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The Unusable Real-Estate Sites March 30, 2007

Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Real Estate , 8comments

If you were observing the Real-Estate related online market in India recently, get ready for the default feature of India and everything Indian- overcrowding.

I was naive enough to think that I’ll write about the online real-estate sites focusing on India. How many could there be? 5? 10??? I’m in shock, setting up online property related websites has caught on like common cold. Everybody (and their brother) has one:

… the list goes on and on. Besides the fact that they are focused on Indian real-estate market, one more aspect is common between all these sites- minimal attention to usabilityBug Icon. The content and widgets are all crammed into the homepage, and there is at least 1 graphic that is craving for your attention by blinking or scrolling or flashing. Geez. You would think that at least one web developer would have read some usability text (Refer to Jakob Nielsen’s excellent articles here and here).So I quit. I’ve decided to cover only the major players (Don’t ask me how I’ll figure out who is major). Hopefully, some of these minor players will die the natural death of premature startups (like Bindaazproperties apparently did. I had saved the link few weeks back, and by the time I got around to writing about them, the site was no more. RIP BindaazProperties.)

Disclaimer: I obviously know very little about the above sites and the stage of development they are in. Before someone takes offense to this post, try to read it from the perspective of an end-user on the web. Asterisk IconIf your site is not ready for prime time, keep it under wraps. Or put a “Beta” sign on it, at the very least.

Pencil Icon Update: As one of the readers pointed out, BindaazProperties is functional now. So the example may be void, but the point still remains.

DesiCrickets March 30, 2007

Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Media Streaming , 4comments

Another startup trying to focus on the cricket fanatics. DesiCrickets is very new (A kind reader recently pointed it out at eIndia). At the time of writing this post, there were 360 members registered on it.

DesiCrickets is an attempt to create a community around cricket fans. Once you register, you’ll find functionality like asynchronous messaging, forums, buddy list, avatar/profile etc. The overall look-and-feel is similar to what a standard CMS (Content Management System) would produce.

Don’t expect the ‘free’ aspect to last beyond the registration. The actual cricket streaming is something you need to pay Money Icon for. Presently, they have only one package available- World Cup streaming $14.99 for two months. An interesting additional functionality is the ability to replay matches.

I haven’t subscribed, so no clue about what the quality is. We all know what horrors can surface when paying to online streaming media startups (if you don’t, read the ever-growing list of angry comments about my Streambox.tv post here). So proceed with caution :-) and leave a comment here if you’ve been a subscriber of DesiCrickets.

Note: A more mature cricket streaming site is Willow.tv. Read about it here.

Moviemart.in March 7, 2007

Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Movie Rental , add a comment

Another online movie rental site for India. Moviemart operates only in Delhi and Mumbai, and seems to be around since late 2006.

The site is slick and professional looking; and in true Indian startup spirit, displays a bunch of teenage foreign girls in the homepage graphic. This is getting to be a pet peeve for me- If their business is local, why can’t they focus design locally too?

Anyways, their plans Money Iconare competitive and start at Rs.149 (with Rs.500 security deposit). The ‘no-late fee, no-due dates’ model is workable too. At least they are upfront about it, unlike Seventymm. What I can’t understand is why they have chosen to drop the social tools - rating movies, getting recommendations etc. Seems like that is not a priority feature for any of the Indian movie rental startups for some unknown reason.

Interesting fact- they claim that Rs.5 from every subscription goes towards ‘Anti-piracy and Charity’. True or not, that’s a first for Indian movie rental startups ;-) .

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