Podbharti is India’s first Hindi podcasting channel and it went live last month. Started by two Hindi bloggers Debashish Chakrabarty (who is a prolific Hindi blogger) and Shashi Singh, this is targeted at Hindi audience in India or abroad, through its coverage of news and views about Indian blogging, technology, current affairs and entertainment. It follows in the footsteps of earlier launched India centric podcasting channels like Podtech, Indicast, Kamla Bhatt Show, Podmasti, Podbazaar with one difference- its in Hindi and hence is seeking to appeal to a different audience.

Check out one of Podbharti’s podcast from the embedded player below. The audio quality is great (having done podcasting myself, I can tell you that this is not easy, specially if you are recording over the internet). Moreover, the tone and style of the podcast is highly reminiscent of 1970-80s style radio, somewhat like Amin Sayani’s famous shows. Read through the comments on Podbharti’s posts and you will realize that this audience is clearly savoring the podcast’s content & style. You can listen to the podcasts on the web or download it into your mp3 player. And while I don’t have specific info about the website’s future monetization strategy, I think it has to be based on advertising- pre-roll, contextual PPC etc.

And take a look at the header on Podbharti’s website (screenshot above). You can’t miss the bullock cart, that gives the site an unmistakable Indian touch. Not to miss out the Indian map, which incidentally is very similar to India’s map on Webyantra’s header.

At an overall level, Podbharti is a sign that podcasting has arrived in India. The early adopters (people like Kiruba Shankar, Kamla Bhatt etc) are playing a crucial part in popularizing it. Given the inherent strengths of podcasting as a medium – higher perceived credibility, available anytime on demand, portability in cell phones, music players etc, its only time when mainstream Indian internet portals like Rediff, Indiatimes jump into this big time with their own channels. Its possible that some of the current Indian podcasting websites could create content for them, either directly or on a syndicated basis.

Previous posts about Indian podcasting

IndiCast…India’s first multiperson colloquial podcasts
Podtech launches India centric channel…though its early days for podcasting in India

iXiGO, India’s first travel search engine launched today. This is not a travel website per se but a travel search and planning engine which allows you to do real time searches across various Indian travel websites. In fact iXiGO defines itself as an infomediary- an information engine and not an intermediary (like travel websites). iXiGo was one of the 30 startups which were chosen to present at the first edition of Proto in Jan earlier this year. It is founded by a bunch of former Amadeus employees who were working together in Europe. Aloke Bajpai is the founder-CEO and he has a German co-founder, Jens Schuetter. Their team strength is 8 and they are currently self funded.

So how is iXiGO different from the mainstream travel websites? You can search for air fares on various airlines but you cannot book the tickets directly. On selecting a particular option, you are redirected to the respective airlines site or travel website (like makemytrip, yatra etc). iXiGO has entered into direct revenue sharing agreements with the airlines, who see their relationship as being symbiotic. With the travel websites (referred to as OTA, online travel agencies), iXiGO is getting the info/data by scraping the websites, RSS feeds etc. While they don’t stand to lose any revenues due to iXiGO’s intervention, they might consider iXiGO parasatic (instead of symbiotic), which can take them further away from their customers. This is of course based on the assumption that a ZERO SUM game is being played out. It is entirely possible that the services being offered by websites like iXiGO might actually expand the pie rather than split it. In terms of its core functionality, you could think of a Rediff air fare search as being the closest to what iXiGO is offering.

iXiGO’s webapp is quite well designed and easy to use, with much of the UI smartly ajaxified. The site has been launched with air fares but future plans include doing hotel reservation search, car rentals etc. They plan to extend the search capabilities to the mobile as well. Given their focus on Web2.0, they also have plans to build a community around travel planning, search, information sharing, route planning, travelogues etc.

iXiGO was launched at a lively get-together at the hip & upmarket Turquoise Cottage, one of Delhi’s trendiest night-spots. Here’s a bunch of snaps (via slideshare) that I took impromptu at the event. The dimly lit ambience of the venue and the inadequacies of my Nokia N70’s 2 megapixel camera have jointly ensured that the image quality is not great. Still, its worth a quick walkthrough