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iTasveer+Vista=Ease of access. (online photo site)+Reliance=disruptive?
2007-03-02 16:23:03
iTasveer is in news as they recently announced a deal with Microsoft. If you have Vista , you can order photos right from Windows explorer, without needing to visit any website at all. Pretty neat. They also announced Doodlepad, a new feature with which you can custom design your own tshirts/mugs and order them online. Good to see some innovation in this space. Clearly, these features make them stand apart from others in this crowded space. However, digital camera + decent Internet access + Windows Vista is not a combination that is prevalent at least today in India, so it will be a little while before they start reaping real benefits from this. (esp. with all the steps Microsoft is taking to prevent piracy in Vista). Obviously (its hard to not imagine mobile while speculating the next disruptive innovation in the Indian context), the next question is - will we see someone striking a similar partnership with Airtel, Reliance or some other mobile network? So that people can just click...
More About: Photo , Site , Online , Access

Will you bet on Local Search ?
2007-02-27 04:20:03
Local search has been a very interesting challenge and alot of old and new companies are taking a stab. Lets look at this entire continuum and where each player sits. Radical idea is to find information that is geo tagged. This information can be as granular as lat-long or as coarse as a city name. So when you setup a shop to solve local search, first question is how do you collect & tag this information? How do you present this informaton so that it creates the most wholesome experience? How do you make money from this high investment business? You can start with smart-crawling the web. I call it smart crawling because you dont crawl everything like a general purpose search engine. You need to identify and extract local information given a webpage. Dedupe listings that occurs on multiple pages. Lets says you write a kickass neural network that labels & classify this information. How does it know which one is real address? How do you verify the information you have is corr...
More About: Search , Local , Will , Loca

tolmolbol - newest entrant in your local community
2007-02-25 16:19:02
We recently spoke to tolmolbol, one of the newer players in India trying to make a mark in online local community/search space. This space is already crowded with the names like Ilaaka, Burrp, Onyomo, Sulekha. Ourcity and Guruji. Not to forget Google, Yahoo and Live search are/will be joining this game in India. This space now officially qualifies for “Indian fragmentation syndrome” similar to travel & DVD rental. Opportunity is there but not enough to attract a national play. Lot of smaller companies will trail the blaze and accumulate disjoint information about various localities in India. This should eventually get consolidated and customers are going to be benefitted with yet another addition. Here is tolmolbol (this name reminds me of tol-mol-ke-bol - the famous game show based on Monty hall problem), but that is just me. 1. What motivated you to start this venture? The biggest motivation for starting tolmolbol stemmed from our frustration with not being able t...
More About: Community , Muni , Rant , Your , West

The great Indian blogosphere - a business opportunity?
2007-02-20 16:16:09
There has been quite a bit of talk in the mainstream media as well as in the blogosphere about the blogging phenomenon in India . If the numbers are to be believed, they are quite significant. 35% of the entire Internet users expressing themselves through blogs! Not a bad number to start with. Also considering that China is much ahead at 77% as well as the fact that number of Internet users in India is set to explode in the next few years, the bloggers and readers represent quite an attractive segment to me. Now the question is whether there exists an unsolved problem in this domain? Look at this virtual world where all these bloggers live in - the Indian blogosphere. Now think of ways how people explore this world. There are some tools such as blog aggregators, a few scattered blog directories, some search engines, but nothing really compelling. I find it difficult to discover new interesting Indian blogs. There is no way good way for me to search the Indian blogosphere. No good way...
More About: Business , Sphere , Blog

A Remote Retail Business - guest post by Sanjay Mehta of Homeindia.com
2007-02-16 04:12:01
In this guest post written by Mr. Sanjay Mehta - the president of Home india.com, he shares his experiences and insights from doing online retail business geared towards India n customers. He describes Homeindia’s journey over the period of last 7 years, that has seen it all - the start, the boom, the bust and today’s rising wave. The article presents excellent all-rounded points on various business aspects including but not limited to product positioning, customer focus and sailing through the highs and lows of economic conditions. Needless to say, the article has lots to take home for entrepreneurs in the Indian Internet space. Many thanks to Sanjay for sharing this with our readers. Feel free to present your thoughts and even ask questions to Sanjay, if you have any. [If you have a story to share which fits the theme of iLeher and would like to publish, please contact madhur at iLeher dot com] Here goes the story in his own words: When you think retail, you think walk-i...
More About: Business , Post , Retail

NetTV and NetPC: The harbingers of a new era?
2007-02-12 16:09:02
[via Atanu] Internet is still a niche market segment in India, a point borne out by the numbers. Anand Sridharan, in his analysis of the current state of the Internet in India, captures the reasons behind it and also takes a look ahead as to what it takes to increase the usage of Internet in India. It is well understood that if the Internet economy is to really take off in India, it has to reach down from the upper (and upper-middle class sections) and penetrate the lower middle class. This is the population segment that the mobile phone market has been able to penetrate and consequently made India one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world! If cheap (”Made for India”) handsets and ever-reducing call charges have made the mobile ubiquitous in India, can the Internet (and computing) industry in India ride on the equivalent - cheap computers and affordable internet access? Novatium, a Chennai-based company co-founded by Rajesh Jain and Ashok Jhunjhunwala, seems...
More About: Bing , Harbin

State of online audio streaming
2007-02-07 16:04:11
DesiHits recently made waves by raising first round of funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson ventures. Goes to demonstrate the potential that the online audio/video streaming has and yet I didn’t know of too many serious players that are hugely popular yet. Of course there are old players Raaga and MusicIndiaOnline which have been around for quite some time and have a considerable user base and traffic, but they just seem to be too busy making money off of those popups and banner ads and audio ads. There’s been hardly any innovation (not even in the look ‘n feel!) in these sites. So I went hunting for the new generation of players that are trying to make their mark in this space and here are the findings. As you would expect, I could find sites not only in the category of streaming bollywood music, but also sites that provide cool ways of finding and discovering new music. I am only covering audio sites here - video would be a whole new post. Stream ing music: Dhinga...
More About: Audio , Audi , State

Makeover
2007-02-05 22:02:09
It’s a material world, appearance is everything. In this world of web2.0 you cannot have a site that doesn’t have AJAX. Wait, we are not big proponents of any of these beliefs. We just thought it was time we moved on from using one of the default Wordpress themes and created a unique identity of our own. So here we are - check out the new design and layout. Of course let us know if you think we can do anything more to make the appearance, usability, navigation or ability to find stuff better. Oh and while on feedback topic, also let us know if you have any on the content. As mentioned in the About page, we like to focus more on analysis type posts rather than covering news/developments in the industry. What do YOU like to see here? What have been some of your favorite posts? Anything you would like to see that we haven’t been covering? Lastly and most importantly, many thanks to V.V.K. Chandra of BrightEye, who helped us with the design and implementation of this n...
More About: Over , Make , Makeover

Making of Naukri.com
2007-02-02 10:00:07
Rediff has this detailed interview with the CEO of Info Edge Sajeev Bikhchandani, where he talks about about the eventful journey of Naukri.com. Its a typical story how legends are made - clear vision, immaculate execution, unperturbed perseverance and a bit of luck - leading his way from rags to riches, garage to IPO (the first for an Indian Internet company in Indian markets) Key takeaways from the interview: Idea: Saw a real opportunity from his own experience. Notice at first his idea was just to aggregate all the job listings - computer and later the Internet just happened to be the medium to realize the idea. Funding at the right time: Like he says, this may be just his luck, but he raised money right before the bust happened, as a result of which, he used the money much more frugally compared to what a lot of other companies were doing at the time. Early mover: Was one of the first Internet companies that targeted Indians in India, more importantly for something that peopl...
More About: King , Maki , Makin

SMS backup and storage
2007-01-30 09:59:02
We have discussed many times why mobile is an important channel and exploding.  This IAMAI report about mobile VAS estimates the mobile VAS industry at Rs 2850 crores at the end of 2006 and is estimated to grow at 60% to touch Rs. 4560 crores at the end of 2007. Here is the split: 40% of this huge industry is the SMS we are sending to our friends and family every day. This got me thinking about the information present in each SMS. Given high churn rate of SMS, it seems like the information present is temporal and it is probably worthless once read, but personally I have found myself in situations where I regret deleting one.  What if we give an ability to store all your SMS automatically? Nothing ever gets deleted. Just like your email. What is involved in offering such a service that could be tremendously useful?  I found yahoo, aircel and handygo services in India that allow you to backup your SMS. Yahoo service is one of the most well known and it has following rates. These SMS ...
More About: Backup , Storage , Back , Rage , Stor

Hungry for online deals
2007-01-23 21:54:16
One of the most prevalent business models in Internet companies is advertising. Here is a look at different types of business models that exist on the Internet around advertisements. The basic aim of advertisements is to generate leads for the advertiser. The beauty of CPC (cost per click) advertising on the Internet is that the vendors (advertisers) need to pay only when they actually get the traffic, which makes their marketing costs much more accountable compared to traditional banner advertising. Realizing the ROI that this promises to the advertisers, in the US, people have set up companies that solely do this - generate leads for online vendors. Of course any website that has google ads already does that. But let’s talk about sites that are dedicated to generating leads without focusing on any other content at all. One of the categories of sites that is quite popular in the US markets is the “deals” sites. These sites publish the latest and the greatest deals...
More About: Online , Deal , Line , Hungry

Ecommerce is very important to sustain the growth of Interne
2007-01-13 21:52:01
Ecommerce is very important to sustain the growth of Inter net. The ecosystem just doesn’t complete without ecommerce. After all that’s where the real money exchange happens between users and businesses. All other revenue models and businesses are just supporting, they cannot stand on their own. For example, there cannot be much expansion in ad revenues, or revenues from affiliates unless customers are ready to buy stuff that businesses are trying to advertise in the first place. We know that it is going to happen. Today or tomorrow, ecommerce will take off. It has happened in travel, it has happened in matrimony, jobs. Online retail is the next important and the biggest sector. There’s already a good number of sites that have decent offerings, but something feels lacking in them. Some of them are better than others in some respects, but none of them seem to be really tailor-made for Indian infrastructure and audience. Here is a list of points that we have come up t...
More About: Ecommerce , Port , Growth , Commerce

What are they doing to attract customers?
2007-01-04 09:46:01
One of the most common answers that I get on asking new startups about their marketing plans is that they are focusing on providing the best user experience and then rely on word of mouth. I beg to differ here. Agreed - awesome user experience accompanied with word of mouth is quite effective, but I think that some clever marketing can give a non-trivial boost to the traffic, more so for startups in the consumer Internet space. If you have big budget, the obvious way is to spend tons of money to make regular splashes all over the media or give away freebies to attract customers or even give big ticket lotteries (this is not unreal by the way). But on the other hand, even some low budget clever ideas can be very effective in driving significant traffic to the site. Let’s take a look at some of the Indian Internet companies to see what they are doing to attract customers. Also presented are tips on how other companies can use some of these techniques: Traditional media marketing...
More About: Customers , Customer , What , Hat , They

Movers and Shakers of Year 2006
2006-12-31 21:43:01
It’s that time of the year. Everyone is writing about the best of 2006. We thought it would be nice to look back at the happenings in the industry in the past year. Here is a collection of news that made the headlines in 2006. THE News The biggest event of the year was undoubtedly the IPO of Info-Edge (group owning Naukri, 99acres, JeevanSathi). This event has heralded a new era in the consumer Internet industry in India as it became the first Internet company ever to be listed on an Indian Stock Exchange. We hope to see some more companies to follow suit in the coming few years to keep the rally going. Some of the probable followers include the Shaadi group, BharatMatrimony group and the online travel companies. Investments Lot of money has poured in the market in 2006. As Venture Intelligence reports, VCs have made 53 early-stage investments in start-ups in India worth $355 million during the first nine months of 2006. That?s still nearly twice as much activity in that peri...
More About: Over , Move , Year , Movers

Offline presence
2006-12-31 21:43:01
I’ve referred to this multiple times in the past. Off the top of my head, here and here. I think offline presence is very very important to build a large user base esp. if the service is targeted towards general masses (as opposed to say social networking site that is targeted towards teen and youth demographics) Every Internet usage report that comes out, we get to see the same thing coming out - Internet penetration is still limited to bigger cities, main mode of access is still not home - more than 50% of the Internet usage is seen from cyber cafes, offices, schools. Today Jaaydaad.com announced that they will be opening 600 property shops throughout India. I think this is a very good strategy. Real estate market is not limited to 10 million active Internet users in India. So in order to reach out to real critical mass, this should be a great move. If properly executed, their target audience will be orders of magnitude more than an Internet only shop. Of course we know that...
More About: Offline , Presence , Line

Online movie distribution - a disruptive force?
2006-12-31 21:43:01
Recently I got to spend a lot of time at home with little work at hand. Along with gears of war on Xbox live I wanted to watch lot of hindi movies. After finishing new titles from the local Hindi movie rental shop, I decided to give bwcinema.com a spin. I took a $3.99 subscription for unlimited movies for 3 days. I watched 4 Hindi movies with DVD/VCD quality online. They support 1 mbps and 512 kbps bitrates. After a few hiccups like clearing the browser cache, windows media player update and lowering the bitrate, I got the no jitter streaming to work in full screen. I hooked the laptop to my TV and audio receiver and voila, I was enjoying new titles that are not in stores with better quality. At my corner store, I pay $1 for VHS and $2 for DVDs and these are 2 day rentals. It turns out that unlimited $3.99 subscription works out great. With heavy broadband penetration in US and not on time availability of VHS in local store, I wonder if these players are going to disrupt the busines...
More About: Movie , Distribution , Force , Online , Line

If mobile is the future of Internet, which companies are rea
2006-12-31 21:43:01
Much has been talked about the potential of mobile in India. You can read some details here, here and here. We have ~150 million mobile subscribers compared to ~40 million Inter net subscribers. In the month of September itself, India added 6.2 million subscribers. The total number of subscribers is going to touch 200 million by 2010. The SMS traffic is going to touch 180 billion in 2010. India happens to be among the top 10 registrants of the .mobi domain. You get the point. Mobile is huge. So I compiled together a list of consumer Internet companies that are taking mobile seriously and have taken initiative on making their service available on mobile platform. Note that there are tons of other companies that provide value added services for mobiles, mobile software etc., here I am concentrating primarily on Internet companies that are leveraging mobile as an alternate medium of providing their service. I was actually amazed to find out that you can do so much even without having d...
More About: Companies , Future

where is the investment dollar going?
2006-12-31 21:43:01
I discussed “no money for early stage” earlier and I said there is not enough money flowing into early stage investment. I also cited a couple of reports that corroborated my thoughts. But after that post, I found following comment on mercury news. “In India, VCs have made 53 early-stage investments in start-ups worth $355 million during the first nine months of 2006. That?s still nearly twice as much activity in that period than the two previous years combined, according to Venture Intelligence, a Chennai research service focused on private equity and venture capital activity in India” . This statement directly contradicts where I was going with my entire theory as it seems that there is a lot of dough flowing into the market. So I wanted to look into this in more detail. After talking to some people, I got mixed comments and I thought it would be best to contact Arun Natrajan of Venture Intelligence. According to Arun, Over 90% of early-stage investments w...
More About: Investment , Dollar , Men , Vest , Here

Online photo printing - PicSquare or MeraSnap or something e
2006-12-31 21:43:01
Last week, had a talk with the founders of two players in the online photo printing service - MeraSnap and PicSquare. While I think that this service is useful and has much clearer business model compared to some of the Web2.0 ideas, this market is already getting overcrowded. The list of companies (eYaadein, RangeelaPhoto s, PhotoMasti, 123shots, iTasveer, add more here) is getting bigger every day due to the inherent nature of this business - low barrier to entry for companies and no switching cost for customers. So the natural question is what can these sites do to gain an edge over others, esp. considering the specifics of operating in the Indian market? I posed this question to both the companies, but didn’t get a convincing answer. (although I do understand that they may not want to reveal whats in the works) Obviously, providing top notch customer service goes without saying and both the companies mentioned this point as their main strength. More and more of these compan...
More About: Photo Printing , Methi , Print

Silicon Valley in India?
2006-12-31 21:43:01
Mercury News is running this special series on India ’s rise as a technological powerhouse, with a lot of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs returning to India as Venture Capitalists. Some of the striking points from the article: “It took the valley 30, 35 years to get where we are today”, observed Ash Lilani, head of Silicon Valley Bank Global, which has an office in Bangalore and assists VCs looking for overseas investments. “We are trying to replicate that in India in two years”. -Not sure what is the magic formula here! In India, VCs have made 53 early-stage investments in start-ups worth $355 million during the first nine months of 2006. That’s still nearly twice as much activity in that period than the two previous years combined, according to Venture Intelligence, a Chennai research service focused on private equity and venture capital activity in India. -We are trying to find out how many of these are related to consumer Internet industry, will r...
More About: Icon

No money for early stage ?
2006-12-31 21:43:01
We have asked if India is ready for web2.0 here. Also we raised our concerns about our booming internet industry here. Although we have our doubts about the industry, we are seeing a lot of money flowing into India recently. We saw guruji.com grabbing $7 million and then we saw sulekha getting $10 million and more recently we see that travelguru, the leading travel portal got $15 million. See a comprehensive list of investments here. We have stats and reports of VC firms raising billions of dollars to invest in India. New funds are coming into existence every day raising even more money. But the point to note here is that most of the investments we have seen till date are either late stage in nature or in the companies that mimic proven business models elsewhere. Some of the companies we recently interviewed like redbus here, onyomo here and picsquare here are all still working on angel funding. These companies are more or less in early stage now. The feeling we got after talking to...
More About: Money , Early , Stage , Earl

Announcing iLeher reViews
2006-12-31 21:43:01
I’ve been getting a few requests lately for reviewing new startups in the consumer Internet space. Even though iLeher was not started with this aim initially, I figured it would be still valuable for readers to see reviews of startups/companies offering useful/cool services for users. Of course the usual analysis/commentary style posts will be there (thats what I like writing most). So to streamline the review process, I have come up with iLeher reView s . The way it will work is the following: The owner/promoter of the startup can contact me (madhur at iLeher dot com or use the Review Me link ) for getting their site/service reviewed. I will send a brief questionnaire, which the owner/promoter of the startup will fill and send it back to me. The question-answers will be put up on iLeher reViews. The readers will read these question-answers and vote/comment on these. On a regular basis, I will pick up an active startup/company, if any, in terms of number of votes and comments a...
More About: Reviews , Anno

10 predictions for year 2007
2006-12-31 21:43:01
I have been thinking about the predictions that I want to make for the upcoming year. Predict ing is a tricky business unless you are inspired by Nostradamus. First few things that come to mind if you tried predicting about the consumer Internet industry in India are : “mobile 2.0 will lead the way to web 2.0″ or “more investments in booming industry” or “we will see increased M&A”. These predictions are either extended state of our present or they are generally true. So with the risk of sounding really stupid from iLeher camp, we put forward 10 specific predictions for year 2007. We tried to make them as specific as possible. Remember predicting is tough. But I am hoping this will get the dialogue started and we could encourage others to dare predict what they think will happen in future.      1. Broadband growth in India will continue to disappoint by not showing an exponential growth. As against the target of 3 million broadband connections...
More About: Predictions , Year

2006-12-30 21:42:01

Movers and Shakers of Year 2006
2006-12-27 21:41:02
It’s that time of the year. Everyone is writing about the best of 2006. We thought it would be nice to look back at the happenings in the industry in the past year. Here is a collection of news that made the headlines in 2006. THE News The biggest event of the year was undoubtedly the IPO of Info-Edge (group owning Naukri, 99acres, JeevanSathi). This event has heralded a new era in the consumer Internet industry in India as it became the first Internet company ever to be listed on an Indian Stock Exchange. We hope to see some more companies to follow suit in the coming few years to keep the rally going. Some of the probable followers include the Shaadi group, BharatMatrimony group and the online travel companies. Investments Lot of money has poured in the market in 2006. As Venture Intelligence reports, VCs have made 53 early-stage investments in start-ups in India worth $355 million during the first nine months of 2006. That?s still nearly twice as much activity in that peri...
More About: Over , Move , Year , Movers

Online movie distribution - a disruptive force?
2006-12-20 21:36:01
Recently I got to spend a lot of time at home with little work at hand. Along with gears of war on Xbox live I wanted to watch lot of hindi movies. After finishing new titles from the local Hindi movie rental shop, I decided to give bwcinema.com a spin. I took a $3.99 subscription for unlimited movies for 3 days. I watched 4 Hindi movies with DVD/VCD quality online. They support 1 mbps and 512 kbps bitrates. After a few hiccups like clearing the browser cache, windows media player update and lowering the bitrate, I got the no jitter streaming to work in full screen. I hooked the laptop to my TV and audio receiver and voila, I was enjoying new titles that are not in stores with better quality. At my corner store, I pay $1 for VHS and $2 for DVDs and these are 2 day rentals. It turns out that unlimited $3.99 subscription works out great. With heavy broadband penetration in US and not on time availability of VHS in local store, I wonder if these players are going to disrupt the busines...
More About: Movie , Distribution , Force , Online , Line

Offline presence
2006-12-19 03:33:04
I’ve referred to this multiple times in the past. Off the top of my head, here and here. I think offline presence is very very important to build a large user base esp. if the service is targeted towards general masses (as opposed to say social networking site that is targeted towards teen and youth demographics) Every Internet usage report that comes out, we get to see the same thing coming out - Internet penetration is still limited to bigger cities, main mode of access is still not home - more than 50% of the Internet usage is seen from cyber cafes, offices, schools. Today Jaaydaad.com announced that they will be opening 600 property shops throughout India. I think this is a very good strategy. Real estate market is not limited to 10 million active Internet users in India. So in order to reach out to real critical mass, this should be a great move. If properly executed, their target audience will be orders of magnitude more than an Internet only shop. Of course we know that...
More About: Offline , Presence , Line

If mobile is the future of Internet, which companies are rea
2006-12-14 21:29:01
Much has been talked about the potential of mobile in India. You can read some details here, here and here. We have ~150 million mobile subscribers compared to ~40 million Inter net subscribers. In the month of September itself, India added 6.2 million subscribers. The total number of subscribers is going to touch 200 million by 2010. The SMS traffic is going to touch 180 billion in 2010. India happens to be among the top 10 registrants of the .mobi domain. You get the point. Mobile is huge. So I compiled together a list of consumer Internet companies that are taking mobile seriously and have taken initiative on making their service available on mobile platform. Note that there are tons of other companies that provide value added services for mobiles, mobile software etc., here I am concentrating primarily on Internet companies that are leveraging mobile as an alternate medium of providing their service. I was actually amazed to find out that you can do so much even without having d...
More About: Companies , Future

where is the investment dollar going?
2006-12-11 09:26:02
I discussed “no money for early stage” and I said there is not enough money flowing into early stage investment. I also cited couple of reports that corroborated my thoughts. But couple of days after that post, I had found following comment on mercury news. “In India, VCs have made 53 early-stage investments in start-ups worth $355 million during the first nine months of 2006. That?s still nearly twice as much activity in that period than the two previous years combined, according to Venture Intelligence, a Chennai research service focused on private equity and venture capital activity in India” . This statement directly contradicts where I was going with this entire theory and indicates that there is lot of dough flowing into the market. So I wanted to look into this in detail. After talking to some people, I got mixed comments and I thought it would be best to contact Arun Natrajan of Venture Intelligence. According to Arun, Over 90% of early-stage investm...
More About: Investment , Dollar , Men , Vest , Here

Online photo printing - PicSquare or MeraSnap or something e
2006-12-08 09:25:03
Last week, had a talk with the founders of two players in the online photo printing service - MeraSnap and PicSquare. While I think that this service is useful and has much clearer business model compared to some of the Web2.0 ideas, this market is already getting overcrowded. The list of companies (eYaadein, RangeelaPhoto s, PhotoMasti, 123shots, iTasveer, add more here) is getting bigger every day due to the inherent nature of this business - low barrier to entry for companies and no switching cost for customers. So the natural question is what can these sites do to gain an edge over others, esp. considering the specifics of operating in the Indian market? I posed this question to both the companies, but didn’t get a convincing answer. (although I do understand that they may not want to reveal whats in the works) Obviously, providing top notch customer service goes without saying and both the companies mentioned this point as their main strength. More and more of these compan...
More About: Photo Printing , Methi , Print