India and online market, whats your opinion?

Is it growing as per expectation?

[AjiNIMC]

Hi all,

It was way back in year 2003 when I was with our newly formed small software development group of 4 people (all batchmates) and working in a software company on J2ME and other Java stuffs I got an offer from a very small web based company. Our group had its own problem as everyone wanted to try a big company and 2 of them joined veritas (now symantec) and another joined E-Serve. I thought I will work with the web based company for 3 months for pocket money and then will take a better placement from our B-school cell (I was doing my Masters in Computer application, final year). When I got a better offer from a better company (Cisco) everyone asked me to join and leave web based company as web companies were not considered good enough.

I decided to give it a go and stick with web based stuffs including WebmasterWorld forum participation. I was enjoying it but due to outsourcing perception people always took us as a cheap company doing some web designing. We were into community building for some sectors in US market but no one could understood the work.

For past one year or so I could see a shift. People have started blogging, recent orkut penetration made into news, companies are trying to build communities, people have started buying websites (personal and business), I can see few ads mainly with website link, almost all ads have a web address associated with it, online dating, online matrimonial, online job portal taking the center stage and many more things have poped up in the positive direction. Also news channels have started their version of online participation with special sections on online business.

Today one pure web based business got listed in BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange), Info edge India, which owns naukri.com (biggest job portal in India). It is going strong with its listing, click here to read the news [moneycontrol.com]. Many VCs are ready with money as internet penetration is growing. India is still lacking those Entrepreneurs and supporting heads but I am sure more and more people will join the force.

What is your opinion about it? Is it growing as per expectation? What will be the next phase of its growth?

IMO next phase will be individual entrepreneurs entering the market with new ideas. How did US market grow?

AjiNIMC

[edited by: AjiNIMC at 6:44 pm (utc) on Nov. 21, 2006]

[caran1]

Internet access is still very expensive, most Indian websites are very poorly designed (they take a very long time to load). There is not much India specific content in most sectors , except those into which VCs are pouring money into. Also there are very few Indian advertisers who understand how the internet works.