Guruji - Search and Win! Innovative, but will it retain users?
(Rate this article)
Loading ...Email It!
Let’s start off with a comment which we got from one of our readers Mahesh at WATblog.com:
Mahesh didn’t like the iBiBo ‘Earn crores to blog’ campaign. He feels Guruji is doing the same thing:
"…i am skeptical
about users using Guruji after the contest is over. In my employer company, my colleagues use Guruji daily for the sake of winning the prize but not for professional use. They still use Google to find stuff, but they use Guruji to win prizes not to use their technology."
ByIndia have a $ 5,000,000 sweepstake running too…
They should have at least mentioned the prize money in INR.
Anyways, getting back to point – do contests ensure only short term participation? Can they possibly get users for a longer time?
Well, let’s look at this campaign by Guruji. They are executing it pretty well…
Showcase your advantage – thrill and convince the user at the same time – and hope he’ll see the benefit of Guruji.
What’s the contest about?
Guruji asks you questions – Questions which you can answer using Guruji’s search…
Ex:
Well since my IP would be from Mumbai, they should have used some geo-targetting and made the question:
‘Restaurants in Mumbai’
Anyways, all a user has to do is click on SEARCH and…
Now lets compare the 1st result of Guruji with that of Google:
http://www.chennaionline.com/food/potsnpans/index.asp (Google)
http://www.indtravel.com/chennai/stay4.html (Guruji)
You guys decide – I prefer the Google result.
Guruji should have chosen terms where they knew their first few results were far better than those thrown up by Google.
Now let us go on a tangent and talk about user behaviour when it comes to Search…
While selecting a restaurant – especially if I had a particular cuisine in mind, I’d perhaps opt for something like Burrp (if it’s available in my city), which can suggest accordingly and even shows me user generated reviews.
Well, we’d talked about a Search Engine shoot-out some weeks back – we apologise for the delay, it’ll be out in another couple of weeks.
But we came up with this interesting funda today:
There’s this eating joint Barbeque Nation (Somewhere around Bandra). I wanted their telephone no.
So I did a search for Barbeque Nation on Burrp. Well I put in Bandra (W). No results!
Then I used JustDial, no results. OnYoMO, no results.
Finally, I did a google search and got the no. off Explocity.
And then I realized the mistake – Barbeque Nation was in Khar (W). Well to be honest, not many in Mumbai know where Bandra ends and Khar starts!
But what surprised me was that, neither JustDial nor Burrp suggested the Barbeque Nation at Khar!
JustDial – didn’t display the result for Mumbai. So I had to know the exact locality.
OnYoMo showed me 13 Punjab National Bank listings when I searched for ‘Barbeque Nation’ for Mumbai. Plus when I found it on their site - they had it mis-spelt as Barbecue Nation.
Same problem with Guruji – type in Barbeque Nation, Bandra and you won’t get the desired result.
Makes me wonder, if someone knew the exact details of a place - why would he even search for it? Or is there no room for human error?
Perhaps the algorithm needs a bit of tweaking to understand normal human behaviour a little more. The potential in Local Search though is immense. There’s a lot to build on.
Scope of guerilla SEM is even more…
Imagine the scope for a net-savvy competing Barbeque restaurant in the above case.
Well back to Guruji’s contest - They are spending the Sequoia money wisely, but it remains to be seen if they can get users hooked.
Do share your thoughts with us…
Related Links:
Ants to help you with your SEARCH - Chintee.com. But will it work?
How are you going to get a local dosa joint in a little neighbourhood to advertise online?
Loading ...
Hi Ekalavya
Thanks for taking note of my comment.
-
Mahesh
http://hitechstartups.wordpress.com
I think Guruji should follow south korean naver.com model who beaten the google and yahoo. I bloged about the same. check it
I just tried "barbeque nation" on http://zook.in - bingo!
Yeah, the issue of "rewarding users" is a tricky one but if done right, does help attract initial users. iBiBo, of course, was one extreme end of the incentivization spectrum.
Hi Eklavya,
1. Address of Barbeque Nation on Guruji.com City Search.
http://www.guruji.com/local?hl=en&q=Barbeque+Nation&loc=Mumbai
a) To answer your question on taking Human Error into consideration for Local Search queries.
If you aren't aware of the exact location, let the search engine take care of that.
Why bother whether the location is Bandra or Khar, if you know it's Mumbai let the search engine handle the rest of the finding part. Keep things simple.
Guruji's City Search result for Barbeque Nation Mumbai.
http://www.guruji.com/local?hl=en&q=Barbeque+Nation&loc=Mumbai
b) Find a review of Barbeque Nation, Mumbai from Guruji's Web Search results.
http://www.guruji.com/search?q=Barbeque+Nation+Bandra&hl=en
Hope this helps.
2. There's a Barbeque Nation in Bangalore too and Guruji finds it for you with the 'Where' box blank in City Search.
http://www.guruji.com/local?hl=en&q=Barbeque+Nation&loc=
3. Restaurants in Chennai as a City-specific search query on Guruji.
http://www.guruji.com/local?hl=en&q=restaurants&loc=chennai
Try multi cuisine restaurants, italian restaurants, chinese restaurants, thai restaurant, chettinad restaurants, south indian restaurants, north indian restaurants, dhaba, veg restaurants, and more on Guruji's City search.
Hope this helps with searching Web results and also finding city-specific information on Guruji.com.
Regards,
Chirayu
@ Chirayu:
Thanks for all the info! (H)
Do concentrate on letting all your prospective 'searchers' about it too…..
I think you must have mis-understood the reason of the post to a certain extent.
Anyways cheers!
Im totally disappointed with Guruji.com. I dont know where they position them.. Are they focussing on Providing complete search like Google or Local search like blurrp or onyomo?? I just searched ‘mutt’ both in google and guruji. I knew ‘mutt’ was a mail client i frequently use in Unix. While showed up the exact result Guruji sucked. It popped up something like ‘Hinduism Sanathana Dharma and Vedanta: presented by Shri Kanchi Kamako…’ .Who want this ??? Being Indian Search engine doesnt mean showing up something irrelevant. Google rocks!!!