The local (online) classifieds space is a hugely fragmented one. There are dozens of websites, none of which have critical mass and hence contribute to the fragmentation. And the trend is continuing. Here are a couple of classified sites that have surfaced recently.

We-exchange– This site is positioned as a medium for facilitating small local transactions over the internet. Its creators want to create online areas for local geographical communities- so they could exchange things, ideas, whatever- classifieds being the most obvious thing. They want it to get very local, to a level, no paper publication can reach and no online classifieds site has bothered to do yet. The local areas are user defined and could correspond to a given locality or even a sub locality. Each local area will have listings on buy & sell, community events, news etc plus self manageable pages for the local schools, institutions, small businesses. Even with all the classifieds sites around, We–Exchange has something refreshingly different to offer- a low profile presentation style with a simple, non cluttered UI. The site has been created by a four member team, which is led by Naresh Shetty, a software professional who has lived in NY for a decade. He has been an active user of Craigslist and makes no bones about trying to replicate that model in India.

Indyapage – This is another classifieds site and its similarity to we-exchange can’t be missed. It has been created by Karthik, who lives in Sunnyvale, California. You don’t need to create an account to post an ad on Indyapage. Unlike most other classifieds portal, Indyapage uses a manual ad approval process, ensuring the authenticity of data posted. Otherwise it closely resembles other similar websites. The layout looks a trifle cluttered, but I like the way, they have a photographic image associated with each city. It gives a localized touch to each page, something that people tend to forgo in their attempt to do a Craigslist.

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A local classifieds site has low entry barriers. It doesn’t take long to get a basic site up and running. And in trying to replicate the Craigslist model, nobody bothers to think hard enough about a viable revenue model. The dream is to do a local Craigslist. I haven’t lived in the US to have experienced this firsthand, but I feel that Craigslist is what it is, because of a unique interplay of circumstances.

– Firstly, (and obviously) it was the first such site, hence its first mover advantage.
– Secondly it grew organically over half a decade, hence its unlikely that this can be replicated any sooner than that.
– Thirdly and most importantly, its growth paralleled the growth and popularity of the internet itself, hence people have deep rooted associations with it.

I feel that chasing the Craigslist dream may be pointless. In the last few months, I have been contacted by five diff teams (if I remember the number correctly) who wanted feedback on Craigslist modeled sites, they were building. I tried my best to dissuade them. I think the Craigslist idea is virtually a trap and its extremely unlikely that this model will ever get replicated. I will be happy if somebody proves me wrong, but I think not.

And if you thought that this Craigslist fixation is an Indian malaise, you are wrong. I recall talking to Alec Oxenford, who runs the OLX website (out of Argentina). He has wide experience with international classifieds & ecommerce websites outside of the US and he conferred that the fragmentation of the online local classifieds space is pretty much the story everywhere.

Something that most people seem to be missing is that online classifieds need not necessarily be free. Even in India, people pay for online classifieds for jobs, matrimonials etc. Look up the classifieds section in any newspaper- all those are real people, paying real money to publish local ads. You are far more likely to have a workable revenue model for an online classifieds site than most other Web2.0 applications like social bookmarking, social networking, web based aggegators et al. What you need to do, is to break out of this ‘obsessive compulsive Craigslistesque disorder‘ and think hard of a local classifieds business model that has monetization as its basic precept.

Banglablogs is a directory of Bangla (Bengali) blogs. It has been created by Debashish, the brain behind The Indibloggies (dubbed India’s blog Oscars). The directory originated from a tutorial he wrote about how to start a Bangla blog on Blogger.com using Unicode. This tutorial sparked of a whole generation of Bangla bloggers, predominantly (initially) from Bangladesh and later on from India as well. Debashish says that his real motivation in creating the directory was to promote usage of Unicode (a text encoding system which allows creation of vernacular content).

The directory allows Bangla blog writers to get enlisted by submitting their URL which is approved by him. It has features like search, blog categories, blog ratings & reviews and a RSS feed to keep you updated. Something that caught my attention was the country tag cloud, where you can see that the bulk of the content is from Bangladesh. While monetization is not a primary motive, the site has Google ads to generate money for the hosting & domain costs. There is a featured section on the home page, and you can pay a nominal sum to get your blog listed there. Only blogs written using Bangla script (Bangla fonts) are considered. English blogs about Bangla or English blogs written by Bengali authors are not eligible.

Debashish is into other Indian vernaculars as well. He maintains a site called Chittha Vishwa which aggregates the Hindi blogdom. (Incidentally, the word ‘Chittha’ is the Hindi word for blogs). This features Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi & Nepali blogs. Debashish is also involved with Nirantar, the world’s first Hindi blogzine, written by a bunch of Hindi bloggers. It is an amalgation of conventional blogging and formal writing in Hindi.

It’s a commendable effort indeed. Blogging as a means of creative expression knows no language barriers and there’s no reason why, in the not too distant future, this should evolve into a thriving community. Hats off to Debashish !