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Friday, January 23, 2009

WATBlog Update There are 2 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

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There are 2 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

Techtribe.com Quits (looks for buyer) While FirstNaukri Begins..

The online jobs space is showing signs of slowing down and this was clearly pointed out by Sanjeev Bikhchandani on WATShow. This would have impacted the existing players who were focusing on jobs as a revenue segment was well known. But now things have become bad enough for funded players to throw in the towel. Techtribe a startup funded by Canaan Partners which we have covered many times of WATBlog before and which we hinted was seeing tough times. Now VCcircle reports that techtribe is probably looking for a strategic partner/buyer and has clearly stated that their business model was ‘not working out’. Pluggd had reported some time back that Rohit Agarwal had already moved on to another startup focusing on education space called tenmarks.

techtribe

The Job refferal space has a few more players like Yellojobs, Reffster and even Brijj which is part of the naukri group and which also would explore jobs as a model given their background. This space is surely on weak turf right now given that jobs market is seeing a slowdown and it would last for sometime going by any indications that the market analysts are quoting from experts in business newspapers.

So while techtribe quit working things out Naukri has launched its fresher jobsite firstnaukri.com. When the announcement of Naukri looking to relaunch firstnaukri was announced we had done an analytical review of this freshers job market and outlined the challenges given my background with jobs4freshers.com.

One thing is for sure given the market scenario Firstnaukri would probably build the largest fresh database of freshers in no time at all. The challenge would be sales and monetization and redundancy of database. The redundancy would be taken care by shifting these same users to naukri but monetization may remain a big challenge for naukri given the current hiring scenario as well. Naukri would do well by building a community around firstnaukri and adding shiksha’s value added services around education  which may plug in very well to the same as well. Lets see how if at all does first naukri ‘work out’.

Related Posts

Also Check Out:

WATShow.com - Our Video Show

WATJob.com - Our Job Site

WATGame.com - Our Gaming Blog

WATSearch - Our Search Engine




Britannica Gets a 2.0 Tag, Opts for a Wikipedia Like Model And Then Pulls Up Google

Encyclopedia Britannica announced yesterday a new version to its online presence which follows a Wiki like model. In a move that marks the end of the rigidity of the pre-web 2.0 era for the encyclopedia maker it is asking the masses to edit, enhance and contribute to its online version. New features enabling the inclusion of this user-generated content will be rolled out on the encyclopedia’s website over the next 24 hours, said Britannica’s president, Jorge Cauz.

While Wikipedia, Britannica’s prime competitor follows an unstructured manner of publishing with the community of users being the sole answer for accuracy and standards, Britannica has a more formal approach to UGC. In the sense that editing Britannica entries would have to be pre-approved by one of the company’s staff or freelance editors before the changes were reflected on the live site. Also, users and editors on the Britannica site will have to register using their real names and addresses to modify or adding entries, unlike Wikipedia.

Though one might find the above stepsrestrictive’ and perhaps a hassle compared to the openness of Wikipedia, it can also give a projection of better information standards. And considering the history and standing of Britannica’s encyclopedia worldwide, they are in a position to pull in a lot of offline users.

The biggest hassle, which even Britannica seems to be well aware of is the mighty presence of Wikipedia when it comes to getting search traffic. Wiki almost always seems to be the top result on Google for generic information, and could most definitely be the largest source of their traffic. Taking a dig at Google with the motive to shake Wikipedia’s supremacy on the Search Engine, Cauz snipped, “If I were to be the CEO of Google or the founders of Google I would be very [displeased] that the best search engine in the world continues to provide as a first link, Wikipedia,” he said.”Is this the best they can do? Is this the best that [their] algorithm can do?”

In a way I can’t help but agree with Cauz, though my intention with that is not to see another Wikipedia like website instead of Wiki. Given the popularity of Wikipedia and the brand that it has built Wiki can actually compete with Google as a premier brand for information seekers. Given that fact Google can provide newer results than Wikipedia with the consideration that most web users also know about Wikipedia by now, it is after all amongst the 10 most popular sites online. Of course a call from an encyclopedia maker wouldn’t be the basis of Google to take any decision of course, but, if at all they do reduce the prominence of Wikipedia, then the competition would completely become brand based. On one hand the traditional base of Britannica and on the other the neo web base of Wiki and that would be one helluva virtual war to see.

What I would like to see someone trying to usurp Wikipedia would be to add some multimedia dimension along with the wordplay. If one has paid a visit to Britannica’s award winning blog, it sort of becomes easy to suggest that they are in fact best placed to do it. However, the neo web is the most democratic among opportunities and perhaps we will get to see a newer name in the list. Wikipedia meanwhile has recently upped its ante in terms of prominent donation requests and testing new mediums to reach to people.

Related Posts

Also Check Out:

WATShow.com - Our Video Show

WATJob.com - Our Job Site

WATGame.com - Our Gaming Blog

WATSearch - Our Search Engine




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