I re-call Mr Ajit Balakrishnan (Chairman, Rediff.com) saying during the Digital Marketing Conference that he felt there was a dearth of websites in India and that there is scope for lots and lots of more websites and portals.

Well some of the biggies are set to launch a lot of new websites…

InfoEdge (Naukri, 99acres, JeevanSathi..) is set  to launch 2-3 new websites. Sanjeev Bikhchandani says, "There is lot of growth left in the company, there is more business that we can do."

Predictable new sites can be something in the Education and Automobile space. A Social Network from their stable is pending too, but I think this would be more of them backing a Social Networking Site and using it to leverage their own sites.

Microsoft are looking at the Job Search market, according to Economic Times.
Though the online Job Classifieds market is already packed, MSN could definitely claim their share of the pie – mainly because of their Microsoft tag.

This space again has enormous future potential. Niche jobsites catering to IT are already around. We’ll soon have sites catering to just ASP & .NET professionals or Copywriters for the Advertising industry (Something like AgencyFaqs’ JobSwitch).

Microsoft said that it was in talks with partners in the government for the job search portal. It would be interesting to see where the Government features – perhaps linking up all the Government Colleges and having each student’s profile up on a site backed by Microsoft?

Reliance Entertainment (ADAG) is finally set to enter the news media sector. According to Financial Express, the group is slated to launch a news portal using the Big Internet brand name anytime soon.

Can we expect something like Netscape.com? A perfect blend of Traditional and New Age media. Anchors at their end reporting news and also allowing the users to generate content via a Digg like platform!

‘Big Internet’ seems to be laying foundations in each and every possible segment in the internet.
There’s Zapak for Gaming, the ADAG have backed Yatra in Online Travel, there’s BigAdda in the Social Networking scene, BigFlicks in the Online DVD Rental scene and perhaps Chintee in the Search sector. Will they restrain from diving into the online classifieds world?

Well we recently witnessed the entry of global player AOL in the Indian scene and they haven’t fared too well. Though site which is adapting real well to the Web 2.0 and Social Media sharing phase is Sulekha. Fuelled by good content they are doing a good job of integrating – standard portal features, local commerce and Social Media.

I feel it’s going to be real tough in trying to be ‘the be-all and end-all’ portal for future online surfers. Niche websites are on the rise and are doing extremely well.

It follows the simple mantra – There are more chances of a buyer visiting an Electronics megastore for purchasing a TV or Washing Machine than buying it from a shop which sells everything from grocery, clothes, utensils and also TV’s. Of course, there are always going to be exceptions – in the off line world one might argue that the Price Factor might still ensure the prospective buyer buys from the latter…

But in the digital sense, one has to be the market leader in all segments to retain users – because a competitor is just a WWW away.

Bookmark this post to: