Author Archives: Amit

IdontWantDowry.com- a marriage portal that is also a social crusader

dowry.jpgIdontWantDowry is a matrimonial portal that has been launched by a Hyderabad based web services company called NKG. As the name suggests, this is a meeting ground for those Indians, who regard dowry as a social evil and want to meet like-minded life partners. I was not aware of this site myself and discovered it after receiving a tip off from one of Webyantra’s readers.

Idontwantdowry.com is like any other matrimonial portal but it is trying to carve out a niche by positioning itself as a social crusader. The site was launched in April and seems to be have app 3000 members currently, which is good for a start. The site’s basic look & feel as well as its navigation is quite well designed. d1.jpgAdditionally, it will feature classified ads from non computer savvy users, who believe in the anti-dowry cause and want prospective brides/grooms to contact them through offline means. The intent behind the website is worth commendable; however I was a little surprised by the ability for users to search for partners on the basis of caste (there is a very long list of castes on the site). Wish they had refrained from this (seemingly) retrograde step; it would have made their case even stronger.

Something that really struck me about the site was its very smart positioning. For the online matrimonial space in India has a bunch of very effective and well managed websites (Shaadi, JeevanSathi, BharatMatrimony et al) and getting noticed amongst that bunch for a small, low budget website would not be easy. However by identifying a unique niche (specially one that has a social hook as well), Idontwantdowry.com has managed to do exactly that. It has received fairly good coverage in the media (press, television, internet). It’s also worth noting that this is NOT a non-profit site; but their positioning has given a very humane touch to their commercial motives.

I think, there’s a key learning here for all those people, who dream of creating a web product or service in a space that already has well established players e.g. job sites, travel portals etc. Instead of trying to be the nth player in a saturated market, it makes sense to identify a niche and be the first one to cater to it. And as IdontWantDowry has shown, if you think hard, you’ll surely find many such niches’ waiting to be discovered.

RadioVeRVe- tune into Indian Independent/Indie music

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radioverve1.jpgRV2.jpg If you care for Indian Independent (or Indie) music, check out RadioVeRVe. It is India’s first Internet radio station dedicated to this kind of music. RadioVeRVe is trying to go beyond the mainstream music genres and provide a platform to lesser known musicians or bands from across the country. There are three eligibility conditions for the music to be featured on RadioVeRVe- it must be original, it must be Indian and it should not be affiliated to any record label. And it is these conditions that make RadioVeRVe unique, for it plays albums that are not available elsewhere and would probably go unnoticed otherwise.

RadioVeRVe is run by these three music junkies. They are software professionals and have their own respective jobs but their big passion in life is music. Spurred by the lack of local music content on mainstream radio, they started the radio station under its earlier name, Infinity Radio, in 2003. At present, Radio Verve is a fledgling venture. The trio has received support in their endeavors from their friend Atul Chitnis, who besides being a well known open source software advocate, is also a music enthusiast. And that ostensibly, is the reason why the entire technology powering the website is open source.

RadioVeRVe works like a regular radio station. It streams music on the website on a 24X7 basis. However there is no specific sequence and the music runs in a completely random sequence without any interruption. The music is sourced from independent artists/bands from across the country, who are looking for a means of reaching out to a wider audience in a non commercial manner. RadioVeRVe is trying to use the community model to reach out to musicians and its audience. It has spawned a community on Orkut; you can also tune into a live IRC chat on the website itself.

Something that really appealed to me was the section of the website that contains profiles of various bands (mostly lesser known ones) from across the country. Many of the bands seem to come from non-metros and far flung areas like the North East. There is another section of the site that carries news about any of the bands’ upcoming performances.

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I am by no means a music aficionado but to me, RadioVeRVe looks like a great platform for upcoming musicians and bands to reach out to a worldwide audience that is interested in their kind of music.

There’s some feedback I have for the RadioVeRVe team. I searched around on the website but couldn’t find a list/database of the featured albums. Additionally, the randomization of the albums being streamed could be unsettling to many listeners. For (somebody correct me if I am wrong) if you want to listen to any particular album, the only way you could do so is by staying tuned till that album is streamed. I understand that radio is not a ‘on demand’ medium, nevertheless, given the over stimulated environment that we live in, some kind of predictability in the broadcasting schedules would probably help.