Jun

City Based Networking:A Nice concept

Last weekend, I shifted to Los Angeles, CA, USA from Chennai, India. And I have already started missing India.

Now let me come to the point. As I was new to this area, I thought of one logging to some social networking websites and make some local friends over here. I find it extremely difficult to meet new local people, know about the popular places in the city or be informed about the parties in the neighborhood, and if i can drop in or not.

I managed to find some friends, but they stay so far from me that meeting them seems to be a distant dream. This is where I again found that there is lot of scope of improvement for the social networking websites. I have already written about this here.

Saying so, it reminds me of a social networking startup in Chennai called Areapal. The name itself suggests what it is trying to focus on. I shoot out a mail to know the updates and the detail list of features of the website. I was impressed to a great extent. It seems like some one had already faced the same problems I am facing in LA and has decided to solve it.

Here is a quick list of features it is going to have. Classify friends into Areapals and other areapals. They are dividing Chennai into different areas and each user has to be living in one area. Other features are area based news, events. In short, it is a social networking concentrating only on chennai and its areas. I would rather call it as city based networking.

This is exactly what I was looking for in LA. If I could know about the people living near me, it would be possible to meet them personally. Also I am more interested to know about the events and news happening in my surroundings. Hopefully, city based networking would solve this issue. However, this is beingimplemented in chennai and not in LA. I think I will have to persuade them to implement it in LA as well.

The update they are giving me about their website is they have started one round of private beta and would be opening for public beta before july. Now the sad part or the interesting part of the story, the website is being developed by an Anna University student and his friend, and they are going to allow only Anna university students to use it in the beginning.

However, I think, if you know any Anna university students, you should be able to gain an entry into the application. If any one manages to get in or any Anna university students reading this, if you manage to be a part of the private beta or the public beta, please send me an invitation. I would like to see the application and use it, although I am not any more staying in chennai.

If you are an areapal user, please do leave your comments about the site and features.

Will this work or not, only time will tell. However, I suggest them to use local language along with english. They had not written any thing about this, so i think they have not included this.

Leave your comments here. If you are an user of areapal, give your invitation to rrp@rashmiranjanpadhy.com.

1342 days ago Short URL 3 Comments

Personal

Chennai/City based networking/Social Networking/Startup

May

Is Social Networking space too crowded???

I was in a discussion with my friend Kaviraj, few days back. He was saying that many investors or the knowledgeable people of the web, are already saturated with the social networking websites. They are not taking any interest in new social networking ideas. I would not blame them for this, however, I do not agree to their views completely either.

Kaviraj and myself, had met online and have been in touch since then. We have one thing common between us, we both want to venture out and we both have got ideas on social networking websites.

The moment I mention the term social networking, you would say, we already have so many social networking websites, do we need more. If the answer is No, then it could not be more wrong.

Although we both have an idea of social networking website, but both the idea completely different from each other. If there is any similarity between our ideas, then it is the term Social Networking. Well I am using this term due to lack of a better word. But we don’t call our websites as just social networking. We call it as Beyond Social Networking. Sounds funny does not it. Kaviraj has started working on his website Areapal and he is looking for an early July launch. About me, I am still estimating and evaluating the right company to work on my website and also looking for angel investors if possible.

Well, let me come to the main purpose of this post now. What I am trying to say is that although the social networking space is too crowded, there is still a lot to happen in the social networking platform. I will try to explain my views with some examples.

Web Search as a concept is existing since for more than 2 decades now. Until Google came, all the keyword searched landed up in a bunch of porn websites. It was in the year 1996 that Google came and changed the algorithm of web search. Did it saw the death of web search. No, in fact it was just the beginning. Even today there are many different search engines coming with constantly new algorithms and redefining the way we search. Once such example is guruji.

Secondly, the power of networking is much more than just making friends and having fun. Every business in this world is a business of networks. Even small vendors have got their own network of suppliers and customers. This network helps these vendor to earn enough to give him food and shelter. It is this same network which helps them grow and expand. Even a multi million dollar business runs on a network of raw materials providers, man power providers, man power, buyers and customers. Each and every business is busy to expand this network and hence expand their business and grow.

Thirdly, we are still in a phase where blogging is still in its infancy. Blogs are still evolving and every day we find blogs redefining newer things in the day to day life. Blog is a subset of social networking. However, blog has captured the imagination of many and has seen many individuals leave their job and take up blogging as a full time profession. We are yet to see this happening in social networking platform. However, social networking is different from blogs and it needs to be handled in a different way.

These are my three main reasons why I believe there is a lot of innovation still to come in the social networking platform. What we are having now in the name of social networking is nothing but just a trailer of things to come. In the next few years, we would see social networking evolve into a complete networking platform and will go beyond just making friends and having fun over the internet.

I certainly believe that YCult will change things in a more positive way and we might just have a new word replacing the highly limited term social networking. Some thing like YCulting may be.