AllIndiaDeals April 28, 2008
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Shopping , add a commentGiven the meteoric rise of major Indian online retailers (like IndiaPlaza, FutureBazaar, SifyMall, CafeGadgets, IndiaTimes…) and numerous other wannabes (e.g.1, e.g.2), it’s logical that the need for simplifying all these starts surfacing. Enter deal aggregators.
AllIndiaDeals is an shopping deal aggregator founded in late 2006 by Nidhi Modi, an MBA from Indore University. To quote Nidhi- “The website helps shoppers solve the long standing problem of where to find the product at lowest price”. Each product entry has some information on the product and link to the store offering it at that price. There are few of ways that AllIndiaDeals gets it’s content:
1. Their team searching major shopping portals and local newspapers
2. Merchants submitting deals directly
3. User-submitted deals
One of the key issues for any content-heavy site is to manage efficient navigation. AllIndiaDeals does a decent job at this: the visual presentation is easy on the eyes and categorization seems logical. Also present are some community-oriented features like forums and shopping blog.
The business model is affiliate commission and advertising revenue. That is always a hard trick to pull off (even Amazon had to endure 6 long years before recording it’s first profit) for an online outfit. But where there is determination, there is hope. Goodluck, Nidhi!
Chandamama April 21, 2008
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Uncategorized , add a commentChandamama is the new-age incarnation of the classic Indian kids magazine that has focused on stories of Indian mythology, history, culture & tradition for decades. The site has the unpretentious feel of the print magazine (at least from what I remember it as) and has it’s usual kid-friendly content like jokes, stories, quizzes etc.
Besides the typical folk tales in online format, the other interesting offerings include a collectors edition ($24.99) and downloads of scanned ChandaMama print magazines from yesteryears (Aug 1, 1955- I kid you not!). It’s good to find the old business model of print giving way (at least partly) to new ones, although it’s a bit strange to digg/furl a ‘Robinhood of Kerala’ story. Maybe I’m not hip enough to make the transition 
but I like the site anyway.
An interesting related factoid: Chandamama was recently bought by Geodesic, a publicly traded indian instant-messaging platform company behind the IM client Mundu. Wonder what an IM company plans to do with a web property like Chandamama. Interesting.
WindowStreams April 21, 2008
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Media Streaming , 8commentsAnother addition to the plethora of paid subscription media streaming websites. WindowStreams was suggested by the folks reading BestOfMalyalam post. The site is focused on malayalam content and advertises a ‘24X7′ support. The layout is pretty simplistic and straightforward (although for some strange reason they do give a css-driven option to change the site color and layout. Hmm…)
Once again (with rolling eyes), I haven’t tried any of these services, so can’t endorse anything personally. I’d encourage the enthusiastic and helpful readers to write some insightful comments so we can reach a consensus about it.
EasyClinic.in April 19, 2008
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Healthcare , add a commentHealthcare IT is a relatively new domain, especially when we consider clinical information systems (CIS). In most of the advanced western economies, this market is well defined and with plenty of competition (and I should know, since I’ve been in the same for last 8 years
). It’s heartening to see Indian homegrown efforts now emerging in this space. EasyClinic is a clinic management and electronic health record system that is designed and developed exclusively for doctors in India.
Their first release- ‘Easy Clinic Express’ has been in beta at about 10 sites in India. It was officially launched on 15th April 2008 and is aimed at single doctor practices. Their second offering, ‘Easy Clinic Professional’ is due June 2008 and is designed for multi-doctor, multi-specialty clinics. In December 2008 they plan to release ‘Easy Clinic Enterprise’ for small to medium nursing homes and hospitals.
The website is neat and professional looking with easy navigation to product features, a demo and some purchase info. From what I see in the demo screenshots, the product seems to follow suit. The two main components offered are Practice Management (does the scheduling, billing etc.) and Electronic Health Record (stores and abstracts the clinical info). Having no personal experience with the product, I can’t endorse the functionality except that the overall structure and framework of the offering seems to be competitive with the US systems that I deal with.
Easy Clinic is developed by Novel Medicare Solutions Pvt Ltd (incorporated 2005) and is based out of Kolkata. The company is self-funded by the founder Girish Mohata (India-born Australian entrepreneur who teaches at Bond University and is an active researcher in Medical Informatics, Data warehousing and Data Mining).
If I could read the tea leaves, I’d see EasyClinic as another sign of the emerging next transformation of the Indian healthcare industry, one where IT starts playing a role in enabling more efficient and standardized care delivery. At the very least, it’s a sign of a formal business models emerging around medical informatics in India. Goodluck and keep us posted, Girish!
Shadilagn April 8, 2008
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Uncategorized , add a commentI should stop being surprised by the number of matrimonial sites for India. Somehow I have the mental image that Indian marriages are either arranged or love marriages that are painstakingly executed in a face-to-face mode. Not any more, I guess. Shadilagn is based out of Indore (M.P.). It was launched in early 2003 and seems to have done well over the years. They have a family of eight matrimonial websites as a part of the Shadilagn group: AgrawalLagn, BrahminLagn, JainLagn, KayasthLagn, KshatriyaLagn, PunjabiLagn, SindhiLagn and VaishLagn. I’m pretty sure that more are on their way… keep counting.
Users can search profiles for free but need to pay up for posting one. I find that interesting since this model is often employed in reverse (pay for searching, but post for free). Being happily married, I’ve not utilized their services, so can’t give more insight. Folks behind Shadilagn seem like a serious bunch with adequate funding. They’ve launched a print supplement (newspaper) for Shadilagn, which is a good idea- should give them a wider, more robust coverage. Users can also receive SMS from profile viewers without disclosing their mobile numbers (although that is a bit too fast-serve for my image of matrimonial market, it goes to show how pervasive is the SMS as a communication mode in India).
They have some unconventional claims like ISO 9001 certification (for quality management, not the brides or grooms :-)) and creating 2000 jobs thorough their services, etc. There are few grammar slip-ups and occasional boastful comments but regardless, the website has a good layout and design.