www.indiawiz.com

This is called return of the dotcom bubble (atleast for India). I remember the old days when Netflix had just started and I became an early member. But sadly there were no Hindi movies on the store. Then came sites like Indofilms based in San Diego, I went to meet with them in year 2000, nice guys, had put in a lot of money, had taken rights for 3 years from Indian producers at approx $10k per movie. I was shocked to learn this and had told them they were early in game and it would fail. Indians in US and Canada do not spend money online, but they would not listen.

Simultaneously, launched IndianMovies.com based in Los Angeles. I met with them also, in my same trip. Again nice guys and had good amount of staff too, but again were early in this game. As time went by, many other players entered the market, Nehaflix, Indiaweekly, Indiahuthouse, Meridvd, Indiaplaza, Namaste and many many others. They all came and slept or went under, even IndoFilms went ahead and acquired IndianMovies, then what? flat on back went down. The problem? they were ahead of their time.

Now in India, Madhouse.in and Seventymm started in last few years, these guys were way nuts then guys before, they even raised money from VC(they must be smart asses), even a second round, and started renting within India, great, then merged and now claim that they are the largest Indian Movie rental website in India, with almost 25k subscribers. wah wah, should we say good job? I mean come on, from such a huge population, a mere 25k in renters. (There are other sites in India too like moviemart.in)

Look at their good luck, Reliance came looking and now wants to buy them out, I can’t believe this. Reliance which always believes in building their own, having their own BigFlicks wants to buy Seventymm. I don’t trust my eyes that I read this today in news all around. Hello, Anil, isn’t your mantra to not buy and just build, atleast in Internet domain. They did not buy IndiaGames, instead built their own Zapak, they did not buy any Bollywood Site, built their own BigFlicks, they did not buy IndiaTimes Mail and built their own Zapakmail, they did not buy any Social networking site, built own BigAdda, then why buy Seventymm, what is it that these guys have that Reliance wants ? Do you know ? if yes, please share.

I mean, if the older guys are reading this blog or any other news I wish they could recharge their sites and come online, may be Network18 will buy them out. I mean Indian market looks hot these days, everyone wants to get in, and the players who are in are having all the fun, while pioneers are lying flat on their back having spent all their money, it would take only a few grand to bring the sites back to life and start competing head on with these guys in India, what do you say ?

-Indian Wizard