SpotM

IT IS better late than never for Yahoo! as the California-based Internet giant plans to launch a social networking site this year, made in India - and for India. "We will be launching our social networking platform SpotM this year," said a Yahoo official who did not wish to be identified. Yahoo already has Internet message boards like Yahoo Groups that allows users to post messages. Through this launch, the company wants to compete with hugely popular social networking platforms Orkut and Facebook. The company's research and devel- opment centre in Bangalore has designed and tested the website. This will only cater to Indian Internet users. Yahoo is expected to roll out an invite-only beta (trial) version soon followed by an open-for-all community later this year SpotM wW enable a "seamless marriage" between mobile and web interface, the official said. It is expected to offer features like anonymous chat that will allow users to chat via a text message while keeping their mobile numbers intact. Gopal Krishna, vice-president and head of audience for the emerging markets is heading the team working on SpotM. Social networking enabled by interactive Web 2.0 technology enables users to not just receive information from the web but also add and share content. It is expected to be one of the biggest drivers of Internet usage in the coming years. In the list of top 10 websites in India measured by Alexa that provides information on we traffic, Google leads followed by Yahoo in terms of both traffic and page views. Interestingly Google's other content sharing sites such as Orkut and You Tube also feature on the list while there is none that Yahoo can claim.