"Yaari" is India's answer to Orkut

Yaari.com is the next in the assembly line of social networking sites on the internet, launched by a 24 year old Indian alumnus of Stanford University. Apart from the usual customizable profiles and media uploading, the site also has apps such as Yaari Mobile, which will allow people to network on their mobile phones via SMS.

CEO, Prerna Gupta, who prefers to be called 'Chief Yaar', explains that the USP of this site is the fact that it is truly desi and comes with the tagline, 'Created by Indian youth, for Indian youth'. Gupta says her goal is for Yaari to be a platform where Indian youth express themselves freely. Moreover, Yaari.com will also be hosting the official Mr & Ms India Online pageant this month where winners will be determined by popular vote, along with a panel of judges.

Gupta, and co-founder Parag Chordia, say that their site offers a more exciting and rich user experience than the leading competitor, Orkut, since Orkut is all about scrapping, and users eventually get bored of that! Yaari.com, on the other hand, is aiming for greater long term appeal in the Indian scenario. However, unlike other social networking sites, Yaari will be an invite- only site, with invitations being restricted to the 'right kind' of Indian youth. The founders hope to attract 1 million users in the first year.

Rest assured, while Gupta tries to figure out how to make a judgement call on the 'right kind' of Indian youth, somewhere in another corner of the world, another bored Yale/ Stanford / Wharton graduate is wondering how to cash in on his Desi roots.

Check out Prerna Gupta's exclusive interview on
"http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/1512/prerna-gupta-of
-yaaricom-competing-with-orkut"