MovieTell.co.in August 12, 2007
Posted by eIndia in : Entertainment , add a commentMovieTell is the Indian answer to Fandango (sort of). Although I can’t understand the reason they chose that name, I think their business model is clear- they sell tickets for Indian movie theaters online and make money on the commission.
I guess we needed something like this for the overcrowded Indian theaters. I hate standing in line for the tickets. With MovieTell you can buy the tickets and simply goto the theater (no need for paper ticket delivery) with the credit card used online as a proof. The catch is that they don’t have enough coverage yet.. the service is currently available in only 16 theaters in handful of metro cities. From what I can gather off the lean ‘help’ page, their refund policy looks a bit strict too, so look before you indulge.
In case you are wondering, there is a convenience fee (amount not disclosed online for some strange reason). The page title and logo refers to another domain BigTree.in (?)- I guess they are synonymous. The layout is minimalistic and simple; I like it just for the fact that they are savvy enough to write a “beta” under their name. It’d be better if they explained somewhere what the heck the website does, in case people stumble onto it.
NumTV August 12, 2007
Posted by eIndia in : Entertainment , add a commentAnother day, another media streaming site focusing on south Indian content. NumTV was pointed out by one of our readers, and I decided to check it out.
I should give credit where it’s due; the look-and-feel is decent, and they have thoughtful inclusions like the “Easy Guide”, “Get Started Here” sections. Service model is the usual- you signup for an account to watch promos and clips for free, and pay if you want to own/see full content. The content line up is mostly south Indian fare with some Hindi channels (like Zee and Aaj tak), although that doesn’t stop them from claiming to be “one of the world’s largest web casting portals” (sigh!).
I’m not sure how well the service works or how good the video quality is- I’ll leave it up to our readers to comment on that. But NumTV does claim to have an 800 number for customer support, which may be a step up from other sites like Streambox.TV.
There are some other interesting offerings- south Indian ebooks for download (buy), Live Wedding (they can broadcast your wedding around the world- smart idea, there may be a business here
). It’s also worth noting a bunch of ‘adult’ movies available in the menu, not far from the ‘Jesus Calls’ option. The overwhelming number of sarcastic comments I could pen about that has incapacitated me to write any further…
Picsquare August 12, 2007
Posted by eIndia in : Business , add a commentPicsquare is a photo-sharing and printing site that has been around since early 2006. It was started by two ex-IITians and is based out of Bangalore.
The site design and navigation is very professional, and that alone is sufficient to let it stand out in the heap of half-baked Indian web startups. They’ve explained their products & services neatly- I’m surprised by the Rs.3 4X6 print (sounds like great value…haven’t tried them personally, though). It has Flickr like functionality (photo storage, sharing etc) but other offerings are around printing your photo on mugs, t-shirts, cards etc. If you can’t upload via web, there is an option of snail-mailing your photo CD to them.
I always feel that consumer-oriented transactional websites should foremost try to tackle ‘new user anxiety’ on the homepage- which is why I appreciate the “How it works” section, if there is one. A high-level graphic that explains how/what the site can do for the user, in three or four steps, is a must. Picsquare lacks this, but makes it up somewhat by a “FAQ” link at the bottom that takes you to a page that answers relevant questions.
Note: iTasveer is another photo sharing and printing startup by ex-IITians.
SaharaCareHouse August 3, 2007
Posted by eIndia in : Business , add a commentI was never much of a visionary. Maybe that’s why the concept of online NRI Concierge Services never seemed to have a business potential in my mind. Obviously, I was wrong.
Sahara Care House is a venture of Sahara India Pariwar, the $10 billion Indian conglomerate. It provides over 60 support and concierge services in India for non-resident Indians. They aim to be a single-point facilitator for services in four categories: Healthcare (like medicine delivery, ambulance), Utility (paying bills, finding a lawyer, security guard etc.), Personalized (like travel arrangements, tax filing) and Relationship (Gifts, flowers, etc).
If you are an NRI, think of it as outsourcing some of your responsibilities and life- you can get your family’s electricity bill payment task for $4 a pop, or find them a security guard for $17. (Note charges may be a bit higher if you are not willing to shell out $110 membership + $1000 advance deposit).
Pun aside, this leaves me a bit more convinced about the viability of the ‘concierge’ business concept. Most NRI’s have the cash and the guilt (of not being there for families back home) to avail of these services. YourManInIndia is another such service by the ttk group. But it remains to be seen how these paid relationship ambassadors can handle both sides of this equation- NRI’s are bound to be over demanding and execution of such tasks is never easy in India.
Meanwhile, I’m tickled by the $17 ‘Kundli Matching’ and ‘Janampatri Making’ services. It’s outsourcing at it’s best
.
Inasra July 28, 2007
Posted by Aparna T in : Shopping/Travel , 1 comment so farInasra was one of the participants at Proto.in 2007, the startup showcase event that we’ve reviewed earlier. Inasra is interesting, as the first one that seems to focus on the India accommodation category, among a large number of travel startups focusing on air tickets or holiday packages.
They have affiliations to 3500 hotels in 400 Indian cities, an easy-to-use website, and all the usual features - search by city and dates of travel, budget, plus a variety of hotel amenities, listing of room rates for different room types, and credit card payment processing. I haven’t found too many sites that list anything below a 3-star hotel, so it’s nice to find some budget hotels here. It works well for large/medium cities or tourist
destinations, though the number of hotels listed for some smaller towns is a lot fewer, and not cheap. Inasra helpfully finds rates and contact info for hotels not affiliated with itself, so that the traveler can book it himself.
Inasra’s Minimum Advance charge on reservation confirmation is non-refundable. This information needs to be a clearly visible Cancellations/Refund Policy link at the top, as is standard among travel sites,
not buried in a small Terms and Conditions link at the bottom of the page.
The other area where improvement is needed is the limited phone support - not available on Sundays, and after 8 pm on other days. One can’t expect a customer who may arrive at a hotel at 9pm on Friday and find the hotel doesn’t have his reservation, to wait till the following Monday 10am to sort it out.
TeleDoc.org July 8, 2007
Posted by eIndia in : Healthcare, Organizations, Technology , add a commentTeleDoc is a project of Jiva Institute, an India-based non-profit research and development organization that aims to foster sustainable development by producing innovations. Launched as a pilot project in 15 villages in Haryana in April 2003, TeleDoc provides handheld mobile phone devices to village-based health workers in India, permitting them to communicate with doctors remotely.
TeleDoc uses java-enabled mobile telephones to provide real-time ability to record and transmit diagnostic information that doctors can analyze and then prescribe medication and treatment. At a regional office, medicines are prepared and picked up by field workers, and delivered to patients in their homes through a network of pharmacies and delivery personnel. The approximate cost of this entire process is 70 rupees (US$1.50) per consultation, which is pretty impressive.
TeleDoc won the World Summit Award for eHealth in 2003 at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, Switzerland. Jiva is an organization based out of Faridabad (Haryana) promoting Ayurveda techniques.
In my view, TeleDoc signifies yet another indigenous IT solution to healthcare issues in India. There are plenty of such isolated efforts in existence today (just read about Andhra Pradesh and TamilNadu government’s Disease Surveillance Solution implemented by Voxiva) and hopefully will be the agents of change.
HISPIndia.org July 8, 2007
Posted by eIndia in : Healthcare, Technology , 1 comment so farHISPIndia.org is a not-for-profit organization that supports design, development and implementation of Public Health Information Systems in India. The team behind it comes from University of Oslo (Norway), SCTIMST (Kerala), IIITM (Kerala).
Health Information System Project (HISP) activities started in India in 2000, and the resultant software (DHIS- District Health Information Software) software was deployed in the state of Andhra Pradesh. As the project grew, it led to formation of HISPIndia as an NGO in 2003. Today, HISPIndia has about 35 full-time staff and is active in Kerala, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, and soon in Karnataka.
HISP projects are also being run in other developing countries- Ethiopia, South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania , Botswana, Malawi, Nigeria, Zambia and Vietnam. As a ‘network’, HISP aims to strengthen open source health software, share best practices and deploy the technology working directly with health services of each country. Masters and doctoral students from University of Oslo leverage HISP for research activities. If you are into Healthcare IT, check out their software resources section and wiki.
innINDIA July 7, 2007
Posted by eIndia in : Business, Shopping/Travel , add a commentinnINDIA plans to be a horizontal portal aggregating information and services for India. It’s not there in terms of content, but I’m not going to pound on them because they are one of the few Indian sites that have put up a “Beta” sign.
The layout for website still seems to be shaping up- there is no good navigation through the various sections (once you clicked on ‘Indian Recipes’, no way to go back to homepage). Self-reported press releases claim health search engine launch, postal code search launch, etc. The overall business plan is unclear to me at this point, and no good indication as to what they aim to deliver to web customers. All in all, nothing worth looking into.
ApniCommunity June 29, 2007
Posted by eIndia in : Entertainment , add a commentA reader pointed me to ApniCommunity and I half-expected it to be a content aggregator like Bollyclips and Muft.TV. I found it to be a bit more organized than that. As the name suggests, it’s primarily a discussion board for the online Indian community.
It does have videos, but mostly movie promos and concert shows that are hosted on YouTube etc. Other than that it has bunch of community features like forums, friends, etc. The navigation layout is pretty similar to Muft.TV (maybe they use the same content management system in the background). Again, no idea about the business model except advertisements.
I prefer my useless media content on the rocks, no need for discussion threads or forums. If you like to indulge in supplementary gossip and make online friends along the way, try ApniCommunity out and let me know your experience.
Muft.TV June 29, 2007
Posted by eIndia in : Entertainment , add a commentMuft.TV is another one of the almost ubiquitous ‘content-aggregator’ sites. They dont actually host any of the content, just simply point to it. Think of it as a media library, with the actual content being stored on popular sites like YouTube and DailyMotion.
Muft.TV has a better interface than others, although it still has too much navigation going on for me. Besides Bollywood, you can find tamil, telugu, malyalam, kannada, punjabi, marathi and bengali stuff here. There are some interesting categories like “Deleted Scenes” (which doesnt have anything yet), “Telly Videos” (links to episodes of sitcoms), “Shows & Concerts” (in case you missed Femina Miss India 2007 and likes) and “Music Videos”. They also have a page that lists a handful of online desi radio stations.
Anyway, it’s free
, much like MeTube and Bollyclips. I still cant figure out how these sites are paying the bills for bandwidth utilization with meager ads sprinkled here and there.