Zoom.in is a pretty slick webservice for photosharing & printing that has recently launched out of the US. Targeted at Indians (residents & NRIs), it’s model is best described as ‘Flickr meets Shutterfly’. The webapp has a brilliant GUI design and you can upload photos (or import them from Flickr or Picassa), create albums, share with friends, order prints and have them couriered them across to any address in the US or India. In terms of core functionality, it is similar to other Indian photosharing websites (iTasveer, MeraSnap, Picsquare, Printo, Fotokraze etc); one small difference I noticed is its greater focus on viral propagation of the albums- to blogs, websites, by email etc. Their pricing is almost identical to what other services are charging. Future plans include a broad array of printed gift items and forging alliances with social networks to provide photo printing and fulfillment services to their members.

This space already has lots of players, but that hasn’t deterred ZoomIn’s founder-CEO Sunny Balijepalli in trying to make this his Next Big Thing (he earlier co-founder of Half.com, which sold to eBay for $350 million in 2000). ZoomIn believes that with that success behind them, they know how to build world-class Internet services.

The photosharing & printing space in India looks more cluttered than ever before, now with a successful US based serial entrepreneur throwing in his hat in the ring. Perceived differences amongst the various players are low; value additions (to the core service) are likely to decide which ones will stand out the most.

There already are a few online mapping webapps centered on Indian cities (mapmyindia, yahoomaps, googlemaps) and all of those are essentially alike. In their midst, springs Sadakmap with a twist in its tale. For this extends the concept of user generate content to online maps. Sadakmap allows users to populate maps with places (businesses or public places) that can be viewed by others. It also allows users to get their SpotMeUrl, which is like an online business card that displays the users location and other profile information. The application uses Google maps and the location info is superimposed on that. The places marked on the map are listed on the right column and users can navigate using that list. They can also post short reviews about the place and it is readable on the map itself (through some cool Ajax work). Sadapmap’s founder is Unmesh Mayekar, who moved to Indian after spending 15 years in the Bay Area (where he was a co-founder at LaborFair). He informs me that they have filed for a provisional patent for this technology with the USPTO.

Sadakmap’s monetization strategy is based on diff use-cases. Businesses will be charged for inserting classified banners on the map and its cost will be a function of the location, category and duration of the display (works similar to roadside hoardings). Nationalized chains (like banks) can use this technology to embed customized maps on their websites that are populated with their branch, retail etc locations. The mapping concept can be extended to various types of classifieds e.g. real estate, where people can use maps to search for listed properties.

Sadakmap’s UGC dimension is based on the rationale that traditional online maps e.g. MapMyIndia would never think of putting a small, local businesses (say, a bhelpuri-walla) on the map. So they want to allow users to populate the map – the hope being that the target user segment will only enter places that they frequent and those places in turn are more likely to appeal to other users like them. They also plan to have “community policing” function that would allow users to flag irrelevant/inappropriate content.

The idea behind Sadakmap seems very promising (and novel) to me, but I am not sure how this webapp can achieve critical mass on a standalone basis. For businesses will advertise on it, only if it gets a threshold user base. If Sadakmap was anchored on a popular portal that was getting lots of eyeballs, this could be much easier. Maybe third-party licensing is worth considering for this technology. Something else worth mentioning is that the name Sadakmap does not do justice to the webapp’s core positioning at all. If fact I find it quite misleading, for it pitches the webapp back amongst the group that it seeks to stand out from.

Other mapping applications previously covered on this blog-

– RouteGuru..competing with the paanwalas for road directions
– Yahoo launches YahooMaps for India..looks good, works well
– MapmyIndia rocks Indian Web2.0 with GoogleMap type digitised mapping
– MapmyIndia adds killer feature…embedding map snippets into blogs, websites
– OnYoMo….making life better in Delhi & Bangalore
– Mapunity…a social development focused GIS solution