Best of the breed Indian websites
Indian websites does not mean that websites made by Indians. It means the site caters to Indians.
- Travel: Cleartrip. Clean layout. Intuitive and fast user interface. Prompt refunds. No hidden fees. Train booking (good bye irctc). And bonus points for a regularly updated blog
- Online Photo printing:
Picsquare. Uncluttered design. Reasonable pricing. Good variety of products. Runners Up: itasveer A slightly confusing interface. An information architect will do them good. Use iTasveer.Picsquare has been spamming me with promotional offers with no way to unsubscribe
- Online shopping: Ebay. Wide variety. Reasonable prices. Fast loading. Comparatively uncluttered interface.
- Best newspaper: Mint and DNA. Mint has excellent business sections and tools. The mint blogs are also regularly updated and some are really good. DNA arguably has the cleanest layout which also pleases the eye
- Best TV channel site: CNN IBN For being the first to introduce flash videos instead of the dreaded windows media player/realplayer formats.
- Maps: Google Maps Fast and uncluttered interface. Mapmaker, MyMaps. Decent results.
- Search: Google That one was obvious.
- Casual Social networking: Orkut and facebook
- Professional Social networking: LinkedIn
- Online Book Store: No clear winner. Contenders are Landmark and IndiaPlaza. IndiaPlaza has the momentum. Landmark has a better website and can leverage its brick and mortar store connections.
- Online Photo Album: Picasa Web Albums. Decent amount of storage. Good integration with picasa
- Travel: India Travel Blog This is more a blog than a site. But the site layout is such a way that you will be able to find whatever information you want quickly. The breadth and depth of the content is admirable.
- Restaurant Reviews: Burrp The "yelp" of India