Khojguru - an interesting approach to local search
Khojguru offers an interesting take on local search by marrying it with social features like friends, profiles etc. At the surface, Khojguru appears to be just like any other local search site - you can search for restaurants, movie theaters, coffee shops etc in your city. Alongwith the regular fanfare like reviews, ratings etc., Khojguru offers some interesting new features. You can join a fan club for the particular service, view the menu / catalog online as well as talk to the merchant directly via a click 2 call feature. The listing also features coupons / discounts, which can be sent directly to your mobile via SMS.
Uncover Mumbai bus routes with m4mum
Navigating your way through Mumbai’s bus service can be a daunting task, especially if you are new to Mumbai or new to a specific Mumbai locality. And unfortunately, if you live in Mumbai, there’s no escaping it. The only solution is to ask other folks at the bus station about the bus route and cross your fingers hoping that the information provided is accurate.
M4mum hopes to change that by launching a Java based mobile app for bus information in Mumbai. Enter the ‘From’ and the ‘To’ fields and the app will help you navigate through the myriad bus routes frenzy. No longer do you need to ask around for information or carry a route booklet in your pocket. Since no GPRS - SMS is involved, end users do not incurr any expenses for using the service.
The idea is awesome - it solves a common painpoint for regular commuters and considering that about 4.2 million commute via bus in Mumbai, the potential market size is pretty large too. Now that they’re in beta, I’d suggest getting the word out to fellow Mumbaikars and increase the user adoption.
Check them out here.
FunPiper evolves into an event planning site
FunPiper, which I reviewed earlier, has evolved into an event planning and collaboration service. Earlier, the focus of the site was to get users to answer one simple question - “How was your weekend?”. Now, you can create an event, notify your friends, track RSVP’s and manage other aspects of event planning from the website. A dedicated page is assigned to each event and invitees dont need to sign up for an account in order to collaborate on the event.
This evolution is good sign - the sooner you can identify whats working and what isnt, you can innovate and evolve into a different concept. Most of the startup ideas start with one thing and at the end of execution, have evolved into something completely different.
Share your music talent on Uhooroo
Uhooroo is a new startup geared towards the Indian music community. As a musician, you can upload your music, showcase your tracks, connect with other musicians, discuss and collaborate with other musicians and even form your own band. As a music buff, you can uncover new, interesting, indie music and even hire musicians for local performances / events.
CATindiaOnline - Online CAT testing with some cool analytics
When it comes to standardized tests in India, none generates as much interest and buzz as the CAT exams. There are lots of online as well as offline resources for CAT preperation and testing. While I have reviewed a few online CAT testing sites and get emails from even more, very few have caught my interest like CATindiaOnline.
At the surface, CATindiaOnline is just yet another CAT testing site. The site offers mock CAT tests, including previous CAT papers and topic wise tests. The biggest value offered by the site, which I believe is also their USP, is the awesome analytics regarding a user’s performance. The site offers in-depth analysis of a candidate’s performance - topic wise, section wise, comparative analysis, time based analysis (are you improving on subsequent tests) etc., all of which offers tremendous value to the user. At the end of the test, the site also offers recommendations about how the user can improve and score better results on subsequent tests.
Sunoh.fm launches platform for social discovery of Indian music
Sunoh.fm is a new social networking and music discovery platform for Indian music fans. It is essentially a social networking site, where you can connect with friends and view the music library of your friends. In the process, you discover new, interesting music from your social graph. Information aggregated from all the users (number of plays) is used to determine what artists are popular and what music tracks are currently ‘hot’.
They also provide a desktop client, which is essentially a Windows Media player plugin, that enables to stream music to the desktop.
Kreeo - semantics based knowledge manaement
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:
InvestmentYogi, a personal finance and investment portal for India
InvestmentYogi, a personal finance and investment portal for India, launched in public beta early last week. The site features a lot of useful content, how-to guides (based on the FinanceWiki platform), community 
forums, mutual fund evaluation as well as tools for tracking your portfolio.
The idea is that InvestmentYogi helps a user
- learn (via how-to guides and articles) about personal finance and investment
- share experiences - opinions (via the forums or videos)
- grow personal wealth (using ’sample plans’, ‘ask the expert’ etc.)
The site also features a tax filing application called TaxYogi, which is fully integrated into the portal.
As per Mamtha, CEO - InvestmentYogi,
“InvestmentYogi is the first personal finance portal for India to weave social networking, analytics and video into traditional tools and services for financial planning, taxes and investing. Simplicity, personalization and relevance are the foundation of our product and this leads to a unique experience for the user.”
Give it a spin and let me know your thoughts.
Navajo - word puzzle based addictive Facebook app
Navajo is a neat little word puzzle based Facebook app. It is a multiplayer word game, which can be played in a public room, network room (only has friends from your social graph) or a private room. Essentially, you are presented with a jumbled word in an IRC style chat room. You get two hints to get the word right (remember, other players are competing too) - the hints appear at specific intervals if the correct word hasnt been guessed already. The more the correct words you can guess, the higher you rank.
There are different types of rooms based on the difficulty level of the words as well - easy, medium, hard and GRE level. The app is entertaining and pretty addictive. In no time, I ended up spending more than 45 minutes on it. Simple and entertaining - with some luck and wishful thinking, the app has the potential to become popular like Scrabulous.
Jobyantra - Affiliate based job board for Indian startups
A short while back, I did a post related to hiring for Indian startups. The sentiment that emerged from the discussion related to that post was a no brainer - hiring for startups still remains a daunting task !! Job portals like Naukri yield mixed results and end up requiring a considerable time weeding out candidates. In short, Naukri and other job portals are probably not the best resources to hire startup employees.
Jobyantra is an affiliate based job board solution that hopes to provide an alternative to hiring for startups. Here’s how it works. Employers post job openings via the Jobyantra website. Jobyantra then posts the job across the sites that have joined its partner affiliate network. Blog and website owners can sign up to the affiliate network and get Jobyantra’s job board integrated into their site / blog. The design of the board can be customized to integrate into the blog’s theme.
The concept isnt new, and has been successfully executed by several similar job boards in the US. Most of the prominent technology blogs have integrated a job board solution into their blog with good results. The benefits of the approach are obvious - employers get to target jobs to exactly the audience they’re hoping to target. That translates to getting the right candidates without spending large amounts of resources for the job search.
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