Though the generic social network scene in India is dominated by Orkut and Facebook, the niche based social networking market in India is still up for grabs.
Ocricket is such a niche based social network for cricket fans. You can post cricket related articles, share media (photo-videos) related to cricket make friends and create cricket focused groups. You can also view active Twits related to cricket. They pretty have all the hooks to build a good community for cricket fans.
While the size of the potential market is huge, this market is heavily dominated by CricInfo and other established portals. OCricket will need to come up with some innovative methods to market and reach out to cricket fans. And they’ll also face a few challenges in terms of content generation (UGC doesnt work so well with India). One thing that they might wanna try is have a few team members focused onlly on content generation – attend matches happening in India and provide on the ground coverage (not live commentary but other content like photos etc.). They could also contact bloggers who write on cricket and try for content syndication.
Probably come up with a quiz section and have quiz like social apps for Orkut (the strategy worked brilliantly for Chakpak).
While they have some challenges, I do think that there’s a huge potential for the site, if done right. Like entertainment, cricket is a huge market in India.
Give it a shot and let me know what you think.
yeah……….myself being a cricket fan…….n the fact i discovered this post…….think that theres a need for niche…..for mad fans like us who are hungry to discuss cricket at any point of time………lemme hope this one doesnt dissapoint me……
good luck folks!
an igoogle page is better than this.
wake up people get innovative
AK,
Its easy to say that. It takes much more to actually launch something.
Really getting good content is a big problem for these kind of sites. I also have a blog about Cricket Jokes,Cartoons and I know how difficult is it.
It looks like a decent web content aggregating app – What makes it a startup?
I think we need to realize what is a difference between a great app vs a company. So, far I don’t see a revenue model. I don’t see any ads either (I guess for now).
I understand that it takes a lot to get even a simple app on the web. It seems like Brajeshwar and his team did a good job in creating a good looking site with pre-populated and automated content. They might be able to pull off the traffic as well, but then what?
@Gaurav: any tech start up has multiple phases. all of them start with solving some problem which involves application of technology and in the end deliver an application/website. however technology/application is something a lot of people can develop/copy but the one who is able to actually build a business out if it is an entrepreneur. OCricket is still in phase 1 we need to give it some time and see what it does once it cracks the user base.
I have been following OCricker for past 5-6 months when it was still in private beta and the speed with which they have been executing troubles me.
i expected them to go public a lot earlier, i am not sure what kept them so long.
i see a lot of social networks based on cricket already out there.
the differentiating factor between cric info and any other cricketing website is the content. the quality of content and interview is really good and none of the other sites are comparable to it.
they might take a clue from cricbuzz which has carved a niche by cric chat which led to their popularity rather than competing in content which is a very expensive affair.
i doubt a startup like OCricker would be able to compete as far as content is concerned. secondly social networks have no technical barrier. user base is the only thing which will be the differentiating factor and how they are gonna crack it, will have to wait and see.
all the best to OCricket team.
Sandeep,
you put it quite succinctly. Lets give OCricket some time to give it a shot.
It took quite some time for Orkut to pick up in India as well. When I joined Orkut in the initial days, there were hardly any Indians on it. And look where it stands now.
It takes a while for the network effect to happen in a socio net.
-p
@Sandeep
We’re flattered by the fact that you’ve been tracking us for quite sometime. It took us time because there are lot more cool stuffs going underneath the skins that you see now.
Watch us further and we’ll surprise users with more nifty tools and dirt-easy to use tools.
About getting user base, user signups and content and how cricbuzz did the buzz! Well, we’ve a bit of a different business model and this place will be too small for that discussion.
We at oCricket will try our best to make it enjoyable for users.