So, what's new?

A round-up of newly-launched Indian Websites for October 2000,
and updates to old sites

MTVIndia
An invite in a coffin? The superstitious would baulk at the idea, considering it quite inauspicious. But MTV India blightly sent us just that for the launch party of its Website which was -- some more superstition here -- on Friday the 13th! In keeping with its zany TV image, the site has plenty of gags, out-of-box elements and a comprehensive glossary of slang and filmi stuff. But it goes beyond TV as it sports interactive games, contests and a facility to send 'chits' to other MTVIndia.com members. You can also get a download on your favourite MTV VJ and get zapped by the MTV mascots that pop up and offer unsolicited advice and comments. The site has been created in partnership with Asiacontent.com which has been providing Websites with content, advertising and e-commerce in Asian countries.

Fabria
This business-to-business (B2B) site was started earlier this year by a couple of New York-based NRIs, Vikas Luthra and Ajay Khanna. The site's focus is solely on the textile and apparal industry and sports a database of textile products right from yarn, to finished cloth and textile machinery. What the site seeks to eliminate is the estimated loss of $34 billion because of supply-chain inefficiencies. Fabria works by getting leading textile players in the world to display their products with all specifications through a ready-to-use form on the Website. Buyers can then enter the specifications of a product they require and find the right supply source from anywhere in the world. The revenues would be coming from subscriptions and transaction fees from suppliers. This month, the promoters launched the site in India after already roping in leading Indian textile dealers like Arvind, Grasim, Dhar and Madura.


Shekhar Gurera's Gallery
This site is a good example of how journalists who syndicate their work can leverage the Web both to promote their work as well as to provide infotainment to their public. Shekhar Gurera is the chief illustrator/cartoonist with The Pioneer and syndicates his regular pocket cartoons to various regional language dailies. He has been in the business for the last 15 years. His cartoons are now available at this site -- Shekhar Gurera's Gallery -- for cartoon lovers, publishers, designers and editors/writers who need timely illustrations for their articles. You can download and use the cartoons after prior permission. And if you want to know how Hrithik Roshan, Kapil Dev or Bill Gates will look 40 years from now, just check out the section Future Lens.

Career Mosaic India
The leading international online recruitment company CareerMosaic is now targetting Indian employers and job seekers. The company has been around since 1994 and is a subsidiary of advertising biggie Omnicon. The site boasts of an average of 515,000 job searches a day, records 50 million requests each month and has several thousand job listings, employers and current resumes. In India, the site is now being promoted by TM Inputs and Services Private Limited, a leading career consulting and recuritment advertising company.

NEW FEATURES - OLD SITES
The popular Gujarathi community site Chitralekha has launched its own brand of instant messenger, Lekha i-messenger. After downloading the i-messenger, you can send instant messages, post notes, use voice chat, open public chat rooms, form buddy lists and more. A useful feature is that the i-messenger provides interoperability with leading international messenger services like AIM, ICQ and Yahoo!

Indian financial giant ICICI's bill-payment services (Billjunction) which were already available in Mumbai, was also launched in Delhi. This universal bill presentment and payment service does not require a customer to open a bank account in any specific bank to avail of the online facility. BillJunction uses RBI's Electronic Clearing Service (ECS) mechanism to enable bill payments, thus allowing customers of all ECS member banks to avail this facility. The application is powered by PayAway software from Infosys Technologies Limited.

Clickcricket.com became the first sports portal to tie up with a Nepal organisation when it mated with Everest Net, the leading ISP in that mountain kingdom. The tie-up will mean that Everest Net has Clickcricket as its default sports page, while Clickcricket will link Everest Net's travel section to its Travel and See channel. Everest Net will also be the market agency for Clickcricket in Nepal. Clickcricket is also considering an expansion into other sports like golf, football and tennis. Incidentally, Clickcricket has also signed on India captain Saurav Ganguly in a two-year contract. The site will hold exclusive cricket-related Internet rights of the cricketer for endorsements.

123India has added a new Cartoons section to its family of sites. Essentially the work of cartoonist Priya Raj, the site features daily cartoons pertaining to corporate life and news headlines. Its weekly offering consists of a round up of "the real faces of celebrities, politicians and personalities unmasked!" and a satirical view of political issues. There is also a jokes section with various categories right from the Ajit type to computers and the Internet.

The e-mall Ibaya has now tied up with the online furniture site Furnvel to set up a co-branded Website, furnvel.ibaya.com, for the sale of interior decoration products like furniture, sanitary fittings and wine racks. There are over 500 branded products displayed on the site, which has tied up with 20 merchant partners across the country.

Among the shopping sites offering 'loyalty points' or 'e-chips' to customers who shop with them, are the Indian site Tsnshop and the pan-Asian one, SurfGold. The two have now formed an alliance by which the e-chips of one company can be redeemed against goods of the other. So customers now have a wider range of goods to choose from without the fear of being considered disloyal!

Contact: Manuel Fernandes

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