Can the Online Conglomerates Crack Social Networking?

Roti, kapada aur makaan may be the essentials requirements of life, but
for the upwardly mobile middle class youth, it is not really roti and
kapada that occupies his mind anymore. In fact, if one has to sum up
his basic wishes today, it is still ek manchahe naukri, ek achhi si
biwi, aur apna ek ghar. Others material things, though he spends time
and money on them, do not occupy as much mindspace as these three.



Those that understood it early and addressed it through the powerful
medium of the web, emerged as India's most successful online
businesses. Unlike the other successful category, online travel
agencies, most successful companies who play in one of these areas,
actually play in all of them.



For all it matters, today it is not inappropriate to call them the new
conglomerates of India—the online conglomerates. Four such
companies that have clearly stood out in this space are Info Edge,
Consim Info,  Shaadi, and Times Business Solutions.



Info Edge, which started with its job search portal naukri.com
— the winner of Dataquest Pathbreaker award in 2008
— and  the only such company listed in the stock
market, is today the leading one playing in all the three spaces:
jeevansaathi.com for matrimony and 99acres.com for property search.
Consim Info, which started with matrimony site, bharatmatrimony.com too
has got into the other two: clickjobs.com for job search and
indiaproperty.com for property search. It has also entered to the
automotive space with its indiaautombobile.com and to the personal
finance space with  loanwala.com. Shaadi.com, which claims to
be the No 1 matrimony site in the world, has also entered into property
space with makaan.com. Though it does not have a job portal of its own,
it has tied up with Monster to provide a jobs channel. The odd man out
is of course the Benett, Coleman & Co promoted Times Business
Solutions (TBSL), which competes  in all the three spaces with
simplymarry.com (matrimony), magicbricks.com (property), and
timesjobs.com (jobs).



All these are companies that are making money from their business and
are always on the lookout for the next big craze. Their next ventures,
hence, are good indicators of where the market is moving.



Social and business networking seems to be top of that list. Info
Edge's brijj.com is already established. TBSL has started a similar
busines networking site called peerpower.com. And of course, Shaadi
owns Fropper. Consim is still to catch up on that.  



What makes one notice these ventures is not that they have been getting
some success in this space. There are many others that are equally or
more successful, going by sheer number of users.



What is special about these companies is that they have made most of
their money from non-advertising revenues and are looking to repeat
that model in some form in this space as well. The rest of the world,
including the large ones like Rediff and Web18 hope that they can get
revenues from advertising. So far, they have played by the rules of
traditional media model, of attracting readers through
content that is independent of the revenue. So, it is popular but not
essential areas like cricket, movies, and politics, where they have
focused. These are high interest areas with low correlation of visitor
interest and advertising: the typical lean back model. Question is:
whether that model would continue to work in the web 2.0 model?



On the other hand, companies like Info Edge, Consim, Shaadi, and TBSL
attract the lean forward crowd, which is willing to pay. Can they do
that interweave that model with business and social networking, which
differ from other services they provide in at least two significant
ways: the revenue correlation with the user interest is not that clear
and two, unlike the others, they are not restricted so much by
geographical boundaries.



But if they still can make money, they will emerge as true path
breakers globally.