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Net Gains (Sep 17, 98) |
We'd all like to think of Bombay as the most happening city in
India, and since we live here, we know for a fact that it is really
so. But what about the millions who would like to get to know
more about the city right from their own corners of the world?
The World Wide Web is an ideal medium to use to showcase the different
faces of our city virtually - be it business, tourism, entertainment,
or just about anything anyone would want to know about the city.
So this week, we go virtual site-seeing to find out the different
information resources available on the Net. Like any person looking
for information, directory listings (like Yahoo! and Khoj) as
well as search engines came to the rescue while looking our for
Mumbai related information.
Our first stop is a non-commercial site - The Mumbai Pages
(http://theory.tifr.res.in/bombay/). Instead of fancy pages, these
pages rely on useful and interesting content to attract surfers
to the site. A tour of the city with a picture gallery and the
history and geography of Mumbai await visitors to the site. Digging
a bit deeper brings up architectural landmarks, biographies of
prominent citizens, language resources and the low down on recipes
and cuisine. Mumbaikars have a user's guide to details on city
services, leisure activities, business and education.
Mumbai On The Net (http://www.mumbainet.com) was the first
site about Mumbai commercially created and launched with a lot
of hungama, way back in May 1996. For those interested
in the exclusive review carried in Bombay Times on the day of
the launch log on to the Net Gains archives online at: (http://members.rediff.com/lc/articles/96/mumbainet.html).
While the site was well maintained initially and was regularly
updated, a visit today leaves you with a twinge of disappointment.
The last thing any website should become is a cob-webbed site,
and this site is slowly becoming that, with the last update made
over 8 months ago.
Mumbai Central (http://www.mumbai-central.com/) is a website
that attempts to re-create the vibrancy of the city in cyberspace.
Regular updates give visitors enough reason to keep coming back
to the site. Other incentives include interactivity created by
allowing surfers to contribute via discussion groups, mailing
lists and user-contributed sections. And by default, there's detailed
city-related information too.
The latest entrant into the Mumbai related webzine (web magazine)
segment is Awaaz (http://www.awaaz.net/). This site focuses
more on content, and unlike Mumbai On The Net, is more current,
and regularly updated. Different sections guide users from music
and movies to books and sports. Currently, there are features
on Ganesh Chaturthi, and a low down on the recent DJ contest that
was hosted in Mumbai. Hopefully, the creators of the site will
keep it current and up-to-date.
Sadly enough, this quick tour of Mumbai in Cyberspace just highlights
that there is not a single complete, official information resource
available on the Net about our city. It's not as if we don't have
enough material, or enough talent and resources to get a site
like this up and running. While different Indian states and cities
are slowly waking up and putting up their own websites promoting
themselves, Mumbai still has to take that step…