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| Tuesday, October 31, 2006 |
| MeraVideo - You Tube of India ? |
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 With 1.5 Billion dollar buy out of YouTube by Google, you can see the zeal in Indian entrepreneurs rising to a new high. Brain Gain Entertainment's MeraVideo is all set to receive VC funding to the tune of $1.5 Million and hopefully will be the YouTube of India.
Kanwaldeep S Kalsi, founder of Mera Video said that,
"The money, which is for an initial period of 8-9 months, will be spent on infrastructure, bandwidth scalability, manpower and public relations and marketing of the site".
They are banking on the advertising model to make money. However, Avnish Bajaj, founding MD of Matrix Partners Investment Fund is a bear when it comes to Internet startups in India.
"Internet users in India spend a fraction of the time compared to the US counterparts where such models are successful. The Indian psyche is different. Hence there’s no viral effect and these sites are difficult to monetise in India".
However, with Wireless Broadband Access Policy in place, one can expect significant YoY growth of broadband users in India. |
Published on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 at 11:19 AM  |
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| Saturday, October 28, 2006 |
| VCs likely to chase Social Networking Sites in India |
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 Venture Capitalists in India are likely to chase the Social Networking startups in the next 6 months. With the rise of Social Networking in the US - MySpace, FaceBook, FriendSter etc, VCs have been busy counting cash after several high profile buy-outs.
Indian market is not lagging behind. Orkut India already has substantial presence however, it lacks some of the localizaton features as rightly said by Yaari.Com founder, Prerna Gupta,
"Why should Orkut be the biggest social network in India, when it doesn't address Indians' specific needs?"
MSN India Marketing Chief, Rajnish said,
"There is competition among funding companies to invest in the Internet space and social networking sites are the seasonal flavour"
MTV's Meet or Delete and Fropper.Com are other two high profile startups which help you network mostly by the concept of dating. IMHO, Social Networking is not about Dating, its plain simple networking like in your daily life, but the medium is Web. MingleBox seems to have grasped this concept well.
All of these sites lack localization which will be a critical factor for their success after 4-6 quarters as folks from smaller towns get hooked to the web. Oho! Well, Isn't startups all about dynamic environment to tweak yourself to the needs of your consumer :-) |
| Published on Saturday, October 28, 2006 at 8:28 PM |
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| Wednesday, October 18, 2006 |
| American founds Trendy company in India |
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 Dan, an American techie has moved to India to found Trendylicious.
It's all for the trendy women in Delhi and Mumbai. Trendylicious goal is to connect women with what's cool and chic in the city.
You can subscribe to their mailing list to get to know the latest trends in Fashion, Lifestyle and Entertainment in your city. If Femina is for the woman of substance, Trendylicious is for the contemporary women :-) |
| Published on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 9:53 AM |
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| Friday, October 13, 2006 |
| Web 2.0 Social networks in India |
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 Web 2.0 is all about social networking in different forms. All of the recent mega deals involve Social Space be it the Google MySpace Advertisement deal or Google buying YouTube.
However, in the Indian valley where the entire country has mere 1.7 Million broadband connections, localized social networks have come up. MingleBox is one such company located in Bangalore, India. MingleBox seems to be localized and targeting the Indian teens and college community much like FaceBook. goBroadband has a coverage of MingleBox which is also planning to launch MingleMobile.
MingleBox is also looking for geeks, if you are one, check it out :-) |
| Published on Friday, October 13, 2006 at 8:22 PM |
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| Wednesday, October 04, 2006 |
| RedBus takes Bus Ticketing Online |
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 Entire India and the VC community is busy building Travel and Holiday portals neglecting the most essential service, "Techies" in the Valley are looking for - Online Bus Reservation. PilaniSoftLabs, a startup by "Techies" from the valley have solved this problem by founding RedBus.in.
Please don't confuse about RedBus.in being targeted to book tickets on state government's bus. No, its not. It's booking for private buses letting you travel in the comforts of A/C, Volvo Sleeper Coach, etc. RedBus.in lets you book ticket outwards from Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Nellore, Vijayawada and Vishakapatnam to many South Indian cities in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
The site accepts all major credit cards and has a secure payment gateway interface powered by CCAvenue. So for your weekend date in Hyderabad, you can book your ticket on redbus.in sitting in the comforts of Golden Enclave, Bangalore ;-) |
| Published on Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 9:14 PM |
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