Driveme.in is a new startup from Pune that let users view the streets with driving like experiences and can also let them share, find and explore their favorite places online. One thing to clear here in this application is that it has nothing to do with Google maps or its API support. Its completed independent application. Driveme.in, however in contrast to Google maps actually capture the street images of cities in India and render them in an interface (ActiveX control) that closely resembles the experience of actually driving a car through the streets. At present the service is for Pune city only. The application comes in online version and anticipating for release of its desktop version and is very much in testing phase as the app works only on Internet Explorer 6+ and Windows along with few issues with Windows Vista. Although Firefox users can alternatively use IE tab plugin in Firefox for experiencing Driveme.in in Firefox. This imagery application also encourage user community base to share information through flags and photos on the application street view along with advertising option and listing business on respective street that is being viewed over application. Although, there has been one more Indian startup Mapunity, a ...

Entrip, new entrant in travel utility websites and yet another Pune startup that allows its users to plan or map out your entire trip, using its intuitive map-based interface, capture the experiences and vivid memories that make up a trip, within their geographical context and then sharing them with friends and relatives. EnTrip.com has map-based interface that allow users to plan and chart out any trip on a full-screen map, and place notes, photos or videos - familiar elements from old-fashioned travel blogs etc. onto the relevant locations of your trip. EnTrip also facilitates sharing trips and adventures with your friends & family through Entrip website itself or through its Facebook integration. One can invite their friends to view trip, easily send them updates or they can subscribe to your trip's RSS feed. Either way, with EnTrip, all the experiences one has capture are more meaningful to, and are more easily appreciated by those who follow your trip. The website is also anticipating to allow users to Book Trips as well along with getting localized information of the place. This service if released could give users in India first of kind experience to Indian online users as presently the website providing such booking ...

Socialmedian is a social news network that connects people with personalized news and information, by enabling users who share topical interests to collaboratively filter news for each other. Users can feed in news from any number of sources i.e. websites, blogs, bookmarklets, email or directly on the site. Also the social news network is based in Pune, India other than two of its offices in New York. Interestingly one can also submit news to SocialMedian through Twitter which is I haven't seen on any such website or news portal which have user generated content and let user submit stories/ article or URL through Twitter. People in SocialMedian can create or join networks and users with common interests can track stories aggregated from multiple sources, and submit, share and comment on stories of interest with each other. Although the concept of social news network is not new as its already been done at Digg to some extent and Mixx.com is also one such example to greater resemblance, nevertheless its simpler (and faster) user interface and pages can give some edge to user though what really matter in such type of model is larger number of user base. SocialMedian followed by alpha verion period is set ...

A new entrant in social networking space of India, quite good in usability and features to lure audience, this is one social network I would IndiaHangout.com in category - "Secondary Social networks" likewise to third World Countries in political scenario, the primaries would obviously be - Orkut, Facebook, BigAdda in Indian social networking arena. The community portal provide plenty of features like other portal of similar category do, along with features such as radio, free SMS, chat rooms similar to that of Yahoo messenger, applications such as games, videos, polls and events. The portal is convincing enough and few tweaks can bring it in line with what Hikut and Friendster doing in India. In my opinion advertisements is too early for IndiaHangout.com, one should learn from Orkut, inspite of being a google's offshoot, the social network in India started Adsense advertisements a year later before getting buzzword in crowd. The advertisements obviously distract users from being observed by users/ visitors sometime and could even annoy visitors. BPOVoice is one social network exclusively for Indian BPO aka call center employees, the portal is just opened this month for public release. The founder of portal is from BPO background himself and tried to put the ...

SingleID.net which is a first OpenID identity provider in India (OpenID India Directory), is launched to promote usage of OpenID in India. OpenID, which is a global service to eliminates the need for multiple user-names across different websites and simplifying online web experience. OpenID which is supported by many websites including big names such as Microsoft, AT&T, Firefox, WordPress, Technorati, Digg and many more, is targeting more usage on worldwide scale in all kind of services, websites and online products that require user registration. In India SingleID would be the first to provide this service and offer user IDs as - http://< Username >.SingleId.net/ SingleID is initiative by company - DataTics, a Digital Identity and Authentication Service Provider, yet another startup from Pune, India. The company will also offer other authentication service in future such as - Virtual Cards, for more secure authentication, allowing the use of user specific domain name (e.g. vardaan.tiwari.name)