Well, I started micro-blogging today with twitter. Also read about an Indian clone of the same that goes by the name chittR. And so the questions visit my mind again:
- What makes the guys at chittR think that being Indian is a source of competitive advantage for their micro-blogging platform over a non-Indian but far better twitter?
- What makes the guys at BigAdda and DesiMartini think that being Indian is a source of competitive advantage for their social networking platform over a non-Indian but far better Orkut or Facebook?
- What makes the guys at Indiatimes Mail and Zapakmail think that being Indian is a source of competitive advantage over a non-Indian but far better Gmail or Yahoo! Mail?
- What makes the guys at Fropper think that being Indian is a source of competitive advantage for their blogging platform over a non-Indian but far better Blogger or Wordpress?
8 comments:
All these heroes fail to realize that they are in a category where the product itself is the star. And marketing plays a not so significant role.
Therefore the tiny marketing -related advantage in terms of being india-specific cannot overcome the product quality gap.This gap can only be closed if you can match the biggies in terms of R&D spends to develop a great product
I take this opportunity to remind you about "Guruji trying a Google stunt in India" too :p :d
Being Indian could be a competitive advantage - if the product & target segment justifies the need to be localised.....
for example there is linkedin , but still i believe there is a gr8 need for a Indian professional networking site.....if done right
so yes i agree with you - just copyng international sucess with indian positioning wont work - unless there is more behind it
@Abhishek (ibsrocks student community),
You have quite a few Indian Professional Networking sites... Brijj and ApnaCircle... Both of these have been launched by reputed and successful Internet companies/personalities, but they have fallen flat... Given the global connections that make up businesses today, I really don't see why an only-Indian professional social network would work over an international one...
Probably, what may work is an Indian Alibaba... Also, the only kind of professional social networks that may work locally are those that target vertical niches... That too would take some doing.
Well being Indian specific could be a competitive advantage in specific segments.. like matrimony for example :-) ask Murga he'll tell.... say or Local news or !!!. But yeah building a networking site, or a web email and expecting indians to register just because it was launched by an Indian company is lame... Unless your product has a decent USP besides the 'Indian' tag.. its difficult to sustain once your funding runs out.
Heya Nimish,
Got your reference from Mr. Joe Felix,so thought of visiting your page..beautiful layout,pretty neat and to the point,...I really liked it.
Wish to connect with ya on linkedin as well.
Regards
Here is a link to my profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=18788614&trk=tab_pro
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