Startup profile: Alertpedia
The 2004 Tsunami created irreparable damage to the whole world. But it also acted as a trigger for Dharani Nandakuru to think of providing timely alerts through the Internet, which resulted in Alertpedia.com. MyBangalore caught up with the entrepreneur.
What is Alertpedia?
Alertpedia.com is a comprehensive online alerting service that saves users time while keeping you informed about the essential. You specify what you like to be alerted about (e.g., bikes for sale in Bangalore, Craigslist, food recalls, PHP jobs in Bangalore etc.)Alertpedia monitors several reliable online sources, and emails you when the relevant event happens and updates you on the same. Thus, it saves you time from repeatedly checking these sites, and ensures that you don't miss any important information. Alertpedia also solves a problem for website publishers by alerting visitors when a topic of their interest is published on that website. This usually pulls the user back to the site and hence increases traffic to the website, without requiring any additional development efforts by the publisher.
How different it is from existing products like Google Alerts?
Unlike search word-based alert services like Google Alerts, Alertpedia handles semantic and structured alerts (e.g., tell me when an earthquake of magnitude above 7 happens in Indonesia) and hence sends more relevant alerts to users. Alertpedia is optimized for Alerts because that is our only focus. It uses patent-pending intelligent scheduling algorithms and an extensible blade-architecture to scale well.
Alertpedia is also ahead in the market in terms of having real users and supporting dozens of valuable categories for target customer segments like families.
How do you see local search and information gaining momentum in the coming years?
We believe that though the world is increasingly becoming flat, users will still remain interested mostly in what happens around them. With easy access to local maps, and more businesses and local govts coming online, it is easier than ever to access this information. We see this trend growing tremendously. And, Alertpedia is addressing this because we allow users to customize their alerts based on a location.
What are future plans for Alertpedia?
Our first priority remains providing true value to users. We will do this by providing more categories of alerts that users are asking for. The next priority is to increase partnerships with website publishers and content providers and grow the team to add more features and scale the service.
Tell us more about the team behind Alertpedia?
We are a small, self-funded team based out of New Jersey and now Bangalore. Primarily I started the website in response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami where timely alerts could have saved many lives. I hold a B.Tech from NIT Warangal and MS from Rutgers University, USA. Previously I have worked in various software development and customer-facing roles Lucent, Goldman-Sachs, Citigroup, and an airfare portal called Gtrex. Vishy Poosala – Head of Bell Labs India and my husband – is the informal advisor to the website. Currently we are looking to grow the team by hiring exceptional front-end and PHP developers.
For more details on Alertpedia log onto http://www.alertpedia.com
The 2004 Tsunami created irreparable damage to the whole world. But it also acted as a trigger for Dharani Nandakuru to think of providing timely alerts through the Internet, which resulted in Alertpedia.com. MyBangalore caught up with the entrepreneur.
What is Alertpedia?
Alertpedia.com is a comprehensive online alerting service that saves users time while keeping you informed about the essential. You specify what you like to be alerted about (e.g., bikes for sale in Bangalore, Craigslist, food recalls, PHP jobs in Bangalore etc.)Alertpedia monitors several reliable online sources, and emails you when the relevant event happens and updates you on the same. Thus, it saves you time from repeatedly checking these sites, and ensures that you don't miss any important information. Alertpedia also solves a problem for website publishers by alerting visitors when a topic of their interest is published on that website. This usually pulls the user back to the site and hence increases traffic to the website, without requiring any additional development efforts by the publisher.
How different it is from existing products like Google Alerts?
Unlike search word-based alert services like Google Alerts, Alertpedia handles semantic and structured alerts (e.g., tell me when an earthquake of magnitude above 7 happens in Indonesia) and hence sends more relevant alerts to users. Alertpedia is optimized for Alerts because that is our only focus. It uses patent-pending intelligent scheduling algorithms and an extensible blade-architecture to scale well.
Alertpedia is also ahead in the market in terms of having real users and supporting dozens of valuable categories for target customer segments like families.
How do you see local search and information gaining momentum in the coming years?
We believe that though the world is increasingly becoming flat, users will still remain interested mostly in what happens around them. With easy access to local maps, and more businesses and local govts coming online, it is easier than ever to access this information. We see this trend growing tremendously. And, Alertpedia is addressing this because we allow users to customize their alerts based on a location.
What are future plans for Alertpedia?
Our first priority remains providing true value to users. We will do this by providing more categories of alerts that users are asking for. The next priority is to increase partnerships with website publishers and content providers and grow the team to add more features and scale the service.
Tell us more about the team behind Alertpedia?
We are a small, self-funded team based out of New Jersey and now Bangalore. Primarily I started the website in response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami where timely alerts could have saved many lives. I hold a B.Tech from NIT Warangal and MS from Rutgers University, USA. Previously I have worked in various software development and customer-facing roles Lucent, Goldman-Sachs, Citigroup, and an airfare portal called Gtrex. Vishy Poosala – Head of Bell Labs India and my husband – is the informal advisor to the website. Currently we are looking to grow the team by hiring exceptional front-end and PHP developers.
For more details on Alertpedia log onto http://www.alertpedia.com
2 comments
Jayakumar Balasubramanian
Feb 03rd, 2009 01:50 PM
I agree with your viewpoint Nivan. Thanks for your comment.
Navin A p
Feb 02nd, 2009 05:21 AM
People nowdays and going forward will require this coz they expect the machine to remember everything.
