The Hindu Business Line : Looking to draw more clicks

No matter where they live, Indians have a "common context, an integrating idiom and a unifying thread. And this is what Sulekha seeks to capture and prize."

MR SATYA PRABHAKAR, CEO, SULEKHA.COM

The Indian Internet landscape is rapidly evolving, seeing the periodic entry of some foreign player or the other (AOL being the latest). The scenario is so completely changed from the first dotcom boom (and subsequent bust) in the late 90s that only a few players from that era remain standing. Social networking, Web 2.0 and crowdsourcing are the new buzzwords, and Orkut and Wikipedia the new hangouts for today's wired generation.

Sulekha.com, with the mandate of connecting Indians worldwide, was one of the earliest players in the Indian-focused online space, but failed to capitalise on its early mover advantage, much like Sify or Rediff.

In a candid e-mail interview to Business Line on the various issues and challenges that today's online world poses, Mr Satya Prabhakar, CEO, Sulekha.com, says that the issue of squandering the early-mover advantage is one of "some awkwardness for all of us. For others it is more so because Google has walked in and taken over search completely in India, and now e-mail and IM (instant messaging) too. That Orkut belonged to Google and the same login works, and the fact the world is in this intense love affair with Google, are other reasons!"

But Prabhakar is not about to lose heart, as he demonstrates with a priceless simile: "Indians went through a phase when they had this great infatuation for Madhuri Dixit, which they thought would last forever. But in life, things change, phases fade. How much scrapping can one do with the same friends day in and day out? Time is not that cheap!"

At some point, he says, social networking must deliver "meaningful, tangible value through an interlocking set of valuable services. We are confident that Sulekha will succeed in delivering on this value proposition."

Doing things differently

Does that mean Web 2.0 is no more than a fad? "Web 2.0 is just an easy and lazy name given to sites sustained by user-generated content. Sulekha, right from the start, was built and nourished by contributions from its members. That is nearly 15 million pages of content!"

On the relevance of horizontal portals in today's world, especially with the arrival of AOL in India, he says that a company like AOL is always a serious threat "if one realises that there is only a limited amount of human attention and advertiser money going around."

However, he adds, Sulekha and AOL do different things. "And we do things differently. Sulekha is oriented and anchored around its members. AOL is oriented around core services and high-quality content."

Sulekha started off targeting global Indians and has now moved on to targeting the local Indian. Besides, it has launched a print version of its classifieds section.

On what prompted the shift in strategy, Mr Prabhakar says: "There is no change in strategy, only change in market focus ... driven by shifting marketplace realities. From the start, Sulekha has been about the global Indian. It is a seamless, integrated, connected, small world."

According to him, no matter where they live, Indians have a "common context, an integrating idiom and a unifying thread. And this is what Sulekha seeks to capture and prize."

He adds: "Our market focus was the US in 2001-2004 because that was where the broadband-connected Indians were. Today India adds as many people online per month as there are living in the whole of the US."

It has not always been a smooth ride for the site. A short story contest held in association with Penguin a few years ago led to a great deal of controversy, amounting to a lot of avoidable bad publicity. Prabhakar graciously concedes that the issue could have been handled better.

"We did not market it properly due to other priorities. But that is a problem we will fix. The project attracted enormous participation and we are pleased with it."

He comes up with another simile: "We cannot hit a century every time we go in to bat. If we do it every other time, we will do just fine."

The company is also "seriously working" on reducing the clutter on the landing page, which is admittedly an area that could do with a lot of improvement.

Going beyond design, the company is making content-related value additions such as integrating interactive maps in the `Yellow Pages Local Search' for all premium business listings.

Will Sulekha succeed in wooing and retaining users by becoming the preferred destination for Indians, or will it be swept aside by the onslaught of global players tightening their grip on the online world? Watch this space.