Archive for Consumer Internet India

Megabucks @ IIT Kanpur - Update

4 Mar, 2008  4 Comments

It was interesting to see how this festival has evolved over the years since its inception in 2001. Not only the budget has increased, their was a lot of participation.

Absolute absence of faculty from all the events was surprising, given the fact that IIT Kanpur even has a department for Management Studies as well.

It was good to hear Mr. Hitesh Oberoi, COO, Naukri.com sharing his experiences and the growth of naukri.com since it’s inception. There other interesting speeches from some of the leading entrepreneurs and achievers who defined success differently, taking a digression from the standard balance sheet and  profit and  loss  approach.

George Searle, CEO Lime Wire LLC and Lime Spot LLC enlightened the students by sharing his experiences with entrepreneurship. He briefly discussed how LimeExchange - The online services marketplace would help shape the future of SMBs, freelancers and entrepreneurs from India.

Personally, I was excited to have visited the campus after 3 years, nothing much has changed, same old shopkeepers, same culture, but yes a lot more entrepreneurs :)

LimeExchange provides global talent on demand

27 Feb, 2008  11 Comments

Company Brief
New Delhi, February 27, 2008At a press conference today in India, it became clear that the benefits of outsourcing are no longer exclusive to the Fortune 1000. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) everywhere are now poised to fully participate in the global economy by requesting bids, awarding projects, and building trusted relationships with service providers around the world, thanks to a new Web platform that was launched today: LimeExchange, the first socially networked marketplace for global talent.“Small and medium-sized businesses haven’t dared to outsource due to legitimate concerns over risk, cost, and complexity,” says George Searle, CEO of Lime Spot LLC. “LimeExchange has cracked the code of outsourcing, making it simple for any business to build tight productive relationships with talented service providers anywhere on earth.”

LimeExchange is the first talent marketplace designed to help SMBs, entrepreneurs, and individuals to outsource, connect and collaborate globally. Traditionally, outsourcing has involved large, multi-year, multi-million-dollar projects delivered by large service providers to large multi-national corporations. Through LimeExchange, SMBs gain the same competitive advantages of outsourcing, previously enjoyed only by larger companies, such as a flexible workforce, lower-cost labor, and access to specialized skills.

“There’s no reason why businesses and service providers of all sizes shouldn’t be able to participate in the benefits of globalization, whether on large projects, or small one-off projects,” Searle says. “LimeExchange connects two fragmented communities-smaller businesses and smaller service providers-through the power of social networking. We’re bringing the competitive advantages of outsourcing down to the individual.”

LimeExchange breaks the mold of first-generation online services marketplaces, going beyond mere matching of buyers and sellers or providing simple “feedback” rating systems. Instead, LimeExchange is a relationship-based services marketplace, meaning it provides contemporary social networking and project management tools members need to establish, build, and sustain profitable business relationships online.

“Other services take a pure matchmaking approach, and focus only on transactions,” says Pawan Agarwal, Lime Spot’s Head of Indian Operations. “You could say they’re like eBay for outsourcing. They were state of the art a few years ago, but they haven’t kept pace with changes in the marketplace. Today people want tools and technologies that allow them to forge close and lasting relationships online. That’s where LimeExchange operates at an entirely different level, facilitating relationships that will endure over the long haul. We’re moving outsourcing to the next level by going beyond matchmaking, and bringing the power of social networking to the on-demand services marketplace model.”

Businesses can sign up and post their projects on LimeExchange for free. They’ll receive free proposals from LimeExchange’s global pool of professional service providers, contractors, and freelancers. Using LimeExchange’s “Connect” social networking features, buyers can make well-informed decisions about service providers before they award a project. They can check references with other businesses in their trusted network. They can limit bids or hiring to providers already in their trusted network or the networks of others they trust. They can request or generate qualified referrals. And they can research satisfaction ratings, talents and skills, completed project portfolios, and blogs to get a well-rounded picture of a service provider’s qualifications, suitability, and reputation.

Once they narrow the field, LimeExchange provides all the tools buyers need to negotiate pricing; award projects; escrow payments; monitor, review, and approve work; and communicate with service providers using e-mail, instant messaging, message boards, and more.

For service providers, LimeExchange provides the global marketing reach, relationship and reputation management, and financial benefits that never existed in an online service marketplace before. Sign-up, bidding, and membership are free. Providers pay only a flat 8 percent commission to LimeExchange at the successful completion of a project.

New bidding opportunities appear automatically in providers’ inboxes. Escrowed payments help ensure service providers aren’t burned by unscrupulous buyers. And LimeExchange’s social networking features foster strong relationships and repeat business opportunities in ways that are simply not possible with first-generation marketplaces.

At launch, LimeExchange connects buyers with service providers in the following areas: accounting, administrative support, blog theme and plugin development, business plan development, computer programming (.Net, Java, ASP, PHP, Perl, C++, SQL, etc.), corporate blogging, data entry, finance, graphic design, IT consulting, legal consulting, networking, Web site development, and writing. Other service disciplines will be added over time. The company also plans to add a community-driven knowledgebase that will provide guidance and peer support for companies interested in outsourcing, off-shoring, and freelancing.

Buyers and service providers can join LimeExchange at http:/www.LimeExchange.com.

Website: www.LimeExchange.com

New Delhi Chosen as Site of ICANN’s 31st Public Meeting

11 Oct, 2007  8 Comments

New Delhi, India will host the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ 31st International Public Meeting from 10-15 February 2008.

“Growth of Internet activity in India is extraordinary so it’s fitting that the ICANN community is gathering there to discuss major Internet issues like internationalized domain names and new generic top-level domains,” said Paul Levins, ICANN’s Executive Officer and Vice President - Corporate Affairs. - Source
That’s interesting, after china reporting very high volumes in domain name registrations, India is predicted to be the next. For those who do not know world’s fastest growing domain name registrar and hosting company ResellerClub is a business owned by an Indian Company Directi.

So should be expect registrars shifting there focus to co.in and .in domain names?

More individual awareness would be required for this business to take off in India.

Click here to preregister for the event. 

Internet In India is Back!

29 Sep, 2007  7 Comments

After long inactivity, this blog would be updated regularly…..

Google Checkout not available for India

7 Dec, 2006  33 Comments

Shopping for something on the internet today I noticed Google Checkout and decided to give it a try (you know how anything from Google gets a geek’s adrenalin rushing), but to my utter disbelief and amazement I noticed that Google does not have India in the listed countries (check here), it has service for countries like Lao People’s Democratic Republic and our good old neighbors Bangladesh and Sri Lanka but not India!!!! and surprisingly they do not even offer this service for China, Brazil and Russia.. well guys give me a break!!!!!! if I believe all the world’s economist then BRIC are supposed to be the fast movers and dropping 4 of these countries from a e-commerce product could be a suicide. I think guys @ Google are not reading the newspapers or their subscription has expired.

I am sure Google has some good reasons (probably legal) for not introducing it for a country like India or China, but I am sure interested in knowing the reason. I was definitely not pleased to see that and would like to here from others about their thoughts.

Online DVD rentals

8 Nov, 2006  37 Comments

There has been whole lot of advances in this space since we last reported about it.

More players have entered into this space since then. Madhouse, Moviemart to name a few.

Madhouse has been a phone based rental service operating in Chandigarh (based out of Delhi ;) ) for past one and half year and have now gone online with services extended to Delhi/NCR. Moviemart also confirms the market for Online DVD Rentals by moving its 100% offline store to online rentals. The trends in this space are quite positive as some earlier entrants (www.cinesprite.com, www.seventymm.com) are becoming aggressive in marketing, have improved their service levels, have gone for second round of funding etc.

Just to comment on Cinesprite, they are leading the pack as far as Delhi/NCR is concerned and currently promise a large range of titles and very good service levels. I asked for a title and they added it to their collection in a short span of time.

It is definitely becoming one sticky service with switching barriers coming from the movie collection, pricing and other website related features. I haven’t tried others (as I mentioned, it’s a bit sticky) but recommend others to try out Cinesprite.

Since I started using the service a couple of months ago I feel that online DVD rentals hold a definite advantage over the local DVD rental shops. I can search for the available titles, The quality of DVD’s are better, can maintain a queue of DVD’s that I want to watch, return it as per my schedule, no extra charges for keeping it one more day :) and moreover can request a DVD if it is not available in the collection. The only drawback I find is that they would only provide titles that are legally available in India unlike the local DVD rental shops.

As far as the competition amongst the online DVD rental companies is concerned I think it will all boil down to who has more titles, better deals, better DVD quality, timely deliveries and pickup (quality of service) and better promotional and marketing campaigns.

Challenges - mindset of people (as we last reported it) is difficult to crack and we would love to hear about this from one of the online DVD rental company. These companies surely have been successful in gaining some momentum by breaking such mindsets (or it is the adventurous lot of people - who jump to try out any new service that starts). It will be great to see and to imagine the growth these guys can have if they are successful in delivering on this front.

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