Tag: onyomo

  • The times, they gotta be changin…

    The last few days saw a frenzy of activity in the Indiatimes space. But before we go there, I read a few interesting things that I thought would make good starters. One site I chanced upon was Local Signal, which allows you to choose a city (its a limited list, for now) and once you have, gives you news, events, Q&A, and even blogs from that area. A pretty neat utility site, from what I saw. And now for some news. Hi5, which is really irritating me with invites from people I really haven’t even heard of, has gone mobile. And lastly, AlooTechie tells me that MIH (of the Ibibo ‘fame’) has invested in ‘Singapore-based BuzzCity, which owns a mobile social network myGamma that has more than six lakh members from India’.

    But the action has been happening very much at home!! Indiatimes has been rolling out services, like there’s no tomorrow. I first read about Indiatimes’ tie up with Onyomo, for a local search service. With Sulekha having announced some major plans just a few days back, this space has become very interesting indeed. Then it was the launch of AdRingles, an Ad Ringback Tone service (the link explains it well) and MocoLife, a group SMS service which also offers content on subscription. I remember reading that OnMobile, a VAS company had launched its ARBT a couple of months earlier. Since we are mentioning Indiatimes, I just read that they have also launched QnA.

    All this made me wonder (as I always do) on what exactly Indiatimes (both web and mobile) is upto. There’s clearly nothing profoundly innovative happening since all the services mentioned above are things that have been done by others, even Mocolife. Incidentally, Medianama has a good analysis of the last one.

    Now, I don’t see any decrease in the dominance of the Google, MSN, Yahoo, Rediff in the Indian webspace, unless Indiatimes manages to pull some rabbit out of their hat. With their track record, I wouldn’t bet on that. Which means, they would have to use the mobile platform to gain a foothold in the digital space. One way to do it is to launch cloned services and use their offline media might to build traction. But that wouldn’t be a great strategy since users would slowly shift to better services, once they get comfortable with the medium. I’d still say that the best bet for them is to create synergy with offline products right from a product level (right now its just using them as a communication tool).

    For example, look at the multiple editions that TOI has. How difficult would it be to use the TOI backend to provide news/business/events and even the listings (local search) part (Times Classifieds would have tonnes of data), build in the newly launched Flubber, sorry QnA into it, and make city specific sites that would add on to Indiatimes. Now, how difficult would it be to experiment with the iTimes platform of theirs, which anyways is idle (i don’t have stats, but i don’t know anyone who uses it, maybe I’m just not social enough) to build communities around this structure, make a mobile version, and then top it up with services like MocoLife? Digital communities which have a one stop shop for all requirements in their cities – local search, QnA, events……  and even have a group sms service to communicate all this!! Maybe its worth an effort..

    Indiatimes better move fast, since Big Adda is pushing the mobile version very hard, judging by the TVCs, and knowing Reliance, they won’t be satisfied by anything less than the premium position in any vertical they operate in. It perhaps is a calculated strategy from them, after seeing the dizzying pace of mobile growth in India. After all, even the great Google sometimes chases mobile more than they do the internet.

    until next time, the changing times

  • Going Glocal

    Heard here that Yahoo had launched its local search. I had been quite impressed by Yahoo Cities earlier, and had started referring to it more and more for events in the city. My only grumble was that i couldn’t get a feed for it. In addition to events, they also have news, answers, maps, travel, blogs, videos and podcasts, a forum among other things.

    There were a lot of the usual suspects missing from the list above, so when i read the news, i assumed that this would be complementary, and to a certain extent, it is. I was kinda disappointed because i had thought that Cities would be scaled up to include the missing parts too.

    Yahoo Local has listings of restaurants, pubs, fitness centres, and a host of other services that are a part of the regular city life. Some of the data is provided by Indiacom and users can also add businesses. The site also asks for reviews, which means Burrp, Needgrub etc will face heavy competition, especially if Yahoo promotes this through city targeted (say) email bursts. Don’t know about Burrp, but Needgrub has carrots for reviewers.

    On other fronts, it also means competition for Ask Laila, Guruji, Sulekha, mycitybuddy, buzzintown, just dial, Yulop, KyaKare, and Onyomo, who at one point of time was way ahead. Also, the other name that springs immediately to mind is a certain company called Google, who had gone local sometime back. I also saw another step from them recently. But i think Yahoo has upstaged them in this case. Meanwhile, I don’t use Yahoo Maps and cannot therefore comment authoritatively on the same, but given the crowd above and the kind of services some of them offer, Yahoo’s integration of Yahoo Maps may not be a quantum leap. Also, I was quite disappointed with the directions within the city that Yahoo gave (although vernacular is a good start). At least in Bangalore, this one is much better, the only snag is that nobody updates one ways!!! And that, in Bangalore, is about as dynamic as the average Indian politician’s loyalties.

    But like i said earlier, I wonder why they have developed Cities and Local as two separate entities. Wouldn’t a one-stop-shop be much more useful to the average user in this case? For example, given that most events happen at public spaces like auditoriums, malls, hotels etc, and these find a listing in Local, what additional value can Cities bring to the table? News can also be easily integrated into Local, especially if it can be made sub local.

    If a combo happens, what I’d be really be happy to see would be a customised search toolbar and say, a widget, that gives me local news updates as well as updates on events happening around town. With messenger, Yahoo Groups etc the possibilities, as the cliche goes, are endless.

    In fact, a local website could be the perfect platform to get into social networking with a twist. The site would already have the skeleton ready – think about it – you are interested in buying a book, there are listings of bookshops, the community gives you reviews and the shop that gives you the best discount, they can even recommend similar books…. similarly with plays, music, food, and all the other things that you entertain yourself with. Instead of a global scene like Facebook, you can actually start realising the virtual life… no, i didnt mean poke!! Hold Scrabulous tournaments, go trekking, organise Flixster quizzes, find people who enjoy similar movies and actually watch it with them…. Real Social Networks, get the drift?

    until next time, no more locally challenged?