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Net Gains (Jun 11, 97) |
This week, we've got quite a few Indian lined up for our surfing
session. Remember some time ago, 9 youngsters who had never used
a camera before raised quite a hungama when they shot Mumbai
? Well those snaps are now on a dedicated website called Picture
Mumbai (http://www.picturemumbai.com). Besides the
photographs, there's also a BBS that targets the youth, trying
to interest more of them in areas like culture, heritage and landmarks.
Being a photography oriented site, this site should obviously
have its share of images, but I'm sad to say that the developers
have gone overboard. For instance, the page that talks about the
project sponsors has all the text in the form of scanned images
- a ridiculous thing to do when there's only text ! While the
concept and the motives behind the site are noble, the purpose
is defeated by the site design. If you're going to browse through
the site with your images on, try doing it from a leased line.
Trikaya Grey Interactive's maiden venture onto the Net is a site
designed for Arvind Mills (http://www.arvindmills.com).
It was only a matter of time before ad agencies in India realised
that the WWW is a medium which they need to tap and get involved
in. While the site is a corporate site, it isn't the run-of-the-mill
stuffy business site. It's got a young, easy-going look and feel,
while not leaving out any of the expected business, financial,
vision-mission information. There's also a job-opportunity section,
so all you MBAs with experience may want to check it out…
Another corporate site with a difference is the Skypak Courier's site (http://www.skyserve.com). Designed and hosted by Mumbai-based CyberAds Studio, this site is unique in its content - corporate stuff aside, there is a download section (for a free multimedia Skypak calendar), an entertainment section ( that has cartoons, Hindi songs in midi format, recipes, pictures, and even a link to a DJ station), and also an art gallery. Once in the art gallery you can take a virtual tour in three different forms -preview thumbnail images of the paintings, full scale image layouts or watch a slide show tour of the gallery. The attraction in the SPEAR art gallery is Laxman Shreshtha's paintings that are currently online.
CyberAds Studio has also designed the site for the Patil group
(http://www.patil.com) - the group best known for the DY
Patil Institutes (and the Ramrao Adik college). Among the web
pages detailing their forays into agriculture, construction (which
is under construction itself), IT and media, education was by
far the most interesting. They have a student centre that has
an alumni page, a Java based chat room, and about a dozen Indian
Film midi tunes.
You just have to visit the matrimonial section of the All India
Yellow Pages. You can browse through the entire listing of
guys and gals waiting to tie the knot, or use the search engine
interface (which even allows interested people to choose by religion).
I tried the search (http://www.gadnet.com/wedseek.htm),
looking out for a graduate, non-vegetarian female in the 21-23
age group, who wouldn't smoke, drink, hadn't been married before,
and who "came from the same background" (read religion)
- not caring about her job, or her passport. The search engine
asked me to be less fussy. So I removed all restrictions, and
widened the age group - 0 - 99 years. Boy, was I flooded ! Not
satisfied, I put back all the restrictions except religion and
found a nice Bengali girl from Delhi . If I'm let down in love,
I know where to look !