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Local Search On Your Move by OnYomo

October 22, 2006 · Posted in reviews

Tech savvy folks from Delhi-NCR and Bangalore have reason to rejoice. Blame it on Onyomo (short for ‘on your move’) - a local search engine, hoping to make it easier to search for local businesses in these regions. The company seems to be founded by ex-IIT Delhi alums and is incubated by the ‘Technology Business Incubation Units’ at IIT Delhi. Here’s a verbatim description of their motivation and ambitions found here:

OnYoMo is an information service that delivers consumer information over the Internet and mobile devices. The company was started by alumni of IITs and it commenced operations in August 2005.

It is founded on the the rationale that as consumers’ disposable income goes up, their need for a better lifestyle comprising household products, enertainment services etc. goes up too. However, with the rise in incomes also comes a need for a solution to help consumers sift through heaps of information to locate the product or service that meets their needs. OnYoMo is an effort in this direction - it makes finding all such products and services an easy task. The underlying technologies use sophisticated algorithms to find precise matches to user searches and paltform design ensures that the results are delivered in the shortest possible duration. Extension of the service over mobile devices ensures that the service is accesible to a much larger audience.

Following the ‘less is more’ mantra, the design for OnyoMo is very clean and intuitive. You enter the type of business you are looking for, select the location and thats it. On the results page, you can further drill down and narrow the set of results by additional related categories. For instance, while searching for ATM’s, you can narrow down the results by the bank. On the same note, you can narrow down hotels by their rating (five star - one star), the facilities they offer (internet access,airport transfers,meeting facilities etc.). You can rate a listing and also view a map of the location. The map feature is still rudimentary and needs improvement. You can also ‘Text-it‘ a search result to a mobile phone. Just click ‘Text-it’ next to a search result,enter your mobile number and that particular listing will be sent to your mobile phone.

Topping this feature is the SMS search for local listings. Here’s how it works:

Send a sms to 8558 with what you are looking for and optionally the preferred location with find keyword.
Send FIND to 8558 e.g. FIND icici atm noida
Want More Results?
SMS FIND NEXT to 8558 to get the next set of results for your query

This feature could make the site a winner, considering the pervasiveness and extensive use of SMS in India.

They have a pretty comprehensive set of listings (which I hope will keep growing in the future) as seen below (Delhi-NCR region):
Restaurants 968
Cinema 128
Lounges and bars 113
Hotels 75
Coffe shops 75
Book stores 24
Florists 74
ATMs 1090
Taxi services 84
Courier services 138
Cyber cafe 108
Beauty saloons 57
Driving schools 75
Gym 44
Chemists 81
Hospitals 162
Electronics 716

The site makes excellent use of AJAX in just the right proportion, thereby making it very user-friendly. The nice and clean design also enhance the user experience. They intend to expand local search for Mumbai in the near future.

There are a couple of suggestions I have for the Onyomo team. Currently, there is no provision to sort the results by rating / price. This feature is very valuable while finding the top-rated restaurants, hotels etc. There also needs to be a feature in the Restaurants section so that the user can narrow the results by type of cuisine.

Overall, OnyoMo does an excellent job in content and presentation. I believe they have what it takes to become the dominant player in this field.

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2 Responses to “Local Search On Your Move by OnYomo”

AutoBlog on January 8th, 2007 6:20 pm

This blog is great!
Ten Indian startups to watch « Startup Dunia - Indian startups and Entrepreneurship on March 30th, 2007 11:39 am

[...] Market Served: Mobile based local search. My coverage on Onyomo here. [...]