TV reality shows/contests (Indian Idol from Sony, SaReGaMaPa from Zee, Voice of India from Star plus, The Great Indian Laughter Challenge from Star One) have stirred up a mass hysteria (not just in metropolitan India but across the hinterland as well) and now the same wave seems to be coming to the internet. IndiaKaHero is a talent hunt reality show that will be hosted and voted on the internet. IKH goes beyond the singing contests so popularised by TV; it has four different genres of contests to choose from – Jokes Ka Hero, Songs Ka Hero, Mimicry Ka hero & Dance Ka Hero. Participants have to create an account, upload their videos/audio tracks and enter it into the contest; viewers would then vote to decide the winners. The website has a peppy visual design and looks fairly easy to navigate/use. Check out this (old) self recorded joke somebody has entered into the jokes contest. Something worth noting is that IKH is an offering from NowPos, the Hyderabad based startup (profiled previously) which launched with a voice email service.

Reality contest are serious crowd pullers and web based contest are just about beginning to pick up. Rediff’s Ishare (profiled here) launched with a song contest in conjunction with SaReGaMa (from Zee TV). I am sure there are many others waiting to jump into this bandwagon.

Something that these websites could let their users try out on their own is the ability to create and run their own contests (user generated contests! surely thats a new term) using their web infrastructure.

If you happen to use a simple cell phone and if words like GPRS, WAP, MMS, Blackberry seem Greek to you (as is the likely case for 90% of the cell phone users in India), check out this non pretentious service called SMSmyEmail. This does exactly what the name implies and nothing more i.e. you get SMS alerts on your mobile for your emails. This works on any basic mobile phone
capable of receiving SMS without having to install any hardware, software or service. You can control from whom you would like to receive SMS; thus you can filter out unwanted SMS by the email ID & domain name. The service is free and it works with major email services Yahoo, Hotmail, Rediffmail, Indiatimes, Gmail as well as POP/IMAP accounts. SMSmyEmail comes from a Bangalore based telecom startup called Vahati.

Off course, there is hardly anything seductive about what this service has to offer. But for many users, the ability to forward your email (from specified people) as SMS to your mobile can actually be quite useful. I did not try out the service, but if SMSmyEmail actually works as intended, they could have a compelling case. It’s no secret that of all the gizmos that telecom/mobile companies are churning out, the ones that have any mass scale traction are basic stuff like SMS, ringtones etc.