VCCircle

Info Edge India Ltd, the company which owns job site Naukri.com, has finally launched a professional networking site - Brijj.com (Via Watblog). (The name is a variation of "Bridge" - as in connecting between two people). Naukri's new launch comes at a time when professional networking sites like LinkedIn have started gaining a good number of users in India, and it has also been used to generate jobs and business leads. Also, techTribe, a networking site for tech professionals which recently got funded by Canaan Partners, has converted itself into a career networking website.

The fear is that classic job site like Naukri may become redundant over time since potential candidates will get the job leads through a networking site or other platforms. So Naukri had to move into the networking space at least to plug that gap.

A big challenge for Naukri will be to build the user base. Will it take the capital intensive, high octane advertising campaign to garner subscribers, or will it free float it and expect to get users on its own? Probably a few free ipods and iphones can get the initial traction. But will that be a valuable user base? Finally, all depends on what features the site provides (I am yet to take a test drive) and the branding. It's also not clear what will be the target user base.

LinkedIn currently enjoys a mixed userbase of junior-middle-senior tech and finance pros. Unlikely they will shift to a new networking site. A good idea may be to get new users who haven't tried LinkedIn yet.

(BTW: Can we now expect a similar site from Clickjobs (BharatMatrimony Group)?