The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : "Business models are not based on definitions"

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 04, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

"Business models are not based on definitions"

"Most of the modern innovations on the Internet have come out of universities in the United States."

J.Murugavel

Bharat Matrimony CEO J. Murugavel, one of the country's leading Internet entrepreneurs, talks to Karthik Subramanian about Web 2.0, the second coming of start-ups, and the need to innovate.

It is easy to get that top-of-the world feeling at the office of the Bharat Matrimony Group in MRC Nagar, near Mandaveli. Especially if you peer out of the glass windows on the tenth floor of the sea-facing TVH Beliciaa Towers.

J. Murugavel, CEO of the Group, knows the feeling only too well. At 35, he has already been listed in the "most promising" and "young achiever" award categories by reputed organisations. The company is also riding high on a $ 8.6 million (approximately Rs.40 crore) investment made last August by Yahoo! and venture capital firm Canaan.

Bharat Matrimony has its roots in the company he started in 1997 while working in the U.S. Today, it has under its fold 15 regional linguistic portals and is listed on the Limca Book of Records for facilitating 7 lakh marriages. It has diversified among other sectors to jobs and property portals. Mr. Murugavel also runs a non-profit portal www.bharatbloodbank.com.

On Web 2.0: "Business models are not based on definitions." Mr. Murugavel says he believes in the judicious use of technology rather than jumping on the bandwagon. "The challenge is in incorporating useful elements of Web 2.0 into your business rather than starting portals that copy already successful sites like YouTube."

He feels that `Web 2.0' itself is a vague definition. It was coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004 and is a broad collection of recent trends in Internet technologies - such as Ajax, XML and RSS - and business models - social networking, wikis and blogging. For his online matchmaking portal though, he says not all of Web 2.0 functions will be useful. In fact, one of the primary Web 2.0 principles of keeping the data open will be counter-productive on two counts: it will hurt the revenues as Bharat Matrimony is a subscription-based service; and, more importantly, the data may be prone to misuse. (Web 2.0 services like Wikipedia and Orkut were in the news recently for user vandalism.) He says: "The solution is to take the elements of Web 2.0 that suits one's portal the best." Bharat Matrimony has launched a blog - www.matrimonyxpress.com - for its users to share their views on a range of services. The young entrepreneur also points out that not all Web 2.0 start-ups are a success. "Take Friendster.com as an example. It was considered the topmost social networking site when launched in 2002. But, it has been overtaken by others."

Mr. Murugavel, a Masters in Computer Applications from Madras University, is passionate while talking about future possibilities in India. He says there are no popular, innovative solutions coming out of the country. The onus is on educational institutions to encourage students to innovate. "Most of the modern innovations on the Internet have come out of universities in the United States. A similar situation is possible in India only if our engineering institutions change their outlook towards education."

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