As per alexa, China top 50 sites has only three global companies in there – Google, Yahoo, MSN/Live/MS – rest all seem to be Chinese companies. By contrast, India top 50 includes Google/Orkut, Yahoo, MSN/Live/MS as well as sites like youtube, blogger, rapidshare, wikipedia, tom(!), megaupload, monsterindia, xboard, facebook, screensavers, ebay, starware, digitalpoint, imdb, flickr, hi5, imagevenue, uusee(!) and wordpress.
Why is it that the Indian landscape has allowed for far fewer categories to be led by Indian businesses? One clear reason seems to be that english is the dominant language being used on the internet – even as local languages begin to grow, this balance is unlikely to tip in next few years.
The other interesting part is that all web 2.0 oriented sites (italicized in above list) are global sites – the fact they are making it to top sites means that usage is there. Is it that we are overlooking the opportunity around web 2.0? or, just looking at it too late? is our better connectivity into the global community driving this (in which case, perhaps Indian entrepreneurs should look to embrace this phenomenon.) Or, are we beginning to lag behind on “state of the art” on the internet, in terms of web 2.0 pieces of technology, and in terms of imbibing the consumer-involvement model of web 2.0 businesses? I have long felt that the quality of user experience on most Indian sites falls short of global standards. Falling behind on the UI expertise, technology and business models that lead internet growth globally can have a serious impact on future entrepreneurial potential of this space in India.
what do people think?
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The reason why innovation happens elsewhere is because of indian mindset and they way we are brought up. We are never taught to create problems and but only to solve problems. Also, innovation needs to be brought into the lives of people. I guess very few entrepreneurs know that they need to start with well targetted niche. Indian companies do ten things vis-a-vis a company in the valley and they end up being average performers in those ten areas.
Also,because there is so much insecurity in the indian environment that the entrepreneurs end up copying exisiting concept or already proven idea. Innovation requires encouragement and backing of foolish concepts and unproven business models. I believe the whole ecosystem is missing in India. I know for sure, even if i have a stellar idea, i would hardly find anyone to back it up.
thirdly, the talent goes where the action is and the action is definitely not in india.
Well,
Agreed that we have to compete with a bigger market, but there is something called customization. Look at how the Big 3 have customized their sites for India.
The thing is that, the current consumer/web 2.0 user is relatively new in India and he/she does not know what to expect in terms of usability and experience.
So for them, the benchmark is big 3 and everything else is going to be relative.
Also true is the fact that the current Indian portals are not product savvy. Remember that they were there not to enrich your experience, but to make the best possible use of new “Internet” targeting the Indian consumer. The fact that their UI is lousy doesn’t bother them at all. For them,there is no such thing as continuous innovation.
It is the next generation of entrepreneurs who understand the industry/consumer, give importance to the “user experience” who will replace those guys. I believe that this will surely happen in the next 2-5 years.
However:
Traditionally we are a science/math driven society and were/have been encouraged to take up tasks/jobs that were more technical in nature and not think of the market. So I guess the so called UI/flash/Usability were sorta non-technical?.But that has changed now..
Anyway, here is to more product innovation and better life !
cheers
I think language is not big reason in India, but lack information and data, content & services what people need in each and every field, it’s big issue for start-up or enterpreneurs. But few sites are doing well like justdial,sulekha…
I think in 4-5 years we will have big market in India and as well as global cause in India huge population.
More than 20 Million children being born in India every year and more than a third of Indian’s population is 15 year oldor less, there’s obviously a big market for web 2.0 …And now quality of education and standard of living have improved in B & C grade cities of india. It’s so simple that big market here for quality of internet & websites…
although language is one many reason.. but also internet access, penetration (customer segment) is make issues(/different)…
but most successful ecom sites are indian based. (if you remember bazee was bought by ebay) and nakurai, shaadi, travel sites..etc.. rediff, TOI,.. is leader in those space. NRI based/oriented services, indian blog directory,etc.. are making move..
Neeraj has absolutely hit the nail on the Head !! QUALITY, QUALITY, and again, QUALITY is all that matters…
A mediocre product, but excellent quality will eventually get traction and evolve into an amazing product.
A simple example : Look at Orkut : No fancy Ajax, nothing great about it’s usage but still, it’s in the top in Social Networking sites ! Why ? Cos it works great on all browsers, never falls into UI/ javascript/popup problems, and does wat it does best : Connect people with each other…
We can learn a lot from orkut, google, and the likes, and i see no reason why Startups in India cannot churn out top notch quality products. One site worth mentioning here : ixigo.com ! It has implemented Ajax beautifully in their site, and it works almost perfect on all browsers i’ve used it on, including Safari for Windows 🙂 !! And the best of all : they focus on what they do best : aggregate information from travel portals on flights !
Another reason i think why we see such substandard sites coming from India is that we Indians are somewhat reluctant and lazy, to say the least, when it comes to making that little bit of extra effort to make a winning product.
We have this “Chalta hai” attitude that really hampers our true potential i think.