November 8, 2006

Web 2.0 Corp. has acquired ByIndia.com, a strategic property that the company says it will help it capitalize on one of the fastest growing online communities in the world.

Created by Indians for Indians, ByIndia.com has the potential to dominate the search field in a country that promises to be one of the biggest online population in three to four years from now.

The acquisition which was initiated following a limited consumer test in August, gives Web 2.0 Corp. a rapidly growing entry in the specialized Indian market.

ByIndia.com has experienced a rapid climb in traffic and site rankings since it expanded its test programs in September. The company plans to add new Web2.0 social networking, auction, classifieds, video and syndicated advertising elements to ByIndia.com over the next few weeks.

ByIndia.com is similar to Internet properties such as MySpace, Craigslist, YouTube, and Google's Adwords/Adsense service. The new functions have tested well with the Indian audience in limited releases and Web 2.0 Corp. expects it to gain significant traction.

"We believe we are in early with a great product," said William Mobley, Chairman and CEO of Web 2.0 Corp. "India is a massive market that is gaining economic footing. ByIndia.com is the best product available for this audience and we plan to improve upon it.

We see a Baidu-like opportunity to create the definitive community for this vast population."

Designed by a small group of Indian programmers, ByIndia.com was designed to recognize the cultural and language issues of the world's fourth-largest current Internet population.

The ability for Web 2.0 Corp. to acquire such a property had much to do with its vision for the future. The initial developers needed infrastructure (network operations and server capacity not readily available throughout India) and a marketing force to realize the value of ByIndia.com.

"They recognized a need to step up their game in order to become meaningful to India," said Mobley. "We had a meeting of the minds. They saw where we wanted to take ByIndia.com and together we will work to take it there."

The second of three major product announcements scheduled before the end of this year, ByIndia.com joins the previously released Chamber of eCommerce in Web 2'0s mission to consolidate the best of the best of today's popular sites into a simpler, more productive single product.

ByIndia.com is to bring the most-used parts of MySpace, Craigslist, YouTube and Google into one seamless site with a common interface. "Why learn four or five products when you can learn one?" asks Mobley.

The Chamber of eCommerce does the same for small businesses who need a website capable of doing business. It provides everything a small business needs integrated into one easy-to-use, inexpensive package. "We are in the combine and simplify business," states Mobley.

Mobley would not provide specifics about his coming product announcement, but would only say it resolves the dilemma faced by existing media companies as they transition to an Internet model.

Said Mobley, "Right now I am focused on ByIndia, but you may want to tune in later this month to see a truly amazing product." Information about ByIndia.com can be found at http://www.byindia.com.

Source: Press XTV-World