Webyantra- profiling Indian web products & services
It’s two years since I’ve been a web entrepreneur. During this period, I have graduated from being an occasional internet user to somebody, whose basic livelihood depends on the internet. As such, I take the liberty of counting myself amongst the more ‘advanced’ (whatever that means) 40 million Indian internet users.
The majority of the web content that I see everyday in the Indian internet space fails to inspire me. Most of the contemporary Indian web products, internet services, web applications etc seem amateurish, are poorly designed, lack real innovation or are copied unimaginatively from successful western product concepts. As an Indian, this hurts me somewhere deep in my heart.
Much as I never miss an opportunity to crib about this, on this occasion, I have decided to do something regarding this. Webyantra is a first step in that direction and is my way of trying to make a difference in a small way.
Webyantra is a blog, which is dedicated to profiling innovative Indian web products and internet services. It’s a platform for Indian web startups, ecommerce websites and internet based businesses to showcase their products & services to Indian internet users. To see what Webyantra looks like, go here.
Webyantra was not a knee-jerk decision but the culmination of a series of disparate events which (collectively) drove me in this direction……if you are still around and have the patience to listen, read ahead…..
- At a gross level, I am a trifle disappointed by the US (Silicon Valley) fixation that most Indian tech bloggers have. Everybody’s blogroll is a laundry list of the same set of SiliconValley bloggers and all blogs rave about Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype, Flickr, Scoble, Techcrunch, Delicious, Youtube et al. True, we all are global citizens in the web2.0 era, but should we not also focus on Indian web content and initiate dialogue or discussions to improve it ? I am yet to find a single forum that attempts specifically this.
- Some time back, with a view to profile innovative Indian startups, I created a separate category on my blog titled ‘profiling Indian startups’. That set me thinking for the first time.. …….
- In March this year, in an attempt to galvanize the startup community in Delhi, I, along with some other like minded folks, organized India’s (and Asia’s) first BarCamp at Delhi. I also took out time to be present at two other subsequent BarCamps (at Bangalore & Chennai). At these events, I met an exciting bunch of startup entrepreneurs and was exposed to various (existing & upcoming) India centric web products & services. While open events like BarCamps are a great way to know about other product startups, unfortunately, they can come only once in a while. I sensed the need for a continuing forum, where people could showcase their innovative products & services to Indian internet users.
A couple of other (probably insignificant) personal events egged me on this path as well:
- I chanced across the Bangalore based web startup, bixee.com sometime, last year. I think they were the first aggregator site in India worth any mention. And I profiled them on my blog when they launched Pixrat, their Flickr+ Delicious mashup in March. A few days later, Pixrat was featured on TechCrunch and became the first Indian web2.0 startup to be featured there. For a moment, it gave me a small kick (check out the comments on this blog post)
- At BarCampChennai, there was a mini ‘bloggers contest’ for the best review of TaaZZa (an upcoming news website), which I happened to win. This gave me a lot of confidence.
All these put together and here I am with Webyantra…To kick it off, I am reposting my earlier four posts under the category ‘profiling Indian startups’ from this blog on to it. I intend to follow this up by profiling some of the web products/services that I discovered at the BarCamps that I attended.
Lastly but not least, a very special word of thanks to Kapil & Debasish, who between them, have designed and coded the Webyantra blog theme (including its breathtaking logo).
17 comments
Amit launches Webyantra
So, well, here we have the first Indian blog which promises to talk about Indian Web 2.0 startups. Amit Ranjan, my boss and Uzanto India head has launched Webyantra, which is a blog where he will profile Indian Web 2.0 startups. Cool. A need well serve…
Webyantra: Indian Techcrunch
Amit Ranjan has started Indian Techcrunch. Yeps, now all you guys can get instant traffic on their newly launched web service by getting it featured on Webyantra. And I hope that you will get beyond 53,000 meme .
Webyantra is a blog, which is dedicate…
Kapil,
Webyantra is not just about Indian web2.0 and thats intentional from my side.
check out this link http://www.webyantra.net/about/
It will tell you my reasons for the same.
amit
i guess mobile startup’s wont be profiled as in tech crunch. how about having a mobile crunch clone then?
Rajiv,
I plan to focus on the web on any device - be it a PC, mobile, palm etc. In that sense, mobile is going to be covered.
amit
Amit,
Congratulations on deciding to move forward with Webyantra. As an NRI, it is incredibly important for me to see what innovation is taking place back home. We’re known as the IT capital of the World, yet, we’re lagging in innovating solutions for users.
I look forward to reading Webyantra on a daily basis to see that I am wrong. We are innovating in India and the pace at which we’re innovating is increasing.
Wish you the best!
Pankaj
[..].. I like the name webyantra very much. It has the Indian flavour in it and the word ‘Yantra’ literally refers to an instrument or a means. I think the name trys to convey that this site is means to new in the Indian web(2.0). Check out more from wikipedia about the meaning of yantra
“The yantra is like a microcosmic picture of the macrocosm. It is a focusing point and an outer and inner doorway. The yantras are often focused on a specific deity and so, by tuning into the different yantras you can tap into certain deities or creative force centers in the universe”
There are exists so many yantras bhagyodaya yantra, vetaal yantra, sri yantra etc etc and now we have web yantra to connect to the Indian web ..[..]
Hello Rajiv and Amit:
Just FYI, for mobile applications, techcrunch has separate blog http://mobilecrunch.com/
It’s good to see your effort for such blog and hope it would help many other people who is not in India but always wanted to know about entrepreneur’s endeavors in the web2.0.
Would you also have sponsorship ad banner in future? Or the motive of this site is purely for providing information?
Best of luck.
Dear Amit,
There is a lot of excitement and activity in India around starting up, but there is no one place to find everything that is going on. And there definitely is a big audience interested in knowing what is going on.
It is a pleasure to see someone doing this finally. And an even bigger one to find that it is you. I look forward to seeing Webyantra fill the void. Here’s to reaching the A-list!
[..]..I am convinced that there are a lot of such hidden gems here, but they don’t reach masses because of lack of proper platform and promotion. Steps like WebYantra have the efficacy to break this barrier…[..]
[..]..His focus will be on innovative web startups in India. Best of luck to Amit and we’re looking forward to hearing more about happenings in India…[..]
[..]..Looks like a cool new blog that catalogs and rates all the web2.0 startups coming out of India … a techcrunch for South Asia. There’s lots of web 2.0 activity in India lately: this looks like a good blog to track it with!..[..]
[..]..A new blog setup by Amit , http://www.webyantra.net, has gone live its about all new startups in India, go along pay it a visit, and if you see anything cool let him know..[..]
It’s nice to see someone is profiling regarding Indian startups specially the web related startup’s.
However, these startups also need to be advised/guided regarding certain aspects of the startups. I am talking about their IP (Intellectual Property) aspects. Such startups have a brillant IP which should be protected (specially in US). Moreover, what IP licensing can fetch them is dollars.
This is not a sales message, but 2 cents from a patent analyst. After feeling the heat in IP for startup’s, please please please PROTECT YOUR IP. Further, if some one from these startups feels that along with some PR, they need to think about some serious issues, then e-mail at contactus@techpackers.com.
Regards,
Techpackers
Nice effort Amit. It’s unique…
Keep up the good work.
Good to see lot of Indians starting up innovative portals on the net. Great going.
Thinking leads to innovation….So keep Going!!
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