog of these game producers. and thats one of the reasons you end up seeing the same game at a lot of places. @jitin - where did you learn that compete is less accurate than alexa ?
May 12, 2008, jitin commented: pranav, alexa has a lot more data points compared to compete..thats why compete results only show a small subset of the actual site traffic...on another note alexa results show a subset of traffic as compared to comscore...but when it comes to getting the site traffic for free, alexa is the standard...else comscore is the way to go...
June 1, 2008, Radha commented: I looked at the site and they have a wonderfull collection of music. I hope they offer mp3 downloads soon either for free or maybe for a price as they have this one song that I would really like to have and I can't find the song anywhere else. Please consider the thought...than you! Great Job You Guys!

Loconomy - your hyper local marketplace

pranav — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:45:05 +0000

There are many startups hoping to tame the local search market in India. At first glance, Loconomy seems no different.However, on closer inspection, it becomes apparent that Loconomy offers some subtle, interesting features, which may very well set it apart from some of the other players.

Some of the generic local search related features offered by Loconomy:

Search and find information related to local businesses
Rate and review businesses
View local business locations on a map
Access and share information online or via mobile

Beyond these vanilla features is where Loconomy actually gets interesting. Instead of providing just a one way interaction from consumer to business, the site also offers businesses the opportunity to reach out to customers. Businesses can claim their entry and add product catalogs, menus, deals-coupons, audio-video brochures etc. to their profile. Besides ads, the company makes money by offering premium packages to businesses, which include premium features like featured placement, microsite development, very own dashboard, analytics, review alerts etc.

Here’s anÂ example of a microsite on Loconomy. Restaurants can add menus and table layouts via Loconomy and users can book a table directly using the table layout. Here’s an example of a product catalog on the site.

I think Loconomy offers some really compelling features, which not only are a reliable source of revenue, but also increase the usability and stickiness of the site itself. The end user also benefits, because they get access to much detailed information and services than normally they would.Â The key to their success will be an aggressive sales team to get as many businesses on board as possible.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Comments

May 7, 2008, R commented: interesting.
May 7, 2008, naman commented: interesting stuff... let see how onyomo and others answer to that.
May 12, 2008, pranav commented: loconomy's approach is indeed pretty interesting...Not only are they building up a steady revenue stream via this approach, they are also making life easier for the end user as well.

AdvocateKhoj, Indore360, AllIndiaDeals v2

pranav — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:07:33 +0000

AdvocateKhoj is a new service, where advocates compete for your business. Here’s how it works:

You post a short description of your legal needs by answering a few questions
The service then notifies available lawyers about the new case posting
They can review your case and then respond to you about your case details
You can review their responses, view their profiles and then decide which lawyer to hire

The service is pretty much similar to LendingTree, ApnaLoan, albeit for legal services. One of possible issues that might arise is whether users will be able to trust the lawyers via the service. Till the service sees some user adoption and builds feedback data related to the lawyer profiles, users may be apprehensive in using AdvocateKhoj for major legal jobs. The service, however, can be of good use for startups, who need to be frugal on such aspects.

Indore360, as the name suggests, is a Joomla based portal for the city of Indore. It has events, forums, maps, classifieds, yellow pages etc - all you’d expect from a city based portal. Some parts of the site dont work too well in FF v 3.

AllIndiaDeals, which I wrote about earlier, has refreshed their design and launched some nifty features like “Local deals”, “Deals for NRIs”,Â user forums etc. Check them out.

Desiji - Yet Another Social network for Indians

pranav — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:43:54 +0000

As if there arent enough social networks already competing for the Indian audience, Desiji is yet another social network targeted towards Indians.

The site has the regular fan fare you’d normally expect from a social network such as user profiles, friends, groups/networks, events, videos, classifieds etc.

As per the founders, here’s how they think they’re different:

1) We think Indian as a global then just a local

2) Offer 1 to 1 as well as 1 to Many peer social networking just made for Indian

3) Concept : “Connect, Share, Market”.

Users connect by joining unique concept called Network, which could be
1) regional 2) school 3) college 4) professional and 5) group/interest

4) Focused on Indian between age 15-65

Honestly, I dont think these are any differentiation factors at all.Â I think Desiji does not have the extra punch that would be needed to compete in a market dominated by Orkut, Facebook et. al. Lets see how long they can stay alive and take a shot at the Indian social networking market.

Comments

April 29, 2008, step2blog commented: their logo copied from kijiji good start
April 29, 2008, naman commented: indians SocNet should try and build around orkut. people dont have an apetite to join multiple SocNets
April 29, 2008, aj commented: Per their web site says... "desi" and ji" are separate words. In my opinion Orkut, Facebook, et.... focus on global community.....vs desiji just focus on Indian community worldwide. Its seems just made for Indian. I guess concept makes sense. Lets see how they work it out to make it better. Good Luck.
May 4, 2008, Prashant commented: I wrote about a few of the players in the Indian Social networking space just a few hours ago. I totally share your opinion of just too many social networks being out there. Do let me know on what you think of this. http://maskytech.blogspot.com/2008/05/indian-social-networking-mess.html Cheers:)
May 5, 2008, pranav commented: @prashant you left out itimes, minglebox etc..
May 15, 2008, Randhir commented: None of the sites(indyarocks, desiji, yaari etc ..) have the professional presentation .. They just want to get lucky on the cheap I guess. I just can't believe how and why minglebox got 10 Million, somebody really have to take that money back !!
May 27, 2008, Web Hosting commented: I like the way this site looks. So many networking sites in the market now. Difficult to choose a good one.

Exit strategy and revenue model for Indian startups

pranav — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:54:24 +0000

Startups and the startup ecosystem in India are making impressive strides. Just going by the number and quality of startups that launched in 2007 as compared to 2006, I can vouch for the fact that both are getting progressively much better.

But there’s one thing that I’m trying hard to find an answer to - how these startups intend to sustain / are sustaining themselves. Most of the the Indian startups follow either a transactional model for revenue generation or rely on the advertising model (pimped by the Web 2.0 world) or have no business model at the time of launching. While revenue generation isnt an issue in the former, its the latter two that baffle me somewhat.

Startups need a means to sustain themselves till they find an exit strategy. A successful exit strategy would normally translate into either an IPO or getting acquired by a bigger player. But till that happens, the startup needs money - to keep the servers running, pay bills etc. Most of the current breed of Indian startups seem to be bootstrapped. A few lucky ones might have secured angel - VC funding.Â But for the others, how long would the bootstrapping work ? Would an advertising supported business model work for them ?

The trend for ad supported business models has originated from Silicon Valley, but the dynamics in the Valley have been quite different. Buoyed by the number of successful M&A/IPO exits, VC’s have been pumping money into Internet startups. Others have found success through the advertising model and can independently sustain themselves.

Unfortunately, in the Indian market, Internet ad spends are still quite less. Majority of the chunk goes to big Internet portals. Yes, there are the numerous Indian ad networks - Komli, Tyroo, PayPod, DGM, Ozone Media, Google Adsense, AdWinks - but is their payoff really enough for the startup to cover operational costs ? I honestly doubt it.

The one thing that works in favor of the entrepreneurs is that the cost to launch a startup has drastically gone down. None the less, there are expenses and these expenses are coming straight out of the founder’s pockets. The M&A activity hasnt quite blossomed yet in the Indian Internet market. There were the two success stories (excluding Naukri), but that was it. So, in the absence of a rosy M&A environment, who knows for how long the startup may have to sustain itself. Assuming that the startup fails to secure external funding, would the founder be able to bootstrap for 1-3 years (assuming the founder gives his startup a maximum of 3 years to determine if it was a success - failure) ?

Note that I’m not drawing any conclusions here - these are some open-ended questions that we need to seek out the answers to. It’d be great to hear from current Indian Internet entrepreneurs about their thoughts on this. Have they faced this dilemma ? If so, how did they address it. Everyone else, feel free to chime in as well.

Comments

April 24, 2008, Mohammed Ali R commented: Hi Pranav! Thanks for pouring out my dilemma on your blog. I have been toying with the idea of starting an Internet Entertainment Channel, but the prospects of being able to sustain myself are taking over me. The most important problem i face is generating income. How will the ads shown on my channel help me procure my high investment that goes in a video content? And whether India is ready to have this kind of channel given the internet infrastructure we have? Or will we have to wait for a few more years? Also with the current television boom, is the Indian audience ready to take Internet as one of the mediums of entertainment and not just as a sub-medium? Or do we have to wait for the IPTV and other such stuff to become common? Why are these things taking time to enter the Indian market? These thoughts are killing me. So i can definitely imagine the horrors of having your own start-up. Let alone getting your investments back or being noticed by a biggie. Cheers.
April 25, 2008, Kunal commented: Hey Pranav, Thats a good point you brought forward. I don't have any tech background. I was wondering if you could advise me on any one-stop shop comsultants who could take me through the process of launching a website? I know of softwares online which help you with the same but I need an expert due to my lack of techonology experience
April 27, 2008, wiborg commented: Mohammed Ali - there is a big game behind not launching new technology and services in India. who says india has no spectum to launch 3G ??? it's there since ages. you can validate this statement if you have any friends working with indian I & B minstry. we dont know all this because we are entrepreneurs not businessman.
April 28, 2008, pranav commented: @mohammed - thanks for sharing your experiences here. I guess at one point, if you're really passionate about your idea, you have to just go for it.. @kunal - you can look a companies like Digital Telepathy. They are a one stop shop for launching your Internet startup.
April 30, 2008, Kunal commented: Thanks...
April 30, 2008, Kunal commented: Thanks Pranav, but Digital Telepathy seems to be a company based in NYC. I needed to get in touch wit some one closer to home in Mumbai, say Pune or Bangalore? COuld you guide me on that front?
April 30, 2008, wiborg commented: hi kunal plz your details to smoothrocker@rediffmail.com, he will assist you for the same
May 1, 2008, Azeez commented: Hey..I visited their site (prototype investment) They are based in denmark,it will be risky job to get their help for indian start ups..Plz any one interested in Cool idea its not wierd web 2.0 or some thing stuff its pure idea mail me we can discuss it If any from India cheers it will be easy to contact
May 1, 2008, Azeez commented: my id is azeez541@gmail.com
May 4, 2008, Mohammed Ali R commented: Wiborg -> Somethings definitely fishy about the arrival of technology late in our country... Im not sayin we are lagging behind, but updates keep coming at a very slow pace.. like 3G, it should have been here long time back! But i hear somewhere they want to go for 2G first and then jump onto 3G after a while... And the world is all ready for 4G... Sad but funny! Pranav -> I think your right. I guess I'm gonna do that in sometime... thanks for your words ;-)
May 5, 2008, Kunal commented: Wiborg- I did shoot an email to the address you provided but have still not heard anything back on that front.
May 5, 2008, pranav commented: @kunal, sorry buddy - i'm not sure about similar companies in blore / pune. probably you can attend entpreneur networking events / barcamps and seek out this info from attendees at these events.

Myntra.com partners with IndyaRocks for personalized merchandize

pranav — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:15:37 +0000

Myntra.com has announced partnership with Indian social networking site, IndyaRocks. Via this partnership, IndyaRocks users will get access to Myntra’s services.

Users can use any of the photos uploaded to IndyaRocks to order personalized merchandise like t-shirts, mugs, calendars etc from Myntra.

Myntra seems to be pretty aggressive at signing up such partnerships. Earlier, they also announced similar partnerships with Ibibo, HolidayIQ and Chakpak. They seem to be making all the right moves - forming as many channel partnerships as possible.

Amitabh blogs on BigAdda - what a shitty gimmick from BigAdda

pranav — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:44:28 +0000

Scene 1, Take N:

Execs at BigAdda, R-ADAG’s social networking site, nervously thinking of ways to counter MySpace India’s launch.

Exec 1: “Quick…We need something to counter PR efforts from MySpace India’s launch today. Can we pull off a rabbit from the hat ? ”

Exec 2: “Hey, why not ask Amitabh Bachchan (who happens to be Anil Ambani’s buddy) to start a blog on BigAdda ? It seems really creative and will help counter MySpace India’s announcement.”

Exec 1: “But will it work ? Will BigB be open to the idea of blogging ?”

Exec 2: “Who cares ? We’ll have what we need to make big announcement for the day.”

So, BigAdda comes up with the shitty idea of having Amitabh Bachchan to start a blog.

The entire concept seems to have been put together in a jiffy in a totally lame manner.Â Here’s why:

1) Even though BigAdda has a ‘blogs‘ section of its own, the BigB blog is hosted on a separate, WordPress MU install.

2) If you want, you can join BigB and sign up for your own blog on BigAdda - click here to signup - and then flaunt to your mom-GF that you blog alongside BigB. Apparently, the WordPress install is configured to accept signups - see the screenshot below (click for bigger version):

More on this topic in follow up post tomorrow.

Comments

April 22, 2008, Nishant Kyal commented: And also Big B is sitting the nights up to compose posts for the blog which put essays to shame. Seems like Big B was waiting for this rare opportunity to express himself and can't thank BigAdda enough .. lol
April 22, 2008, Ajitesh commented: I swear on that! I tried and easily got the access to wordpress signup window. Not sure of what the guys at BigAdda.com doing?
April 22, 2008, Ankur commented: I think there is a need for you to look at the language you use in your writings. If I were to explain this in your language -- please try to avoid using shitty word like "shitty" in your posts ;). Thank you
April 22, 2008, Ankur commented: *words
April 23, 2008, starblogger commented: i guess the way the blog is written is totally correct. ADAG should mind the kind of news releases it makes.totally non sense.It has also written an article in alootechie about lots and lots of philppene and chine girls using bigadda.what kind of news releases are those.They want show that it is a big advantage for bigadda and the users will be able to interact with those girls.shame on the ADAG GUYS
April 28, 2008, India Mobile Forum commented: Registration has been disabled. LOL
May 2, 2008, Pavan Metri commented: Amitabh should leavy maha actually. He has done nothing for Maharashtra. Majhi Marathi Majhi ladha.............................................. Bhag jao mumbai se...
June 21, 2008, ruhi commented: hi amitabh uncle,aap mere dad jese ho.....me ek middle class family se blong karti hoon...lekin main sapne is aasman se bhi unche dekhti hoon...jab kuch log muje kehte he ki me kuch nahi ban sakti...tab main apni aankhe band karti hoon aur aapke bare me sochti hoon...aur fir dubara apne sapne pure karne ki koshish me lag jaati hoon...muje ek bahut badi actress banna he...actually meri life se jaada muje us unchai se pyar he jaha me pahuchna chahti hoon...agar me famous nahi ho pai to me jinda bhi nahi reh paungi...aur muje famous hone ki himmat aap se hi mailti he...aap ko bhi begnin me kitne logo ne looser kaha tha lekin ab shayad vahi log aapki winnin ke fan ban chuke honge.....aap itne famous isliye ho qki aap ek sachche aur talented ho .......thanks to ur mother and father jinki vajah se aap jaisa insaan hume mila specially muje........thank u so much uncle.....ur daughter .....future ki sabse famous girl ruhi naz
June 21, 2008, ruhi naz commented: hi amitabh uncle,aap mere dad jese ho.....me ek middle class family se blong karti hoon...lekin main sapne is aasman se bhi unche dekhti hoon...jab kuch log muje kehte he ki me kuch nahi ban sakti...tab main apni aankhe band karti hoon aur aapke bare me sochti hoon...aur fir dubara apne sapne pure karne ki koshish me lag jaati hoon...muje ek bahut badi actress banna he...actually meri life se jaada muje us unchai se pyar he jaha me pahuchna chahti hoon...agar me famous nahi ho pai to me jinda bhi nahi reh paungi...aur muje famous hone ki himmat aap se hi milti he...aap ko bhi begnin me kitne logo ne looser kaha tha lekin ab shayad vahi log aapki winnin ke fan ban chuke honge.....aap itne famous isliye ho qki aap ek sachche aur talented ho .......thanks to ur mother and father jinki vajah se aap jaisa insaan hume mila specially muje........thank u so much uncle.....ur daughter .....future ki sabse famous girl ruhi naz

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