Future of Rediff

Rediff is one of the oldest internet company in India. Rediffmail and Rediffbol are one of the most popular mail service and chat messenger in the history, respectively. But in the last four years company has seen only downfall but recently they have seen the upside. The reason for reduction in loss is mainly because of their new move to enter into mobile.

At the beginning of 2010, when Rediff revamped there homepage and mail service, it was for sure they have mobile as the main focus. And with the recent revamped Rediffmail NG and new push mail service at Rs. 50 shows that they will now be more mobile.

The idea of Rediff going mobile is good for the future keeping in mind that India has more mobiles than computer and laptops. Also 3G will boost the web on mobile with range of smart-phones in the market. Rediff use to be popular among the students and hence targeting mobile might help them to stay with Facebook and Gmail which has become the web youth icons.

Rediff has realize the fact that “For rediff to win, there is no need for google and facebook to loose” . Hence all three can survive with their next generation products.

Zorpia: An emerging social network – A Review

Zorpia is the social network build by Mr. Jeffrey. Zorpia has a unique verifying way, each user need to get his picture holding his user name in his hand. Zorpia is one of the fastest emerging social network with some good features and some features missing.

Good Features:

1. Social Games: Its has a gaming section where we have several games. Its not as good as Facebook but better than the rest.

2. Music: This section is unique as not seen in any social network. The “Most Played” section is cool as it helps to get an idea what others are listening.

3. Photo Tool: One of the best photo tools. After status update, Photo is the most important part of social activity.

Features Missing:

1. Private Space: All data is of the Zopians, but we need data mostly of our friends . More work need to be done on that.

2. Too Heavy: Zorpia need to learn the lesson from others (Both Google and Facebook got the early advantage because they were the lightest and hence fastest in search engine and social network respectively).

3. Require Revamped: The looks are too confusing and we need to scroll a lot to get our essential things unlike Facebook where we get all things handy.

I hope “fokfok” is reading this and will improve the overall Zorpia.

Rediffmail revamped: Rediffmail NG – The NEXT GENERATION

Rediff is all set to make a comeback and get all users back from Ymail and Gmail. Rediff with the launch Rediffmail NG provide a cheap push mail at Rs.50.

Good Points of Rediffmail NG:

1. Faster and Sleek: With the use of Ajax its now faster and better service. Its sleek design give a feel of faster and easy to use look.

2. Send SMS: Now you can send SMS from your inbox, no need to go to any specific site to send sms.

3. Themes: Like Gmail themes, now Rediffmail also have a collection of themes.

4. Tab Features: Like Ymail tab feature, we can easily do multi-tasking using tab feature of Rediffmail.

5. Auto-Forward Mail: Now you can forward all your mails to another email id automatically.

6. Push Mail: Not at just Rs.50 you can get the push mail on your Microteck phone. Even on Android, Blackberry and Symbians etc.

In short, Rediff has worked well and combine some useful features from Gmail and Ymail. Rediffmail is now ready to compete with them in the market.

Bad Points of Rediffmail NG:

1. Compatibility Issue: It works well on IE 8, Firefox 3.6.10, Chome 7, Flock 3 and Epic 1.1 but have design issues in Opera 10.63. Hope will rectified soon.

2. Chat within Inbox Missing: Chat from Inbox is one of the feature in demand these days as we cannot waste time in installing the chat messenger on every system (home and office) we use. Gmail chat got so popular that Google stop working on Gtalk.

3. Lab Feature Missing: People needs to do experiment and want something new. Gmail gives them with the new feature every week and also give them a choice to use or not. This helps Google to analyze the user preference and work on that. Also give a choice to user to select what he wants. This should be included.

All these features are a requirement of next generation so hope that will be included soon.

United States VS Indian Internet Companies

I thought of comparing the US internet companies with Indian internet companies. There is no comparison between them as US companies earn lots more and are more innovative where as Indian companies are lazy and less innovative. The comparison is done by selecting a US internet company and comparing it with the Indian internet company having similar traits.

1. MSN VS SIFY: Both company consider they internet business as secondary and most of the revenue comes from other business. Still MSN takes lots of effort in making internet business profitable with its product like Windows Live, Hotmail and Bing. Where as Sify has a deal with google for Mail and Search, hence focus only on news. Since there are better news sites so Sify will not survive long where as Microsoft's MSN will emerge as one of the leader in Internet industry and profit making business with its aggressive product line up.

2. YAHOO VS INDIATIMES: Both of them are more of a portal with news, local content and services, Indiatimes runs on its news content and Yahoo has popular mail service. Both are a brand and has a high reach to the consumer. Yahoo is searching for a partner that brings some more value to the site so that they can enter and dominate in different areas of online services. Whereas Indiatimes is happy with there business are in no mood to do experiment that might make them less innovative and may lose the market share.

3. GOOGLE VS REDIFF: Both were the startups. Google started when internet was penetrating US and Rediff when internet started its penetration in India. Google turn out to be the biggest global internet company where as Rediff became popular in India but from last four years losing its market. Rediff lost its market share not only because Google's Gmail and Orkut were gaining popularity but also Rediff kept on sleeping and did not brought innovation at the right time. Rediff was lazy and did not brought Chat within Inbox and a social network. If Rediff has done that they must have beaten Google.

4. AOL VS IN: Both the companies work as the subsidy. Both have a good mail service which may turn out there strongest point. IN has one of the best news network where as AOL has bought many startups like tech blog TechCrunch. IN has the potential to be one of the global internet company if it continue to put innovations.

5. FACEBOOK VS IBIBO: There are several social network but lets compare the US company Facebook which is global number one (and also number one in India) and Indian (JV of China and Brazil) Ibibo which is most popular Indian social networking site in India. Both of them give several apps and has chat features. Ibibo has integrates mail, so Facebook has better seach technology to connect the people to friends, brands and adds. Facebook is more innovative and owner is 25 years old so you can understand the aggressive nature of this site. Facebook has given Google and Yahoo a run for their money and market. Whereas Ibibo has not made such a big impact. Facebook connect and integration is used by several sites including Yahoo and Windows Live and even Ibibo whereas Ibibo so not have any such integrations and popularity.

Next Step: Integration of email in Social Network

Facebook and Twitter became popular because they brought innovations like Real Time Update that redefines the way of social networking. Twitter is still busy in bringing new ways to make money. Such spirit of innovation makes them the new leader of Internet which was earlier dominated by Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL (News Corp).

But what next. We may see that now we see integration of services with Social Network.

1. Think you get the facility to check mail either @facebook.com or @ymail.com, by login your facebook account. Integration of email account is possible soon. Myspace, Ibibo and Itimes already have this facility.

2. May be we see new apps coming and apps no longer be called games and quizzes. We may see Mail, Maps, Search, blogging etc. apps so that we can use them from sitting at our social network.

There might be much more innovative things happing to social networks. I am so confident that there have to be some more innovative thing happening soon is due to recent rapid changes in social networks.

1. Lets begin with MySpace: We use to add friends and send them messages, get there birthday reminders and join some groups.

2. Then came Orkut: Lets users send some open messages knows as "Scraps" which can be read by others friends and social life became more open.

3. Now Facebook: They gave the plateform to update our status which is dispayed on ever friend's page so they are not require to visit each one profile to know what happening and all of them comment sitting at there own home page. Its make the web "Real Time" which is the hottest topin on internet. Facebook also brought the trends of apps like Apple did in mobile phones. As apps start making huge profit from the add revenue, this concept become very popular. Now all major social networks have these apps.

Now this is very clear that you need to bring something new and innovative to survive in the world of social network.

Email registration at India.com reopens on 25th October

In response to query, India.com informed that the registration for their mail service will reopens on 25th of October. Recently they were not accepting any new registration due to the ongoing process of their email service revamp. Now it will be interesting to see that what we get once this service get revamped. I am hoping lots more services like In.com. Web 18 gives lots of innovative services in its mail inbox like future mail, apps, etc.

Now Internet depends on four major growth driver: Mail, Social, Search and News. Most of Indian Internet companies focuses on News and Email. I hope that they will realize the importance of social network and will make one or fund the startups. In the near future we may see more Indian startups in the market due to increase in the Internet penetration in India.

Indiatimes mail do not have the rich version working

Now when Internet companies are focusing more on social, Email, News, Search and going Mobile, Indiatimes is missing this driver of growth. They have brought innovation to their offerings but if they lag behind the main growth drivers then will lose the growth momentum.

When social networks like MySpace and Ibibo are integrating their social web with email facility then how could Indiatimes do not take its email seriously. Yahoo, which also have news as one of the main growth driver, also focus on its email then why Indiatimes do not take it that seriously. Rediff also make the mark because of its email service and later news. Now Rediff has lost its market share due to lack of focus on its email service.

Indiatimes offer only basic HTML version of email (as its rich version do not work). In this era where we want more than just email, this will not be able to make a mark. Their social networking site, Itimes, offers integrated social and email facility is not at all popular. They have the largest selling daily, business and weekly newspaper but do not publicize their products. Indiatimes Mail has no potential if they do not work to improve it.

Indiatimes has a huge amount of potential as they are very popular among news reader but they need to make their product well equipped to hold the users as they have whole lots of potential to attract the user to use their product at least once.

Rediff and Sify are you listening, its the time to get listed

Usually it is said that company get listed when they need money but more money is never a bad (Info-edge knows it best). So Indian web companies should get listed on Stock Exchanges in India. This will not only give them money but also make them sounding familiar company. It has been seen that the listed company become more popular in consumer segment and its easy for them to expand. Enterprises also prefer the solutions and services from the listed company as they can trust more on them.

Hence its the perfect time for Rediff and Sify to get listed like other Indian web companies like Info-edge, 123greetings.com, etc. This will not only give them cash but will make them popular among the Indian Enterprises.

Rediff should utilize cash gain from IPO in:

1. Improving "Rediffmail" service

2. Building a good search engine (or having a tie-up in search which can earn them more cash)

3. Improve "Rediff Page" and make it more social.

4. Utilize in services like Blog, Song Buzz, Maps, etc.