The term “Google killer” is bandied about every so often, but let’s face it: no one company is going to kill Google anytime soon. But a company could “stump” the search engine giant – particularly in a foreign market – and Guruji intends to do exactly that.
The Indian company’s CEO, Anurag Dod, explained one of his search engine’s advantages to The Hindu. “In Google Tamil, the user transcribes the Tamil word in English to look for information. Here, you can type in Tamil.” As we’ve all seen the shaky sentences that even the best translation services provide, that could be a huge advantage.
The powerful backers that support Guruji could also put it in a position to do well. According to domain-B’s Venkatachari Jagannathan, the company “got $7 million funding from Sequoia Capital India and Suvir Sujan, a founding partner with Nexus India Capital. Sujan was also the co-founder and co-CEO of bazee.com, later acquired by eBay.” And Sequoia has been closely involved with Google itself for quite some time.
Guruji may also, for that matter, wind up interacting with the Mountain View-based corporation; Jagannathan points out that the Indian search engine is in many ways modeled on its American competitor, so they could compete for the same advertisers’ dollars (or rupees). Guruji and Google may be in competition for the same personnel within the Indian search market, as well.
If you happen to live in India, or have an interest in the region, guruji.com might be worth a look. It promises to offer a more focused view (in a geographic sense) than Google, and, considering some of the things Eric Schmidt has said recently, it may be time to find an alternative to the American engine, anyway.
