Local content market – comparison of existing services
Local search market is on the boil, and so is the local content creation.
The Indian search space is coming a full circle. First we witnessed a deluge of local search engines; and now, the local content players.
Here is a quick roundup of current players in the local content market:
- Y! ourCity
An automated product, Y! OurCity is more of a feed grabber (of ONLY Yahoo! properties feeds like Flickr, Upcoming, Y! video, travel, del.ico.us etc) and frankly speaking, doesn’t have any significant content to talk about.
What’er is available in OurCity can be easily built using Y! pipes (know more). More of a PoC, less of a product.
Intimidating UI (atleast the landing page), too many cities, almost no data and *dating desperate* users!
And the end result? Wasted time.
Unlike other local/city specific site, Burrp has smartly positioned itself as a socio-listing service (listen to my podcast with Deap here).
Started as restaurant review site, these guys have diversified into other services (gyms/spas/cinemas/theatre reviews, TV listing etc), which, I believe is a damn good strategy play.
Why do I think so? Because you need to engage the end user and you can’t present a menu of 100 items and say – “choose and write what’er you want to“.
Burrp! started with one product, gradually built the user base and then introduced other products.
An established player, Sulekha has the right muscle power, brand identity and the ecosystem to rule this space. But not too sure whether this is their topmost priotrity. In any case, this space can easily accomodate 2-3 players and I do see Sulekha playing a big role here.
tolmolbol also faces pretty much the same challenges as iLaaka – but they have a very friendly UI and a few nifty features too. I liked the way UI has been split in different sections. Neat and intuitive.Apart from the catchy (and unforgettable) name, tolmobol’s killer feature (according to me) is allowing the end users to ask city specific unstructured questions (“where can I find a doctor who can cure my blogging fever?“) and that itself, has a strong potential to attract user base.
IMHO, if they concentrate on this feature alone, they have a winner.If you ask me, why unstructured questions are important? Well, here is a sample question @ tolmolbol site:
“Can anyone tell me of some place that offers spanish courses in the summer months?”
Tell me how can you structure 1000 variations of such questions?
Point that I am driving at is that as an end user, my questions aren’t structured all the time (e.g of structured qn: “find me a ‘2BHK’ house in ‘Koramangala, Bangalore”), but are way too unstructured and cannot fit into dropdown options most of the classified sites have.
Though there are other QnA services launched (ibibo, Rediff), none of them are city specific and I do see a BIG opportunity here.At the same time, my biggest concern with tolmolbol is that they are spreading themselves too thin. Out of the no. of cities listed so far, very few are active.
Most of the other cities don’t even have any relevant seed data and cities, in general aren’t too well localized.
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
How come you missed mouthshut?
Rajiv
MS, IMHO is not really a local content site. It’s purely a review site.
Yes, many of those reviews are relevant from local perspective (like restaurants, theatres etc) – but it isn’t really positioned as a local content site.
BTW- stay pluggd.in for my podcast with Farooqui,MS founder:)
Nice roundup. I agree with you that one needs an offline play to succeed in the Indian mkt. Look at Shaadi.com – even they moved to offline space to attract the larger mass.
Well laid out thoughts!
tolmolbol has a nice UI..but at the same time I feel that it’s way too crowded..
and I expect them to recognize my city..
how about JustDial?
They do a better job than many others.
Though not a true content/search, they are excellent.
Don’t know if they have a plan to target this market.
What you think?
Ramjee
JustDial (and similar services) focus primarily on local businesses. And a city specific QnA brings user feedback/review to the local search as well..
Imagine if you are looking for a good dentist in your area, JustDial will give you the names/addresses of docs, but a city specific QnA service adds another layer of relevance..i.e. users will advice you on who is the best doctor in this area etc…
Hi Anuj,
I would be grateful if you could spare a few minutes and give me a little more detailed feedback. Just head out to tolmolbol.com and use the feedback form on the homepage. Your valued feedback would be routed straight to me.
Have a nice day.
Rithesh
Ideasmith/Co-founder – tolmolbol.com
Ashish,
I agree with you on what you said about JustDial(and similar services).
Now wouldn’t it be great if there is a service which lets me go through the directory(listing).
I see two things
i) Immediate accurate information
ii) User feedback which tells me about the service.
As a user I have felt a need for something like this.
(eg. I search for bike servicing in indranagar, i search on lets say just dial for authorised service centers. then i can check the ratings and what viewers have to say about it.)
yes dude!
And I am sure tolmolbol and others are trying to get there (metainformation). The key is JustDial already has directory listing – you can’t really compete with them by building another listing service (and burn money/time). That’s why, I believe others have taken the UGC approach.
Ashish, thanks for mentioning burrp! We believe that being the best at one thing before moving on to the next the way to go. You correctly identified that
Keep it going, Ashish.
Hey Deap
Thanks for your comments. Of all the startups I have reviewed, burrp comes out a clear winner in terms of user engagement. At times, baby steps are better than building all features in one go.
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