Onyomo - the local search engine
Onyomo CEO Shailesh Mehta talks Onyomo.com
Why did you start Onyomo?
Came to a new town and found it difficult to find local information in a systematic way. Felt the need for such a service and started Onyomo.
What is Onyomo's business model?
Mostly ads. Ads that we display will be more contextual and targeted. We are also building a different format advertising model which will provide value-add to advertisers and users that currently other sites do not provide.
What are your marketing plans for Onyomo?
Our emphasis is on building a brand name for Onyomo for local search. SMS based search is already launched in Delhi, which will help in reaching out to a large number of consumers. We are also exploring more distribution channels so that data can be used by partners
What are the sources of data provided on Onyomo?
Classifieds, direct company contacts, crawling, third party providers, people doing it on the field. We also allow users to submit on their site. We are also planning to device new ways of incentivising users to add data on the site.
What new features are in the pipeline?
We plan to add more community features. We will provide tools to give the users a sense of community that will create stickiness.
What are your future plans?
In the next 2-3 years, ideally we would want to launch in 25-30 cities. In the near term, we also plan to launch SMS based searches in other cities.
What is the current source of funding for Onyomo?
We are self funded currently. We are also talking to a lot of investors. They are excited about it and are just waiting for the right time to jump in (once they start seeing some traction in this area)
What do you have to say about the competition from other services like Guruji and MapmyIndia?
The space is definitely becoming hot. We will provide comprehensive data and add new features that will let us connect with end users at a much more personal level.
What are the challenges of operating in India?
The usual operational problems are there, but the encouraging thing is that businesses in India are very entrepreneurial, they are always interested in talking business.
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well one of friend also forwarded me the link of onyomo.com , and quite suprisingly ( as I was expecting yet another search engine) I found it very refreshing ( I guess partly due to a wonderful User Interface) and useful. And I guess they have already launched the sms search for bangalore and mumbai too.
Though one thing i wished was coverage of some more categories for search.
Overall I give them thumbs up for presentation, a very comprehensive localities list, good depth and quality of categories that are covered, and a very useful integration of maps and high on usability ( esp by doing away with registration crap ! )
On the down side these guys should try to have some user reviews feature, more subcategories coverage and more cities to really be a strong player !
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