bixee.com - the new kid on the block..
The Web2.0 era has spawned a bunch of Indian startups in the consumer internet space, most of them in the mass-market, B2C space. One company that is making the right moves and going places (notwithstanding the naukri.com episode) is Bixee, the Bangalore based website.
Bixee has had two websites for a while: glogblog.com - a community based classifieds site (with a tongue twisting name) and bixee.com - the job aggregator site; while the classifieds site is loosely modeled on Craigslist, the job site is (to my mind) the first Indian aggregator site worth any mention. A few days back, Bixee launched Pixrat, a cool social photo bookmaking tool (somewhat like flikr-delicious hybrid); also around the corner is a real estate site allbhk.com (not yet launched) - I guess its likely to be another aggregator site for properties & real estate.
What I like about their approach is three things-
1) Firstly, in the consumer web space, where barriers to entry are low and failure rates high, Bixee isn’t putting ‘all its eggs in one basket’; rather they are spreading their risks across a barrage of potential business ideas
2) Secondly, the areas they are trying to focus on (except the job space) are characterized by the presence of a profusion of mediocre websites (web 0.0?), none of which have critical mass, leaving the doors wide open, for a well designed aggregator website to hijack a sizable chunk of the traffic.
3) Thirdly, the UI design of all their websites is very much in the Web2.0 mould: simple, neat & clean, using white/pastel shades etc.
Their websites/blogs don’t tell you anything about the company or its promoters. I think it must be a bunch of diehard Web2.0 enthusiasts behind these endeavors.
Obviously, getting the product out, is only half the job; the other (and trickier) half is to gets the targeted audience to actually use it and generate substantial, sustainable & scalable advertising revenues out of it ( I’m not totally sure but I think the revenue model behind all their websites is based entirely on Google adwords, contextual ads etc) .
I think Bixee has made a good start out of the blocks….let’s see how they fare up to the home stretch.
9 comments
The ideas seem to be pretty good. I remember discussing something like glogblog.com with a few friends at work. Realized that a lot of people were trying to do the same things. http://www.admag.com and http://freeads.co.in are the obvious candidates. Getting people to come to the site and retaining them is most critical here.
Hey Amit,
Thanks for the positive comments. There are three of us “diehard web 2.0 enthusiasts” and your blog had us all beaming today morning.
I think not enough companies have focused on the user experience in India (possibly with good $ reason) - that was where we thought we could differentiate ourselves. On a side-note, because we believe so much in the importance of UE, it is quite heartening to hear about a company like uzanto being based out of India.
As you rightly point out, our revenue models so far are Adsense-only. And those require huge amounts of traffic to work. We get 50,000 users a month on Bixee, 20,000 on Glogblog, the graphs are rising and we have more of these web-based services up our sleeves, so the future looks promising.
Himanshu,
Thanks for dropping by ..
I shall look forward to your other web based services as & when they are uncovered.
Incidentally about uzanto , its a startup as well and based out of silicon valley ; what we have in delhi is a design+development centre ; buts its all integrated into a borderless entity over the internet
amit
Himanshu,
Interested in coming and doing a seminar for some of us on Web 2.0. If yes, please do let me know about how I could get in touch with you to take this forward.
Thanks!
Amit,
Thanks for the update. I believe moe than simply aggregation of properties in real estate, real estate needs transaction. To my knowledge one startup that does that http://www.atOnePlace.com is currently focussed on NRIs. I’ll wait to see when they turn their sights on India.
Thanks
gr8 website
Indeed a good info.
Good Going..
You said site worth any mention, do you think that none other site is good enough in your opinion?
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