India 2.0 Are we ready? - PART 1
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Web 2.0 is creating the buzz in the online world which is being heard by not only the users but also the VC’s with deep pockets. Now as India becomes the fastest growing online population in the world how can it be left far behind when it comes to taking to web 2.0 websites be it social networking, bookmarking or sharing audio and videos its seems that indians have taken a strong liking to web 2.0 and the freedom it gives to user to express and interact. Let shart by talking about Youtube.com, the online portal where people can watch and share videos. It has recently broken into the comScore Media Metrix Top 50 websites for the first time, debuting at No. 40 with 16 million visitors. Now the question here is do Indian’s visit Youtube? Interestingly, Alexa.com, which tracks traffic of websites all over the world, ranks Youtube as the 16th most popular website in the world where as its ranked the 26th most popular website in India. So it is no surprise that the search giant google has also recently launched google video in india (though google video has been around for sometime it was not available as a link on google.co.in but now it is and its is tagged NEW!). As far as indian video 2.0 sites are concerned there is a dearth of such sites the new social networking site Humsubka is the only one which lets you upload vidoes otherwise there are none. The closest one of the large indian portals come to videos is sify’s sifymax.in which is more a bollywood video site where all interactivity is limited to rating the videos. Internationally the list of video sites is endless! We found some 64 video sharing web 2.0 sites!
Here is a short list
Videobomb - Submit & vote for video links. http://videobomb.com/
Videoegg - Capture, edit & publish video. http://www.videoegg.com/
Vimeo - Upload & share video. http://www.vimeo.com/
Vsocial - Upload, rank & share video. http://www.vsocial.com/
Woomu - Submit, vote for & rank videos. http://www.woomu.com/
Yashi - Upload & share video. http://www.yashi.com/
Youtube* - Upload & share video. http://www.youtube.com/
Zippyvideos - Upload & share video. http://www.zippyvideos.com/
Besides video sharing how about social networking which are the most popular web 2.0 websites now a days like MySpace.com, Orkut.com, Hi5.com etc etc.. Well Social networking has attracted quite a few players from india including some big ones as well.
Here is the list
Fropper.com - Its a paid social networking site and they claim of 1 million users! I am really not sure their model is good i mean with Orkut and Hi5 offering free access and both of them having large indian users (Orkut has 1.3 million indians registered!) i dont know how fropper plans to make money as its already spent quite a bit on advertising even before building a fropper community. I guess they could learn something from their international counterparts.
Humsubka.com - We have reviewed this site before you can read our review here
IndiatimesPHATchicks - This is still in beta stage the Indiatimes offering is less social networking and more chatting which is done by 4 women who are employed by them but nevertheless it has depends on user interactivity so we added it to this list.
Rediff Connexions - This one is clean and impressive but it again is not a stand alone social networking site but rather a rediff channel.
Tezaa.com - Its a concept where people express their opinions. it calls itself an opinion engine.
Yahoo Answers India - Although yahoo answers is international its indian couterpart is being advertised heavily and just asking a question gives you an answer that yahoo answers works. No doubt then yahoo india seems to be marketing it heavily!
Burrp.com - A yet to be launched social and lifestyle web 2.0 website
Sixer.in - Social networking for cricket lovers yet to be launched.
Yaari.com - Started by indians who studied in the US. This is again yet to be launched!
Lets go to social bookmarking. Internationally there is digg.com and del.icio.us.com, reddit.com etc which are very popular among indians as well.
Social bookmarking seems to be catching on in india.
I just came accross 4 sites
Indiapad.com - IndianPad is a social bookmarking and blogging site that takes its inspiration from meneame.net (this is what their site claims) It also has feature like uploading audio casts (though it seems like there are more abusive songs being uploaded than anything else guess they dont want to censor stuff as there is very little traffic anyways). Its features include comments tag cloud and live casts.
Putvote.com - This is a social bookmarking inspired by digg but By the looks of it it seems to be getting decent traffic may be its local indian flavour that has something to do with it.
Indiagram.com - This is another digg me too which has been around since 2004. Frankly there is hardly any difference between indiagram and putvote except for the fact that putvote has a local flavour. Also indiagram seems to have a better (more professional layout).
Indianbytes.com - Recently launched. Inspired by digg! Lets see where it goes!
This is or first edition of India 2.0 please comment and let us know ur thoughts and feedback we will soon be back with another updated edition as we feel web 2.0 is booming and india needs to tap it..
(for all those who don’t know web 2.0 in simple terms means a website which depends on userdriven content and traffic) Click here to know its definition
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Hi Rajiv,
Thank you very much for noteecing the PutVote.com. We are very small only now, but we are growing like the fairex babies.
Dude, you got crappy ones like IndiatimesPHATchicks but missed the grand daddy of them all - IndianPad.com?
hey thanks for that DJ Aqeel.. i dont know about PHAT chicks being crappy (actually i would love to agree but someone would kill me..lol) but i surely missed indiapad.com !! thanks added that now.. :))
Hi Rajiv,
Just want to point out that we launched our Mumbai site on 15th August. Check it out here: http://mumbai.burrp.com/. Other cities and more functionality is in the pipeline.
While I agree with the idea of a digg like site for India related news I do not see the need for a India specific video upload site. Why would you need those? You can just search for a India tag in one of those international sites. (?)
Hi Rajiv,
Isnt Alexa spyware? Any sane user will never install Alexa on his machine.AFAIK Alexa is compulsirily installed on m/cs of all the employees of a start-up or a company trying to boost its rankings, which is not ethical.Anyway, ethical practises by Indian Portals is a debate for some other day.
As far as my website is concerned, i.e. PaGaLGuY.com, i do not find a mention here.We have been able to build today India's Largest Forum( of course if you can exclude porn forums :)) ) and a community in true sense where people help each other by going out of their ways.Do visit, check it out and see how we have implemented concept of viral marketing whereas other portals in India just talk about it.
Cheers,
Rohit
rohit.awasthi@pagalguy.com
Hi Rajiv,
you may not be aware of maayboli.com but is very popular in Maharashtrian community and has been web2.0 site long before the word "web 2.0" was coined. Its tons of user genrated content for last 10 years of existance, speaks for itself. I am sure there are other regional niche sites as well that I would love to hear more from you.