YOU ARE READING IT FIRST HERE: Naukri.com which was hinting at launch of a website that caters to the needs of passive jobseekers has gone ahead and launched Brijj.com.
As of writing this post i tried registering on the site and was faced with some problems. It seems that the site has not been officially announced and is still putting some final touches.
The tagline of the site says "Build a trusted online network and power your professional relationships for life." which in simple terms means business networking.
The why join Brijj page on the site answers some very important questions.
As per Naukri the following are the reasons one should join Brijj.
See the ones marked in bold above. It seems like naukri is starting to realise that jobs/recruiting space would be moving towards networking as we mentioned in an article earlier (link: http://www.watblog.com/?content=detail&id=966)
Another interesting feature that Brijj has is a big search box right on the search page which suggests that as the no of people in Brijj increases it would also become a tool for People search.
On the face of it i must admit i see immense synergy between Brijj and naukri’s current network with over 20000 companies/recruiters across the country. I think this move by Naukri will surely ruffle some feathers especially other jobsites in the internet space and is sure to have some more players jumping onto the bandwagon of business networking.
I just visited this website which offers good collection of properties for sale. Users can find various properties for sale. Quite easy to use and offers listings in your local city. You can also find list of dealers who can get property deal materialize or arrange for home loans.
http://www.clickindia.com/real-estate/
i dont like the name, but a good attempt, i see jobsites losing out to professional networking sites in future
Seems to be a replica of linkedin.com, isn't it? Have had some usability issues during the 'invite' phase… if all registrants to naukri.com are migrated to this portal, what happens to the 'employer' pays revenue model of the job portals? (?)
In business networking you want global contacts as well in this day and age. Why restrict yourself to a local business networking site?
Also I see a lot of Indians on LinkedIn. Would be hard for Brijj to bridge that gap. (pun intended)
-Mihir
http://mihir.desihub.com/blog
This is a comment I posted on Contentsutra yesterday
Hi
I have been reading the various posts and comments about brijj.com on all the blogs – fatalerror, contentsutra, watblog, alootechie etc. with considerable interest.
My favourite comment is the one from Nisha on Alootechie saying that this site cannot be from Info Edge because the interfaces are not cluttered enough. Be patient Nisha – give us time and we will clutter up this one as well. After all this is only a Beta.
Lots of interesting issues have come up. I would like to throw in my two bits.
Why have we launched this site?
We launched because it made sense to do so. Sooner rather than later.
It fits well with our other sites. We are in the business of enabling handshakes – all our sites do that. We charge money for the prospect of enabling a successful handshake. Consummation of the handshake into a transaction is self service and takes place offline. Content on all our sites is user generated (resume’s, jobs, matrimonial profiles, real estate listings) with the exception of asknaukri which will also move more towards that direction in the coming months (strange how an alleged Web 2.0 feature like UGC was integral to naukri and many other sites as far back as ten years ago) . A networking site possesses all these characteristics of our other sites. We know how to run those businesses. We feel at least some of that knowledge can be useful here.
What will people use the site for?
You are missing the point if you think this is a recruitment site or a site to find passive job seekers. That’s what you think the site is for if you evaluate it only from the naukri prism. The site can be used to connect with people for many things – sales leads, career guidance, employer evaluation by job seekers, reference checking, finding a vendor, meeting people with common interests, travel advice, problem solving, product recommendations, demand aggregation, finding old friends and acquaintainces – whatever you need to connect with people for you can do on this or for that matter another networking site.
When was the last time you wanted to do something and you sought out advice or could have done with some or tried to find a contact somewhere or badly needed one. I face half a dozen such situations every week where I feel the need and cant fulfill it. And my friends say I am incredibly well networked.
Of all countries India runs on Jaan Pehchaan.
Sure Brijj may also help recruiters find passive job seekers. And from the naukri viewpoint that will be a useful thing. But that is only a very thin slice of the pie.
What was the effort that went into building the Beta version?
We put together a team around nine months ago and operated in stealth mode till now. Sure there were leaks in a couple of places but no details came out. In public we talked about our other projects – career guidance, education etc. but kept mum on this one till the last analyst call. The Brijj team studied over forty networking sites internationally – what were the features, what was the privacy policy, what was the information being captured, who was visiting these sites, what were they doing there, what could the possible revenue models be, who was getting what kind of traction, how smart was the recommendation engine, what kind of communities were being formed, was it a hang out kind of site or was it for passive networking and so on. We then spoke to Indian users of the various networking sites to understand their perceptions, usage, needs, satisfaction levels and need gaps, what makes them switch etc. We also spoke to non users and understood their mind. It was only after three to four months of this did we begin to narrow down on our target user and what features the offering should have. And then we got down to execution. The engineering feat in building architecture that’s stable and scalable for a networking site that if it succeeds can grow exponentially is considerable.
I have two or three more things to say but have to rush to office. Will do so later today or tomm.
Sanjeev
Sanjeev – Its great to see that the CEO of indias biggest internet success stories is proactive enough to read blogs and make sure he is part of the conversation about his company.
I feel a lot of other CEO's both from internet and traditional media companies could learn from your approach of acknowledging blogs and joining the conversation that takes place in them and making a personal connect.
Thanks for commenting on WATBlog and giving our readers your point of view. Best wishes for Brijj and all your other endeavours.
I see sites getting converted into a all services portals and with presence of being so many of them – feel the need of aggregators !
We already find blog aggregators like http://www.life-styl.com/ organizing content
Guys every other day there is a new networking site. I think in an year there will be a million networking sites around. Now i find 2 more new sites livebiznet.com and brijj.com
HI, I WANT A NEW JOB SITE WHEN WE GET A BETTER FUTURE, SO I FIND BRIJJ.COM & TRI IT.
Well! Sanjeev, for the amount of money spent on analysis that went into finding how people are using social networks now, you could have devoted a fraction of it on being an online thought leader (instead of being the linkedin of India, which is a 7+ year old idea).
You have a fairly integrated business model in recruiting and that will bootstrap and even behave like a cashcow for brijj till it gains its own traction (red: positive cash flow). Good for you!
In all fairness, you are in the business of bringing established internet business models to India & making reasonable money out of it. I am not sure if we really think you are the torch bearer of UGC. It was pure happenstance and the need of your line of business than your foresight or ingenuity. Even in 2009, you are pretty much missing out on building a LinkedIn killer, which some upstart will promptly do (in India or elsewhere) and you would release a copycat in India.
We respect the utility of your webproperties and will use it till we find something better.Our patronage to your websites in not because you are a visonary internet company. Its because, there is no better choice in India.