Indian portals give global counterparts a run for money
Probably one of the biggest rages to hit India is that of the Internet, which has grown to become survical requirement for many Indians. This would probably explain why finding and internet cafe today is not such a cumbersome task in urban India and is slowly creeping to rural India as well.
Moreover, there is a noticeable evolvement in the usage of Net. What was once used to simply access one’s e-mails, is now being used for a variety of purposes right from research, mobile downloads, advertising, shopping and even business.
Today names like Google, Yahoo et al are synonyms to search, mail and chat and claim a large user base. However, an interesting observation would be the rise of Indian portals that dare to challenge the might of already established global names, the most popular being Rediff.com, Sify.com and Indiatimes.com.
When rediff came out with its email service in 2004, it promoted its service as ‘lightning fast’ email service that probably caught on with the indian crowd just as fast. Today, Rediffmail can proudly boast of having a user base that stands at 53 million registered users. However, this does not deter counterparts like Sify.com and Indiatimes.com that too have become just recognised names.
While sify might not be really big in its emailing business, it is actively involved in the Internet business that it involves itself in everything to do with the Internet in India ranging from its portals to enterprise services, Internet service providers to gaming. Not to be ignored is Indiatimes who is all set with its latest product that they cal, ‘My Indiatimes’, in efforts to allow users to customise their homepages and inbox to suit their tastes and needs.
While this is the first attempt from an Indian web portal, such services are already provided by giants - Yahoo and Google through their products My Yahoo and iGoogle respectively.
Regarding the launch of the new Indiatimes mail, Dinesh Wadhawan, Managing director and CEO of times Internet Ltd says that the new Indiatimes mail is based on latest AJAX, Web 2.0 technology which offers a user friendly interface and the most advanced features which will allow users to virtually ‘Live out of the Inbox’. The enhanced functionalities and young look will appeal to today’s netizens and new adopters. I am confident that the new Indiatimes mail with its futuristic features will definitely change the paradigm of e-mail usage.
