PringOO March 20, 2008
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Photos & DIY content , 3commentsOne of India’s own entry to Do-It-Yourself Content business. PringOO lets users create and sell their own designs on various mediums (T-shirts, mugs, teddy bears, coasters, bags, mousepads etc.).
The concept is tried and tested for success. The US analogs like CafePress, CustomInk, Zazzle etc. were founded in late 90’s. (CafePress is a popular one- Seth Godin, a leading business author, is a fan too. Another interesting factoid about CafePress is that it was co-founded by Maheesh Jain). The concept has since branched out into niche business models like Etsy and Threadless.
PringOO folks have designed the site well- navigation is easy and there are plenty of ‘how-to’ and FAQ help pages. Of course, I have a soft corner for startups that are astute enough to put up a ‘beta’ sign and ‘Report Bug’ link. In terms of content, they are getting traction. Not a wide selection, but significant considering they are pretty new to the game (launch date was 7th December 2008). Some good associated functionality like forum, seller blog, store list, design contest are provided but the differentiator is the with ‘free shipping‘ service. Overall, I think this would be a compelling reason for the creative Indians to showcase their design talent and actually make money in the process (PringOO shares royalty back with creator for every item sold).
Edit: Thanks to Aditya’s comment, I stand corrected. Seems like there are more entries to the DIY content space (Myntra, DilSeBol) and ‘free shipping’ is a service offered by them too. He gave more detail about ‘
free shipping’ process too- seems like the default is Indian Postal Service and you need to pay extra 
for using a courier service.
Further Edit: PringOO founder Varun defends his site with some counter-arguments in his comment below. Seems like the jury is still out.
Pluggd.in March 12, 2008
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Blogs, Individual, Technology , add a commentPluggd.in is Ashish Sinha’s blog where he reviews Indian tech startups. It has an excellent inventory of upcoming startups, and useful resources like interviews with Indian entrepreneurs, VC insights, jobs, forum etc. It’s a regularly updated site (unlike eIndiaEmoticon Grin) and I found lots of cool links there.
It’d be nice to have a index or categorization of some sort, though. I wanted to see healthcare related startups and didnt find keyword search efficient from that perspective. Nevertheless, a very useful site if you want to keep a pulse on the Indian startup scene.
IndianMedicalSites.in March 9, 2008
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Healthcare , 3commentsI found IndianMedicalSites.in while surfing for Indian medical informatics content online. It seems to be a serious effort by qualified folks (its founder, Vasumathi Sriganesh, is an MLIS professional with experience as Chief Librarian) so I thought I’ll catalog it at eIndia.
Having gone through the Indian medical education system, I know that the access to online resources with clinical information is rarely of any practical utility. The sister company of IndianMedicalSites.in is Quality Medical Knowledge Foundation and it signals a change in that regard- they offer literature search services, document delivery, training programs and other products aimed at the medical user community. Very neat business to be in- I’m sure that there is a great untapped market there.
Anyways, back to IndianMedicalSites.in. It’s a good directory of all Indian websites related to medicine. The content is not much, but I think that is also the fault of not enough websites being out there to catalog. I found interesting links in the ‘Books & Magazines Online’ category, and was pleasantly surprised to find some listings in the ‘Doctors’ category (Check out Dr.Arun Mehra who owns www.bypasssurgery.in- not bad!!). Overall, like I said before, it’s a good resource to bookmark if you are in the medical profession. I hope the content keeps growing.
SanskritVoice March 9, 2008
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Non-Profit , 1 comment so farThe most popular posts on eIndia are entertainment-related (no surprise there), suggesting that writing more about that category should increase visitor traffic. But one of the advantages of not being ad-supported is that I write about what I want.
So here is a review of a site that will be uninteresting to the bollywood-obsessed Indian masses. SanskritVoice is a not-for-profit project by Sheshu Karthick, with the objective of reviving public interest in Sanskrit. It’s an unpretentious site, where you can learn Sanskrit words at your leisure (via RSS or email) and read/share articles related to Sanskrit language.
The content is still ramping up, but it has a good aggregation of Sanskrit resources (like the Sanskrit dictionary search). I like the idea of campaigning the learning of an ancient language and creating a community around it. Much better use of the internet as ‘knowledge infrastructure’, especially when you contrast it with useless communities like Kayastha2Kayastha or infernal initiatives like DesiSexTube.
SanskritVoice finds good company with other non-profit Indian web initiatives like PositiveSaathi and IDontWantDowry. Hope they find sustenance in ad-based model or donations.