iBlog: Nishit Shah

Three Web 2.0 travel portals that I am really impressed about and these sites give smart way to find absolutely relevant information in less time and help you make your travel plans.

I follow a few blogs on Indian Startup / Web 2.0 and Webyantra is one of them. I came to about IXIGO from it. The way IXIGO shows the flight available and the cheapest option is really impressive. I find searching for flights at IXIGO better than any travel website. Use it to know better. Also, their revenue model is simple, they get a referral fee whenever someone goes from iXiGO.com to their partner websites and make a booking and also make money from relevant sponsored links shown on your search result pages. I have booked 2 round trip flights using this site and my experience has been really good coz it presents in the flights and its timings in such a way that its very simple to plan your trip. BTW iXiGO is free to use.

What does iXiGO mean ? As far as they know it doesn’t mean anything even though it is pronounced ‘easy go’ in some languages. They wanted a short and joyful name that people can remember easily:)

I happened to meet Mr. Aloke Bajpai the Founder - CEO of iXiGO @ BarCampMumbai2 on startups. Missed his talk though as parallel sessions were going on in the other room.

Again, heard about this web 2.0 travel company from one of blogs. I am yet to use this service am I am sure that I will one day redbus.in finds all possible buses available between two places and shows the same and one can book the tickets online.
Its an interesting read about how this website originated. Read it here.

Nirav had earlier talked about making IRCTC better and had made a cool prototype. I believe that people behind IRCTC might have taken a lesson or two from the prototype and the comments posted and have made a slight improvement and have made the site easier to use. However, like before, I came across this website called erail.in from one of the blogs on start ups. The cool thing about this site is that it shows you just need to select the start and end point of your journey and it shows the trains available and then proceed to IRCTC to buy them.

I was surprised that I didn’t find any links about the promoters of this site. Dunno who are the guys behind this, but they have done a splendid job here !

Missed the foss.in/2006 and this time around I am gonna be there for all 5 days from 4th to 8th December ‘07. To be on a safe side, I have applied for a leave from work way in advance and booked the round trip flight tickets too !

After FOSS I am planning to go to Pune on 9th for ClubHACK India’s first International Hackers’ Convention @ International Convention Center, Pune. With impressive line of speakers , I bet its gonna be a damn interesting event and since its an invitation only event, I hope to hear a positive reply from the organizers by next month.

My return flight is on 8th late evening to Bombay. So, probably I need to get up early in the morning and catch a Volvo to Pune.

Went to Hi-End Audio-Video Consumer Electronics Expo aka AV revolution at NSE grounds Goregaon. I have been following this event religiously for the past 3-4 years as it happens every year around this time. There was a change in venue this year as it normally takes place at Hyatt Regency. Also, the number of participating companies have gone down. I remember, a couple of years back, I was not able to cover the whole event in one day. Also, it was Sunday so it was way over crowded. That’s why I made it a point to go on a weekday. However, I was disappointed to see so less booths and products on display as compared to previous events. I saw nothing exceptional except for Sony’s OLED TV , Samsung’s 70″ and Panasonic’s 84″ Plasma TV.

I bet a visit to Croma would have been more meaning full then this exhibition. I was looking for a DVD player which has HDMI as well as USB connectivity and also plays the maximum number video formats available in the market. I was disappointed to find only 3 such models. 2 of Pioneer and 1 of Samsung. The Pioneer stuff was really good but unfortunately they don’t have any distributors in Bombay. So except for grey market its very difficult to get it. I don’t know what was wrong with me that I asked an Onida booth guy about a DVD player with such specifications, he said “Such technology is not yet out in the market. We are still researching to combine two different kinds of connectivity” … lol. The speaker systems were good. I liked the concert series of Jamo comprising of two front tower speakers, two rear bookshelves, one centre speaker and a sub-woofer. And unlike previous shows, the exhibitors were not allowed to play music, so one can’t judge the quality of sound produced just by looking at the speakers and its specifications. Overall a mediocre event, covered it in just 3 hours and headed off to work for an important meeting

Click here to view few of the pics I took at the event.