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THE HINDU
Tuesday, October 17, 2000
HYDERABAD/LIFE
Cyberwalk at its best
Wanna go on a cyberwalk on the Sardar Patel Road? You can
leisurely amble along the road without the fear of being run
over or pulled up by a cop for jaywalking. Want to have a
look of the city from atop the Naubat Pahad or simply would
you like to see how it is around the historic Charminar?
Log on to hyderabadbest.com, a recent addition to
the cyber world and you can go cyberwalking as well as have
a panoramic view of several landmarks of the twin cities.
All this is possible, because of the novel technologies like
the Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) that
are used extensively on the site.
The WAP enabled portal, launched by Indias-best.com
(IBDC), features some of the best educational institutions,
hotels, entertainment, art and culture, real estate, medical
features, trade and commerce, and personalities of Hyderabad.
An exclusive section on IT is an added attraction for
those who would like to know what's happening on the IT front.
"Apart from being attractive, we can introduce the online
shopping facility," Manjunath P. Bijjahalli, Managing Director
and CEO of IBDC, explains. The idea is to give an option
to the cyberwalking browser to enter any shopping mall and
then take a 360-degree view of the shop, select the
section and buy whatever he wants. Of course, this has not
been done so far, but in a month's time this facility will
be on its way.
The portal offers a unique e-brochure for prospective
clients. The B-2-B e-brochure is an interactive
yellow pages for the city, where advertisers can showcase
their products and service offerings. "No online media survives
without active support from an offline media," Manjunath says,
and points out that Hyderabad-best.com will be supplemented
by an e-mag which goes under the name of the portal. The glossy
e-mag was also launched on Monday.
A unique e-poster, an artistic representation of the
400-year-old city on the site, would be a corporate showcase
for the city, depicting the logos of the city's leading brands.
These posters on the site would be hyperlinked and the print
versions of it could be corporate gifts by the advertisers.
The portal is the third city specific one to be launched
by IBDC. Earlier, bangalorebest.com
and chennaibest.com
were launched with similar content. The IBDC plans to launch
city specific portals on 11 other cities shortly. Another
promising aspect of the portal is that it will shortly be
coming out with a multimedia encyclopedia of Hyderabad
on a CD-Rom.
The CD will contain thousands of photo images, graphics,
interactive maps and many other aspects. And the best part
is it's likely to be priced at Rs. 99 only. Some compact
offer, this!
By K. Srinivas Reddy
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