Google has silently introduced its killer Google local application to Indian web audience. An interesting development for Indian Internet Space & this is how I look at the impact of this launch on Indian web space.
On one hand, I see big cheers from the Indian internet users who will get the most relevant yellow page results on top of Google searches for local businesses and they will get to write reviews on those businesses. On the other hand, it signals end of idea arbitrage era in this lucrative segment. Be prepared to see demise of a lot of pure play yellowpage and local search based web models in Indian internet space.
Copycat and pure no additional value plays such as business listings on Internet were destined to this fate as no one can claim copyright over a business address and a phone number. Google can always crawl all the content or listing from any website making them available to its users and a mind-share battle with Google is a non-starter.
This may not be a good news for models such as Sulekha Business Listings or new Indian startup ventures such as asklaila. Nevertheless, I do not see it as end of the road for all the players in this segment.
Internet players who are innovative and are able to provide unique value to its visitors over and beyond pure business listings or simple value additions such as plain reviews (Google listing features) will survive. Though I am biased, I list YouMagix as one of the probable survivors as it is uniquely positioned and is beyond the clutter of pure yellow page listing models under threat from Google's entry in this space.
I welcome Google local to India as it forces Indian net players to think beyond the obvious and drives them hard to innovate in order to survive and thrive in this interesting space.
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