I sort of agree with him. The basic problem is the Internet penetration. Also I think it is the responsibility of the Govt/ISP’s to bring broadband to the common man quickly and efficiently. The ridiculous charging for downloads etc.. should stop.

However, I don’t agree with the cultural barrier part.  They have not communicated openly because there was no mode for such communication. Actually it may have the opposite effect- people who don’t want to come out in the open can now easily communicate behind a PC with Internet….No?

Infact, when the market becomes sizable enough, India may skip the Web 1.0 and jump directly to 2.0

its not new for VC’s to market their companies so openly.Dosent Avinash think logically about what he is saying.he says there is a problem with number of net connections and the speed of intrenet in India .Is 70 mm not an online service.is the net which people use for accessing 70 mm different from what will be used for other sites.isnt the number of users who will sign up for a paid service much less than what it will be for free services- people dont you see avinash is ajust one more entreprenuer who is pitching for his company.

I’m sure he will miss the boat in India’s internet hype which will start from 2009/2010 , a.l.a a China mimic.

Avnish
I think either you are ignorant or you think all the readers of this interview are ignorant. Let us get some facts right . To quote PWC “the indian film industry in 1.75 Billion dollars and the is expected to be 3.4 Billion in 2010. the indian home video market would grow 5 times from 90 million dollars to 467 million dollars in 2010” Given this fact, your projections of 2 Billion US dollar market in India for DVD/VCD rentals just dont seem   to add up.  Knowing indian market DVDs/VCDs can be bought for Rs 50 from any street corner.

FYI Netflix posted a revenue of about 1 Billion US Dollar after 7 years in a mature market like US.

If you really mean what you talked about internet and mobile, please be honourable and dont invest in any company in this area.

Seventymm is a waste of time. And so are most of the online companies in India today. Social networking is one such example.

Avnish
I completely agree with your point. In US culture self expression / sharing oneself with others needs to be done online as it is a culture of “loners”. In India on the other hand, people have strong social / family relations and do not need a virtual venting place.
Hence in US, “social networking” became the platform for people to come together and now the sites are trying to convert this into busines opportunities. In India, potentially, the case could be reversed you discovera business opportunity - bring a set of people together and proviode a value added “platform” for social networking.
And technology barriers could be surpassed by making these platforms / businesses mobile enabled (voice / sms / gprs).

I completely agree with Avnish on this. Infact it is a very data driven point which is largely undisputable.

But another way to look at it is:
How many people from India have time on their hands and a broadband connection at home? While this number is miniscule compared to India’s population, is this number in itself larger than any of the smaller countries where internet community building has successfully worked? Does this Indian sub-segment share sufficient traits in common to be able to form communities online?

If answer to all of the above is yes, (which I think it is), there is some scope for online communities in India. What say?

I think SN in India should be more according to our needs rather than just a mimic. Look at http://www.linkedzone.com which is a professional networking with unique features rather than a mimic of features on other websites.

Orkut became hit only because of its join by invitation marketing technique., which created curiosity among people and this made people hunt for invites.,

Now i see all the new social networking sites, spamming orkut, yahoo groups and other sites.,

And I would be interested to know what is India specific about seventymm.com. It looks like an exact copy of Netflix which is soon going to face competition from new Blockbuster’s model and direct movie downloads in the slightly distant future.

Since internet penetration is so low in India, a feature that allowed selecting movies using mobile phone would have been truly india specific.

It’s not about fit-for-India thing. Computing services have to end its dependence on a “computer” (as we know of)  and find better platforms for the next wave of computing, or perhaps portability to better platforms.

And on the loner part. You can easily experience that during rail journey indians share a suprising lot about themselves to “strangers”. And on orkut they share phone numbers! 
So the loner argument is, if I may say so, flawed.

I live in Delhi and am a subscriber of Seventymm. I think it’s pretty useful, and I prefer to transact online than mobile. Either way, it’s useful.
There is nothing wrong in being an exact replica of Netflix as long as the service is useful in India. You don’t Indianise it for the sake of Indianising.
However, I would prefer more price points. It’s currently Rs 199 for 4 DVDs and Rs 549 for unlimited. I am a subscriber of the unlimited plan. But I don’t get time to watch more than six or eight DVDs a month. In that case, people like me should have a third plan - Rs 300 a month or so.
And I am sure there are lotsa people like me.

I am one of the core members of Sixer (http://www.sixer.tv) founding team. A social networking site for cricket fans.

I totally agree with the views of Avnish Bajaj, but his comments were nothing new. The same views were expressed six months ago by our investing partner, Sunny Burra in an interview to ContentSutra - See response to Q5, http://www.contentsutra.com/entry/valuations-in-india-are-way-out-of-whack

We enjoyed triple-digit growth during Q1 2007 compared to the earlier quarter. Now I am more confident about Sixer’s prospects than when we launched the firm seven months ago. The growth wasn’t as easy as we expected but surely enjoying the day to day tackling and blocking of the challenges - Damn!, we could use some support from the Indian cricket team.

I am sure other Web2.0 companies will tweak their business models to suit Indian market conditions.

Find here 5 reasons why I think Avi is not right about the Web 2.0 SN revolution:
http://blog.rekabu.com/

Here is the correct post
http://blog.rekabu.com/archives/18

Here are the reasons why I don’t agree with Avi:

1. The first flaw; the argument assumes that Internet access location/ease of use is the only factor that determines community building – I think there is no single factor that plays into determining whether a community forms or not – I don’t want to document all factors that make a community work or not but people accessing Internet from café’s is certainly not the only “one”. The argument also assumes that product building will always precede community building while the second most popular website in India Orkut (a real web 2.0 business: based on alexa ranking) has no real product but a huge cult like fan following.

2. The second flaw in the argument is that it assumes that all web 2.0 innovations are created equal and it is possible to lump them together or even define them in a singular whole. Business model wise, functionality wise, scenario wise MySpace, Orkut, Zillow etc. are NOT created equal – Avi’s argument seems to lump all types of communities together – I doubt if MySpace and YourStreet (both web 2.0 sites) have much in common and furthermore it is even possible to compare them.

3. The third flaw in the argument is around generalizing the Indian market – the argument assumes that the Indian market is simple enough to be categorized as a single whole. The argument assumes that the top 2% of the Indian households that have Internet access which translates into about 10 million individuals (a set with the highest discretionary income in India - look at my earlier post about HNI, Indian Yuppies etc. on this) – is not a significant enough market to build a business around. I disagree - look at the steady and stable success of the Indian travel sites MakeMyTrip, ClearTrip etc.

4. The fourth flaw in the argument is around the assumption that the state of the Internet market will remain the same even for the short term and now would not be a great time to begin entry into the market. Clearly if this comes true “free broadband in India by 2009″ there is not a better time to invest in a web 2.0 business then now – I clearly see real estate as a top category for this.

5. The fifth flaw in the argument is in assuming that the Web 2.0 revolution in India will be the same as the one that happened in the US. Web 2.0, which firstly cannot even be reasonably defined, might take on a whole new context in India fueled by the creative energies of the Indian entrepreneur. Already I see interesting spins on how web 2.0 is being transformed by businesses such as vflyer etc.

I have not met Avnish but I get the impression that he is the smartest of the VCs out there in India. Social networking makes sense when users have a lot of time to spend on the internet and the bandwidth for a connection is good enough to make that experience hassle-free. Given the current state of affairs in India, both of the above are not true. In addition, most internet users are not the ones who have the ability to spend (credit card holders) - it is my understanding that majority of indian internet users are teenagers. There isn’t any incentive yet for advertisers to opt for this channel this dynamic and hence making it hard to monitise these models!

VCs are generally supposed to be visionaries. A successful entrepreneur turned VC, all the more so.

From this perspective, Avnish may know a thing or two more about the future of Internet ventures in India than what most others do.

However, his contention that the lack of fast broadband access infrastructure makes social networking in India ‘a waste of time’ sounds kind of shortsighted, unless he knows that the infrastructure is not going to improve in the country for a long time to come. (Factual indicators demonstrate opposite developments.)

http://www.JeetegaKaun.in

India’s total population with broadband today and future is growing and this is the population that will eventually be larger than most countries total internet penetration. therefore, i must say that content will indeed play a huge role, maybe not now, but in the short period of time.

yes it is very true actually people in india are still very confused, every social networking is almost same in one or other manner.

this is fun and entertainment site. you can find the all latest update.

I totally agree here,Social networking sites are just a waste of time.
SEO Tips

It is very true actually people in india are still very confused

Why I agree with Avinash? Because in India, we already have such ultra-strong “real” social network that it’s difficult to have privacy in personal/ professional life. Everybody around you keeps watching your every move- keeps asking hundreds of personal questions- from “how much salary do you get” to “are you married? no? when will you get married? married? do you have kids? no? when will you have kids”.. it’s maddening. So, unlike US, for us internet provides a platform to be anonymous. We don’t have to blog/ inform the whole wide world if we are wearing yesterday’s dirty clothes in office today. Our whole world knows that:) We are not alone and we crave for a little bit of privacy, unlike the West where they lead most individualistic life.

I am agree with Avinash. Right now we are working in india and internet is the main problem in india. if you go to your hometown then you can able to check your email. you can see if your friends in US or UK then people checking message in iphone but we are unable to check message (Email) in our computer or laptop.