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Web 2.0 strikes India: MyToday
At long last, a web business in the "new" format has hit India.
Rajesh Jain, the legendary Indian Internet entrepreneur, creator of websites like IndiaWorld, Khoj, Khel, Samachar and Bawarchi, is back with his new venture.
Its called Mytoday, a RSS aggregator with a difference. Here, the source of news is as important as the content of the news. Now this is what separates mytoday from Google news. This RSS aggregator picks up news from the "big" sources in the mainstream media, but also news from famous blogs (mine has been excluded, much to my dismay). A collection of news from all these is made on the website, so you can get to look at what you want to.
Now I spent a large part of the evening trying to understand this service, and this is what I think:
For one, the concept of having a credible source of news itself is flawed, because this is a matter of opinion. I might think that the Indian Express is too sensational, but it would be on the page anyway. Second, I do not understand how the "Credibility" in the news site is gauged. If it is done using an algorithm that checks the hits to a news page, it seems fine. But if it isn't, then I think we need some serious re-think, because Mytoday will not be able to get bigger than a certain size. People would always wonder why a certain source makes it, while others don't. Besides, with the passing of time, the number of news-sources is going to increase exponentially. How many can Mytoday track?
Secondly, as someone commented in his blog, I don't understand where he makes money. If he is trying to go the Flickr way, good luck. But otherwise, he needs to have a business model hidden somewhere. Maybe after a while there will be a premium paid version of this service. Lets wait and see.
Thirdly, the interface leaves a lot to be desired. The font sizes are small by normal standards, making the page a little cluttered. Content can be better managed on the screen. For example, the page scrolls down very long, but most of the page is empty. Poor coding, needs some work. Maybe with time, it will get better.
Of course, this is a phenomenal service for a country like India, and I think I will be looking it up daily for news from around the country. It is also a web service of the standards of anything of its kind globally, and hence its a giant leap for Indian Web services. And using Ajax quite effectively too. For the technically challenged, please read more about Ajax here.
I do not particularly think it will succeed globally though. Google news and Newsvine is doing good business. In India, I hope it does. For a simple reason: I love this guy!
I also write at Comfortably numb...
shravansampath
09 Mar 2006 02:30:56 PM
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Shravan, thanx for reviewing MyToday. Your feedback is valuable. I would like to quickly address the points you raised.
As I have described in detail on my blog, MyToday is a "Public RSS Aggregator". The choice of the RSS feeds which goes into this aggregator is made by the editors of each Daily. The feed selection for each Daily is done by a subject matter expert who knows the best (according to him) feeds available on that topic. Our belief is that for the large majority of readers who are interested in a topic, the Daily will be a good starting point. Of course, there will always be difference of opinion on choice of feeds between knowledgeable readers since the selection is subjective. This is where personalisation comes in. It will surely be demanded by the power user. As far as scaling is concerned, we expect many subject matter experts from the community to contribute to the various topics.
Hi Sharavan,
I would like to differ your view point on India's first web applicatin is MyToday. Although, there can always be some shameless self promotion here, we have opened up the invites for our web 2.0 app named TracBac much earlier from India, than Rajesh. Just do a del.icio.us / technorati or blog search in icerocket or google it for yourself. I certainly admire Rajesh for the work he did. Your review on the product is agreeable although i differ on many points.
First, MyToday is a public RSS aggregator unlike Newsgator or Bloglines. Here, the importance is about sharing the most common blogs & sites with RSS feeds to the general public. I do agree on the count that, your taste and my taste may not the same, but again, you need a reliable service provider to provide you with feeds available in a particular vertical. MyToday scores well here.
Secondly, the idea of having common public sharable rss feeds in itself is an unique idea. In terms of revenue model, well, i leave the discussion open to Rajesh to answer that.
It's a great sign that Indian companies are thinking in Web 2.0 terms, which is all the more important. Revenue models i think, in a Web 2.0 crazy world, will evolve later. But, my crystal gazing is on SaaS [Software as a service] and TracBac does exactly that. If you have heard, Writely has been taken over by Google, which is basically a text/word collaboration tool, wait for us to drop the bomb on twice larger than writely. We are going to debut the visual/design collaboration for the world with feeds, tagging on a web 2.0 platter. Keep your mouse ticking.
Narain - 360 Degree Interactive