I read the story, the work seems to be so low end and working conditions horrible. I wonder why these jobs are hyped so much in the Indian media today, there are so many other opportunities. 

And why do so many Indian software companies with millions of dollars at their disposal, not develop their own products, instead of providing services?

 

Developing content can be a waste of time and money, it is easy to steal original content and many search engines will rank the stolen content higher. Domains are a better bet, but Google has started blocking websites based on registrant id.

In India, domain name registrations and internet usage are still low because it is difficult to get a decent reliable internet connection. One of my internet connections has been down for more than 10 days now, now I am told that the internet server is down. This is the second largest ISP in India , the service from other companies is even worse. Instead of investing in social networking and travel websites, why does no one offer a decent internet connection, which is available  everywhere?

If you own a lot of domains, developing websites is the best option.  Search engines like Google are useful for certain kinds of  information, they are not useful for finding reliable information.  For example, for the term “work at home” , the 3rd website has a lot more credibility than the first 2. For  “work at home India” , most of websites returned by Google are scams. People find the better work at home websites only from references. So there is a definite need for more reliable search results .

One of the reasons why there is such a boom is that BSNL which provides internet connection in the rest of India has very reasonable internet charges and unlimited plans. In Mumbai, MTNL does not have an unlimited broadband plan and most of the other ISPs are very unreliable, they take your cheque and disappear.

Most of the people I outsource work to are from small towns and cities, they tend to be more hardworking and sincere, working on major holidays and festivals. I had gone home after a long time last year. At the airport check in counter and security check, the one thing that struck me was how genuine the ladies seemed. Here many people you interact with are so artificial, you wonder why they are wasting your time .(That could be one of  the reasons I think Bollywood is so popular here, everyone watches movies to improve their personal acting skills!). In large metros, there are a lot of opportunities, so vendors generally charge a higher rate and are not very reliable.

Many large companies in USA outsource their work to people working at home with a internet connection, there are some companies that hire thousands of people . The materialistic aspects of Western culture have been quickly adopted by  certain sections of Indian society, but unfortunately few Indian companies adopt trends which could improve the life of many people in small towns.
 

 

.com’s are good if you wish to build a website which have a a lot of type in traffic. Most companies have .com websites and they sell easily in the domain aftermarket. In India, people are not ready to pay for a internet based service, they always want to check your “facilities”. They do not realise that unlike manufacturing, you do not need any machinery or investment to build a popular website or provide an online service. You only need to understand what people are looking for online.

Since in India, ecommerce has not taken off, it is better to make information websites, with .info as a prefix. These can be monetised using affiliate programs, selling text links and contextual advertising. Most good .com names are already registered by domain investors and if you get traffic from search engines, so the  GTLD does not matter.

Many of  the websites that rank well in search engines, especially Google, spend a lot of money in link building. So your SE ranking is proportionate to the amount you spend, not on how useful your website is! 

Almost all my websites have disappeared from Google. Human users find them useful – 50-70% bookmark them . I also get a lot of traffic from stumbleupon and one way links from blogs. I have given up on trying to get traffic from Google.  Seems that some Google employee has blacklisted my websites. There is a little I can do , till some other search engine becomes more popular.

Internet will never become popular, if  the most  widely available ISPs like MTNL and BSNL are offering such poorly  thought out plans. In Mumbai, there is no reliable ISP offering unlimited broadband internet for a flat rate per month. So till then, I have to use my slow internet connection.