Zomato.com - All About Getting Foodie

Zomato is not a name unheard. Something which started few years before as Foodiebay is now the best online destination for all your foodie needs: Hotels, Restaurants, Reviews, Menus, Pictures, Maps, Ratings and Contacts. Zomato.com is one of the inspiration for all the Indian Startups for the way it has revolutionized the online food market presence in India. Presently it caters to 12 cities in India and 2 cities in USA. Till an autobiography book comes out from Pankaj or Deepinder, you can follow their journey on their blog: http://www.zomato.com/blog/




Zomato lets you explore restaurants based on Cuisine, Location, Mood or by keywords. So thats done, here are the key features which I like most about it:



1) Well. The Trending Restaurants and their Ranks is one of the most liked feature. These ranks are based on overall average user reviews and are generally very useful to select your dine.



2) User Reviews for restaurants seems to be very useful. Excellent.



3) Top Foodies Feature :)



3) User Interface is one of the points that keeps me stuck on a website for long. Zomato has that all the information represented in a very elegant manner.



4) Updated Details (Menus, Address, etc.) As per their blog they update these details across thousands of restaurants every 3 months which is a monster big task in itself.



Well, coming to suggestion/improvements here are few ideas that may I expect in future:



1) A section where you can have articles from featured Chefs, Restaurants. This would both increase the popularity of that Chef/Restaurant as well as Zomato. The articles may be like sharing their recipes, thier methods or anything.



2) Deals Offers from Restaurants. I mean there can be a section where I can grab deals from featured restaurants in my city. Saying this because presently I use other sites for that purpose, but if this feature can be rolled out here, everyone will surely head rush here.



3) Hmmm. I know its practically and technically a huge task but Restaurant Bookings from Zomato is going to be an awesome feature. So not expecting this very shortly but on the long reun. Maybe not for all restaurants but for some of the top and good ones in these cities.



4) Last but not the least, a Galaxy S3 for me ;):):D



Thats here. Wonderful Site. UI is masst. Keep Going. All the very best. Kudos :)

Beta Preview: tablewalla - Top Hotels, Restaurant Table Bookings

Few days back, I came across tablewalla. The first look of this website seemed very fresh and promising. Still in phase of pre-launch, tablewalla had decent stories, food recommendations and other stories coming all over from food world tiled into an elegant manner. So I got in touch with the officials and requested for some Beta Preview of the website and got access for the same. So here’s my take on this:

Tablewalla presently features in Restaurants of Delhi and Mumbai. A clean beautiful interface provides browsing restaurants by Area, Cuisine and names. And I should say, tablewalla has got tie-ups with some really top Hotels and Restaurant groups of India. You do not generally find such Restaurants on such platforms easily.


It has not started up with table bookings yet, but I believe its going to be an awesome place to hangout once launched as it stands apart from the rest. I am watching out this space soon.
Till then you can get in touch with its Facebook and Twitter handles: 
http://twitter.com/tablewalla/
https://www.facebook.com/tablewalla

Check out tablewalla here: tablewalla

Exclusive Interview with Team LastBench! on their First Ride

Few days back, I covered an article on LastBench prior to their launch. So with the arrival of their first program Essentially Business, LastBench is all set for a ride. Here is an exclusive interview by Startups Media with the team of LastBench, Rajeev Chhajer (CEO), Sajid Chougle (COO) and Venkat Iyer (CMO), sharing interesting insights and experiences.



What exactly is your concept behind LastBench ?
Last-Bench is an education services start-up aiming to fill the gap between traditional formal education and applied learning. The concept ‘Last-Bench’ literally signifies the last bench of the classroom where the methods of learning are unconventional and requires a more comprehensive approach to aid the idea-generation process. Last-Bench highlights the difference in the learning needs of individuals, students or working professionals, and aims to provide customized learning solutions to promote personal and professional growth. 

How is the present business environment ?

The current business environment is extraordinarily challenging, competitive and dynamic. Companies are constantly in search of young professionals, a lot of students entering the workforce or people already in the workforce are from non-business backgrounds and there are entrepreneurs who need to stay ahead of the curve in order for their business to succeed and grow. In any case, you need the business and management skills to advance your career to the next level.

I have been hearing about your latest course offering. What is it all about ?

In accordance with research, Last-Bench has developed its first offering - a highly flexible yet comprehensive program suite, ESSENTIALLY BUSINESS. Last-Bench has begun delivering a specialized in-person course for young, ambitious students and working professionals called MANAGE WHAT which aims at enhancing an individual's ability of directing the activities of oneself and other people, while coordinating the goals of the individual and the organization. The program focuses on effective management with a strong personal dimension and puts you on the path to be a complete professional and a good learner with a high level of self-awareness and the ability to manage stress and time well. Apart from all the applied knowledge you’ll get, you also get a personalized report with detailed feedback about your strengths, weaknesses, performance and contribution.

That seems great and well researched. What is the current scenario of India as per your studies ?

Though the soft skills crisis is a universal phenomenon, the problems and reasons in the Indian subcontinent are peculiar because our educational system is so designed forcing students to concentrate more on rote learning than on developing a spirit of enquiry.

As a solution to this what do you think is the need of hour? How does your course targets to solve this ?

Soft skills are essential for career progression. If you can’t communicate well with colleagues or clients you might come across as incompetent, even though your technical ability is far superior to others.Our program focuses on effective management with a strong personal dimension and puts you on the path to be a complete professional and a good learner with a high level of self-awareness and the ability to manage stress and time well.

That’s great. We wish you all the best for your endeavor. All the best !

Visit Last-Bench here: LastBench!

Kobster - For all your Office Needs and Supplies

It often occurs that we need to move to market for buying small office stationery items, which wastes a lot of time. What if you can find all the office supplies you may need at one single destination.

I recently came across Kobster, a perfect solution for buying all your office needs online. No, this is not another e-commerce website in line. Founded by Vineet, Mohan and Karthik, Kobster has very well implemented the idea of providing all your office supply needs at one stop. Kobster has been recently launched on 5th September and looks very promising.

Be it a folder, a file, your laptop cooling pad, staplers, sharpners, beverages, a desk organizer or brooms, Kobster has everything in store related to Office Stationary, Electronics, Cleaning Products and other facilities. Kobster has tied up with very well known brands like Cello, Kores, Maped, Reynolds, Godrej, etc to provide you a whole quality range of products. It currently offers 1200+ items with online payment as well as COD facility. To test the prices, I searched few products and compared their prices with my recent purchases, and found its prices to be reasonable. Each product comes with a discount. Also the website offers a 21 day credit period for Corporate Buyers. The User Interface is as it should be. I was able to find out almost everything my office needs here. 


                                


So here is my take on this website. Kobster is very nice and useful. Just some good publicity marketing campaigns and this website is going to be everyone’s bookmark for office needs. This seems to be one of the next big thing.The plus point about its market is that all the users are going to be return users. So once someone comes here for purchase, he is surely going to return back next time.

Grab your office supplies here: Kobster

8UXQ4EP66QEV

8UXQ4EP66QEV

Watsi - Humanitarian Project To Help Those in Need Of Low Cost Medical Care

You see lot of startups everyday. But there are few, which are developed to deal with Humanitarian challenges. Founded by Chase Adam, Mark Murrin, Howard Glenn, and Jesse Cooke, Watsi enables you to directly fund low-cost, high-impact medical treatments for people in need. This story comes more of a personal interest than reviewing it.

Watsi in collaboration with other healthcare partners and experts tries to connect donors with the patients in serious need of low-cost medical care and enables you to fund high-impact treatments. It equally emphasizes on technology involved in this project. The website looks very decent as it should be. It presents the profiles of those in need and also mentions the total donation amount required, total donors till now and the progress of individual case.


Presently, 19 cases have been presented on Watsi out of which 17 have been crowd funded totally. Mostly the individuals in need are from developing countries. A minimum of 5$ amount can be donated. To make this process more transparent, Watsi also lists the medical partner of the cases. Recently the founders have also shared a doc which contains all the transactional details of these cases to make the process more transparent. Watsi has been approved as a 501(c)(3) non profit organization in California, which means that donations will be tax-deductible.

Watsi is definitely on the right tracks of tackling the global humanitarian challenge of healthcare. Its surely a good start. It works on the values of Impact, Innovation, Efficiency and Transparency. And we would like it to see it grow and extend. I request the readers to extend a helping hand to this noble cause. 


Visit and donate Watsi here: Watsi

YC Backed Markupwand - Covert Photoshop Files to HTML/CSS in minutes

Are you one of those who spend hours and hundreds on converting your Photoshop designs to HTML/CSS. Y Combinator backed Markupwand allows you to automatically convert your psd files to HTML/CSS. Founded by Raj Natarajan, Alagu Muthuraman, and Suren Mahendran, Markupwand seems to be a very useful tool which can replace the methods which developers presently adopt for this task.

The strong positive reviews Markupwand is seeing is due to its power of rendering usable code that is close to how developers code. It’s faster code execution and minimal markup makes this product special. Presently, there are other similar products and software like Adobe Dreamweaver, but they have proved inefficient in many ways. Taking care of this, Markupwand emphasizes on generating hand-written like code.


In a very short Beta period, Markupwand has geared up high. Presently the team is working on improving the product. But it seems sure that Markupwand is surely going to be a boon to thousands of developers, and worth spending on by companies and developers. The interface of the tool is very simple to start with.


The work experiences of the founders at Yahoo, Zynga, Myntra and its backing support YCombinator seems impressing. Have a look at this here: Markupwand

We Make Love - WML

If you are one of those who love original designs and artists, this review post is for you. Founded by Nikhil Paul, WML or WeMakeLove is an online gallery/shop curated by a creative team of lifestyle designers. It sells one of a kind gifting ideas and concepts, as well as design originals created by wemakelove, other designers, artisans and creative friends. In this shop, you will find objects that are specially designed to make someone feel special and loved. Here is my take on WML:

The Simple The Better. I always like websites with such clean User Interface. Now look at the variety of masterpieces it is offering. Here are some of the examples. A wonderful Chai Paani Money Bank inspired by three headed monster of corruption, super cool Fluke Books, The Flag featuring 30 photographers on Indian flag. These are just few of the examples of an awesome collection of artistic masterpieces by WML. Each piece comes with an Indianness in it.


There is just one word about WML: Awesome. Wonderful idea. Great Execution. It is the place for the real designers and seekers. WML is soon going to come up with a campaign for Diwali called Green Diwali. Will soon be catching WML again for new products.


WML is surely making the love happen.


Fall in love here : WeMakeLove

Bigbite.in - Online Food Ordering Website

So, what do you do when you feel like sitting at home, not in the mood to move out and wanna grab food from outside. Call one of the Home Delivery Service restaurant. Worry no more. Bigbite.in, an online food ordering website which lets customers browse numerous restaurants and their menus and consequently place an order for delivery of food. Bigbite team makes this process very seamless and simple. Its user-friendly online system not only lets customers browse restaurant options, but also assists them in making the right choice through user reviews and ratings.


                         



There are many other websites in food segment but I am writing on this because Bigbite.in offers all those needs at one place. Browse restaurants, order food, find reviews and much more. Presently the service is available in Noida, Gurgaon and Delhi. Here is my take on this.

What I liked most about the website is its online Menu Order selection. Feels like ordering from an actual menu card. Here is an example of how your menu card looks like:





I must say Bigbite is doing really tight job by connecting your requests to the restaurants. It also features ratings and reviews for the same. The User Interface is as it should be.

Wrapping up, I want Bigbite to be in my city :) However, users from Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon don’t have to wait. grab a big bite here:   Bigbite 

WriterBabu - For Writer within us

It happens! Sometimes we want to share something but don't want to reveal self to our friends on social networks. It maybe your latest poem, an idea, a story or anything. Started by Srijan Srivastava, WriterBabu is a website for writers who believe in philosophy of true and free expression writing. 


Its unique structure and design, attempts to ensure this freedom for the writer and an unbiased mindset for the readers. Writing anonymously one can break free of their public image and the biases attached to their name, class, sex and origin.  Reveal a secret, share your dreams, gossip, confess.  A writer can post either being visible or anonymous. Follow and connect with other authors. Build your own diaries and follow diaries of other authors. It also features top stories and authors.

 

I tried out this application for a while and here is my take on this. WriterBabu is a very fresh idea. While other networks emphasizes on revealing your identity, WriterBabu lets you express your ideas freely without any concerns. It brings in some new ideas like Diaries and has nice potential to evolve. Aspiring writers who want to write and share freely, will find this very website useful. However I feel, it needs to work out on the User Interface part of the website and make the experience look more uniform and interactive to attract more users.

Have a look at this innovative concept here: WriterBabu