We have over 300,000 unique users

How was Cylive.com conceptualized?

Cylive.com is inspired by the concept of "producerism" which
upholds the need for "democratizing" the Web without imposing
editorial restrictions. Thus, Cylive.com serves as a platform for an average
person to publish news, views, opinions, creative content, and informative
articles in personalized ways.

When was the website launched? How has been the response so far?

The Web application was officially launched towards the end of April 2007.
The response has been very encouraging. We have over 300,000 unique users and
have averaged almost half million-page views per month.

How different is your site from others?

Social sharing and publishing on the Web imposes restrictions of not only
content type (mostly mainstream types such as photos, videos, music, and files),
but also content attributes. As a result, you can only publish (mostly rich)
content in formats defined by service provider. This is a one-size-fits-all
approach. Unlike Cylive which gives "virtual estate" for managing all
digital content under "one roof." One can even mix-n-match your media.
For eg, upload an e-book (a MS-Word document) with a video introduction to the
book.

Additionally, social applications only permit posting of content
in a few media silos like Flickr for photos and Youtube for videos. There is a
need to open an account on multiple sites to be able to share digital stuff
without the power to share in ones own unique way. This is where Cylive
differs from other sites as its application provides elaborate functions for
content (co-) creation, storage, distribution, sharing and publication. In your
"digital home" on Cylive, one can collaborate with friends and family
to jointly produce and publish content.

Cylive gives the flexibility to control who can do what and when
with the content. One can assign add photos privilege to everyone in his
family, but the view photos right will be given to only close friends.
These privileges can be specified individually for your contacts on Cylive. You
can also set time restrictions for these rights.

How do you plan to expand in the Indian market?

As far as India is concerned, we have not set up any local servers here.
Currently, our Web application servers located in the US service page requests
from India. However, when we launch our optional "power user" program
we will set up local servers in India. By the end of this year a development
center will also be in place.

Chethana Gadiyar

chethanag@cybermedia.co.in