Reliance ties up with Sulekha.com for local search service

Local search applications on the mobile space are picking up steam. Reliance Communications has joined hands with Sulekha.com, a leading online social media and local commerce site, to roll out a city-specific search service on Reliance Mobile World (R-World). The new local search option, called CitySearch, will allow Reliance subscribers to conduct local searches and download city-specific details and share the information with others using their mobile phones.

Sulekha.com will provide content to Reliance for city-specific searches across six of the seven cities where the search service is available. For local content about the seventh city, Mumbai, Reliance has tied up with M Khoj, an Indian search engine.

Talking about why they have tied up with Reliance, Prabhakar says, “The tie-up has a branding objective. With this alliance, Sulekha intends to be the face of the local search business. Sulekha.com already gets 200,000 users every day and now our goal is to be available on the mobile phone platform.”

The service will be available on R World-enabled handsets and each search will cost Rs 3. “The revenue sharing is not worked out as yet as the service is in the testing phase right now. Soon, we’ll introduce ads by inserting banners and will also have the concept of premium listings, using which one particular hotel/school, etc., can list itself on top of the search,” he explains.

Currently local data pertaining to eight cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Hyderabad – will be available for searchers; data on more locations will be added soon.

Apart from CitySearch, Reliance has also enrolled another application on R World called City Guide, which provides users with value-based information, such as listing of airlines, hotels, movies, hospitals, etc., in 34 cities. Mahesh Prasad, president, applications, solutions and content, Reliance Communications, said in a written statement, “Local residents, tourists, taxi drivers, students, cops, tour guides, and business travellers can benefit from this service. I am sure with the increase in its use, the difficulty of obtaining city-specific information will become a thing of the past.”