What was the main idea behind launching Sulekha.com?
Sulekha started as a global platform for Indians in India and around the world
to interact with each other, with particular emphasis on localized commerce.
Transactions are primarily in the form of classifieds and local business search
and interactions are primarily in the form of blogs and reviews.
How many hits does Sulekha.com have? How much of a competition do you face
in the online classifieds and yellow pages search segment?
Today, Sulekha serves an exponentially growing online and mobile visits of
10 mn in nearly fifty cities in India, the US and elsewhere, with the most
popular online mobile provider of YP business search results to users and
business leads to SMBs; most popular online/mobile provider of classifieds in
the broadest range of categories; and most popular social media site offering
largest events/opinions/reviews in targeted business domains. We have 6.2 mn
total registered members (4.3 mn online and 1.9 mn mobile).
Has the blog on the website been successful in attracting the youth or are
the users more towards the 30-35 plus group?
We have a mixed age group of bloggers right from from 22 to 85 yrs. We
launched our Blogprint Initiativeyour blog in print. Under this, Sulekha has
entered into an alliance with Penguin, Deccan Chronicle, The New Indian Express,
DNA and Mans World to promote quality blogging. Recently, we also started our
own publication series, Sulekha Book Series featuring contributions of one
featured blogger/diverse set of bloggers.
How have you integrated the Internet and mobile?
Sulekha has seamlessly integrated mobile into its services and we estimate 40%
of transactions and interactions on sulekha happen over the mobile where our
advertisers and users use mobile medium to transact among themselves. Sulekha
users can post their classifieds using their mobile phone WAP or SMS/text
formats. In addition, Sulekha also powers classifieds and Yellow Pages for
Reliance, Vodafone, Spice and Airtel.
How much of the information on Sulekha.com is user generated?
More than 95%, totaling to more than 20 mn pages of the content. Sulekha has
a vibrant social networking substrate where people connect through shared
interests. More importantly, Sulekha is a social media site in that it seeks to
attract members to share valuable content that has a long shelf-life and is of
universal interest, instead of person-to-person messages that typically mark
social networks.
Shikha Das
shikhad@cybermedia.co.in