Indian Search Interface - Will this idea work?

[LoanResources]

Hi Everyone.
I have set up a Search Interface (apna guide) with an inbuilt Indian language editor (using javascript) to perform searches on DMOZ directory and Google (using google-api).

My target audience is English speaking surfers who would like to perform searches in their native language.

Will my idea work?
Suggestion & feedback are welcome

Thanks in advance.

Ravi

[Arkantos]

yeah, i think it will. but your target will be primarily the NRI class.

Rituparno.

[anallawalla]

It will work but I don't think many will use it, which is not a criticism of your work.

Google's Indian language interfaces (ones I can read - Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati) are a disgrace and I suspect more to do with political appeasement than any real demand for them. Perhaps you could report back on how many people use it regularly. If you can simplify the language input, there might be more take-up, but eventually, it is up to the SEs to collect and deliver the content (and for publishers to submit their pages).

e.g. I used the Hindi interface to search for मराठी (the word "marathi" in Devanagari script - I just cut and pasted it from the Google menu)

[google.co.in...]

The results are shorter than AdWords - why have such short snippets?

[gopi]

Ravi , dont bother . English is India's cyber language period .

If its just a educational project and you are doing for fun , then its fine but the commercial viability of such a project is near to null!

[venuma]

Thank you all for your feedback.
(In case you are wondering, I had to change my userid to comply with TOS).

It is too early to give up, especially since my investment is minimal and I am piggybacking on DMOZ Directory, Google Search Results and the link popularity of an expired domain. In the end it can always be treated as eductaion.

anallawalla, to your point yes the search result is not pleasing, but google has started allowing the advertisers to place Adwords in Hindi, so I feel they are serious atleast about Hindi. (Although I have not seen any hindi google Ad's).
Interesting pattern about the current traffic is I get fair amount of hits from other parts of Asia (Pakisthan, Bangaldesh etc.).

Gopi, I agree with you point "English is India's cyber language".
I also realize that portals likes Rediff shutdown their Hindi & regional versions.
At the same time, I find lot of indians reading regional sites, blogs on a regular basis.

[gopi]

>> I find lot of indians reading regional sites, blogs on a regular basis

True ...I read atleast two newspapers and lot of magazines all in an indian regional language (Tamil) .You know there is kick in reading local news/entertainment in local language :)

But IMHO most of the indians interest in local script stops there. Not many will type or for that matter search in native indian languages!

But if you are going to treat it as an hobby project and spend little time then i'll say "Why not?" ...

Atleast an expirement like this will attract some PR which you can funnel into other $$$$ sites :)