January 9th, 2010
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Yesterday, I gave a talk at the NASSCOM Emerge Friday 2.0 event about how the time is ripe for Indian startups to target the global market: ‘Made in India, Made for the World‘.
So far, Indian startups have focused on tweaks for the local market, not inventions or tweaks for the global market, partly because Indian VCs have tended to fund me-too startups with a business model focused on enabling transactions for the local market (book a air/ rail/ bus/ movie ticket).
However, in the last one or two years, several Indian startups have dared to build products for the global market. On my list are enterprise collaboration players Zoho, Deskaway, Uhuroo, Remindo, Cyn.in and YouSuggest, consumer focused web 2.0 startups like LifeBlob, AuthorStream, GizaPage (and the now dead Fachak and Kwippy), widget company Tell-a-Friend/ SocialTwist, flash-maker Toufee and online tutoring company TutorVista. Do let me know if I have missed out startups that should be on this list. With a little luck, several of these startups can become global players, and some already have. Read More
January 9th, 2010 |
Posted in Default
| Tagged with Android App Marketplace, API, Application Ecosystems, AuthorStream, Cyn.in, Deskaway, Digital Inspiration, Enterprise Collaboration, Facebook API, Facebook Connect, Fachak, Friday 2.0, GetSatisfaction, GizaPage, Global Market, Indian, iPhone App Marketplace, Kwippy, LifeBlob, MediaNama, NASSCOM Emerge, Nokia Ovi App Store, One Forty, OpenSocial API, Pluggd.in, Remindo, Skype, Social Media, SocialTwist, Speaking, Startups, Techmeme, Tell-a-Friend, Toufee, TutorVista, Tweetmeme, Twitter API, Uhuroo, WATBlog, Web 2.0, YouSuggest, Zoho |
January 4th, 2009
Rajiv Dingra at WATBlog has a great recap of the social networking space in India in 2008.
The highlight, for me, is the war for the #1 spot between Facebook and Orkut. Orkut introduced the OpenSocial applications platform and replicated several Facebook features, offered themes, and provided regional language and mobile support. Facebook also added key features like chat that are likely to become popular in India. As I showed in my analysis of search trends for social networking sites in India, interest in Orkut is stagnant, while interest in Facebook is growing, even though the gap between the two is still significant.
The other social networking sites in India positioned themselves on content, instead of social networking features. BigAdda and Ibibo focused on entertainment and positioned themselves as quasi blogging platforms by getting celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan and Ravi Shastri to blog for them. However, as I showed in my analysis of search trends for blogging platforms in India, unlike blogging platforms like Wordpress and Blogger/ Blogspot, which have shown slow but consistent growth, the interest in Ibibo and BigAdda has fluctuated significantly, probably based on whether they were running big ad campaigns at the time. Read More
January 4th, 2009 |
Posted in Default
| Tagged with Amitabh Bachchan, BharatStudent, BigAdda, Default, DesiMartini, Facebook, Ibibo, India, MingleBox, MySpace, OpenSocial, Orkut, Rajiv-Dingra, Ravi Shastri, Social-Networking, WATBlog, Yaari |
