We had posted Avnish Bajaj’s (managing director of venture capital firm Matrix Partners) views on Web 2.0 (essentially social networking business models) in India, based on an interview he gave to The Hindu Business Line. Bajaj had dismissed these models as a “waste of time” in the Indian context. See the post here.
Alok Mittal, another VC and Executive Director of Canaan Partners, begs to differ with Bajaj on this count. Mittal has posted a rebuttal to Bajaj on VentureWoods.org. Mittal’s argument is that one cannot dismiss social networking models entirely. Even though he agrees that currently they are just online hangouts without much consumer engagement, these models can work in certain Indian contexts.
For one, e-recruitment based on referral based models can work in India. So there is a potential for a LinkedIn or Jobster in India - with, of course, Indian features.
Mittal also points out that social networks can be useful for e-commerce. All told, Mittal says “social internet is waiting to be discovered in India. And like any other business, the customer is a good place to start from”.
So they are two view points. We would like to hear more.