The future of matrimonial classifieds
November 15, 2004
I noticed something interesting the other day as I walked into the offices of the Times of India to place a classifieds ad for some waiters for my restaurant. As I was handing in the form to the lady at the counter, a sign on the side caught my eye (mostly because I saw a "10% off" screaming from it.) Unfortunately, I wasn't carrying my digicam with me, so I'll have to paraphrase what the sign said.
Here's how it essentially read: "If you place a matrimonial classifieds ad and do not specify any religion, caste, or regional criteria, we will give you a 10% discount on the ad. We are doing our bit for the betterment of society and eliminating bigotry."
I was quite pleasantly surprised to see an initiative like this from an otherwise morally bankrupt publishing group. We "educated" middle-class and upper-middle-class Indians love to tell others that the caste system does not have a strong grip in this country, yet we are unbelievably hypocritical when it comes to marrying off our own sons and daughters. "We don't believe in the caste system, but my Sanjay can get married only to a [some language] girl from [some caste] caste."
Speaking of matrimonial classifieds ads, I think that the growing popularity of online wedding sites like shaadi.com will mean the slow death of the print classified ads, at least in English newspapers. They will do what the spread of cellular phones did to the pager industry (yeah, remember pagers in India?) It won't happen immediately, but I give it about 3 years. The print medium has severe limitations: you can't write more than a few lines, which have to as short and sweet as possible, giving you only enough space to write a bunch of numbers and abbreviations. Here's an example: "Smart beautiful homely [caste] girl 25/157/6000 seeks [caste] qualified well-settled boy. Contact Box no..." Now this could fit almost anyone, giving you very little info to go on. Online, however, you don't have any space restrictions, and adding more fields isn't that complicated. It also allows you to easily build databases that can be searched on various criteria. What's more, it has that most important bit of information - a photo!
When I mentioned the above Times of India signboard to one of my friends, he pointed out to me that one of the matrimonial sites, instead of leading the way, was actually being regressive in its approach. BharatMatrimony.com, that advertises heavily on many sites, has an annoying "feature" that's also a bug. If you want to search for a bride or groom, one of the parameters required is "language". This isn't a multiple choice thing; you can only select one language. It then redirects you to one of its language-specific sub-sites where you can search away. However, if you are slightly more modern and don't particularly care that your prospective partner come from a particular state, you're out of luck. There is absolutely no way to specify "any" as an option or even to search through more than one language. If you want to check out women from all over the country, you just have to conduct 29 different searches. Isn't that amusing?
Lastly, I must mention an interesting conversation I had about our matrimonial ads with John Rhodes (he runs webword.com - a usability site) who was visiting Bangalore for some business. He pointed out some differences between personal ads in the USA and over here. He found that the most important criteria here seemed to be the person's caste, religion and family, while in USA, people would put their interests and partner requirements. He was amused to note the classifieds were divided by language. I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "well, it will take another couple of generations to get rid of our deep-rooted prejudices."
i enjoyed reading your blog! I'll definitely be visiting Shiok when I come to Bangalore.
Posted by desi at November 15, 2004 4:59 PMIIRC the ToI has been doing this forever -- IIRC putting "caste no bar" in an ad got you a 10% discount.
Incidentally, while classifieds in papers may become less important with time, I'm reasonably confident the Times Group will not suffer -- apparently matrimonial ads in their own online portal is a big revenue generator for them.
Posted by Prasenjeet Dutta at November 15, 2004 5:01 PMTwo weeks ago,someone rang up my dad telling him about an ad in the newspaper. He insisted my dad would be impressed, and my dad was. The ad was about a 29-yr-old with amazing degrees(IIT,IIM),a great job, great salary,bigger perks, and great family.Even my dad who is not easy to impress,was impressed.He thought someone with these credentials would be perfect for me.So he picked up the phone and called the number.
Then we found out that the number was from an agency.They put up fake ads,so they'll know about prospective brides. Then ads for these brides are put up,after pocketing a sum from the bride's father.
Big sham.
he pointed out to me
What's next ? - "Return back" ?, use of 'can' and 'able' together?, or have a discussion "about"?
The Libertarian passion for good English is losing steam. This pleonasm is unexpected, especially from those who pride themselves on "less is more" ;)
Posted by Nilu at November 17, 2004 8:07 AMnice :)
Posted by Pallavi at November 18, 2004 6:21 PMHilarious! So the TOI group does a little more that publishing fake news and semi-porn on their website? They actually provide a "service" to some (and entertainment to others) in form of matrimonial ads?!
I agree with your post. Having interacted folks of various nationalities in the U.S., I will have to say Indians carry a bigger baggage of racism and caste prejudice than most. It is unbeleivable how in today's modern world, there exists a huge so-called educated mass in thw world's "largest democracy" completely run down by bigotry, prejudices and shall-i-add superstition. Hopefully the more progressive Indian generation on the net will slowly change these ways.
Posted by Kirti at December 9, 2004 2:54 AMA friend of mine --- PhD, working for a well known company, $100K + salary, only 26 years old --- posted an ad which said caste/language no bar. To his astonishment, a number of people enquired if there was something wrong with the guy (handicapped etc), since his surname clearly shows that he is a "high class brahmin" (sic).
Most matrimonial ads go on and on about the bride/groom's father, mother, brother, sister (who happens to be married to someone settled in US... hint hint), uncle, aunt, dog, cat, elephant (oh I got carried away)... but nothing about the bride/groom her/himself.
Posted by Niket at December 10, 2004 7:14 PMMy sentiments exactly!!
Posted by kozz at December 17, 2004 11:02 AMYes,
we agree on the matrimonial Classifieds scenerio. Hence we ae MyMatch Matrimonial Classifieds for Indians and NRI are comming out with a very different type of matrimonial Classified Portal, that will chnage the way in traditional matrimonial advertising.
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Posted by MyMatch at August 28, 2006 9:19 PMThere is one new matrimonial web site for Indian community, but there is a difference that they say its 100% FREE.
What is SuperShaadi.com?
SuperShaadi.com is a matrimonial website professionally developed for People searching for their Partners. This Portal gives people the opportunity to place their profiles on the Internet with secured collaborative tools like Notify and Send Message along with Profile Forwarding. The main aim of our Portal is to provide matrimonial services through Internet. The site is functional and user friendly. Its features are built to process the information logically and present effectively.
SuperShaadi.com enables you to Search for your matching profiles by using the Basic/Advanced Search features to view the most matching profiles. Save selected profiles to your personal Folder for future reference to view and respond subsequently. Activate Notify to receive future matching profiles sent to your email account as and when added to our database. Add yo
Posted by sanjay tiwari at March 26, 2007 9:26 PM
www.TimeMatrimony.com
We never ask money from you! Its always 100% FREE!
Only one Indian Matrimonial Web Site which is 100% FREE, i.e. www.TimeMatrimony.com We never ask money from you! Its always FREE!
You can create profile, upload photos, edit profile, inittiate personal contact, exchange email address etc. for 100% FREE!, We never ask money from you! Its always FREE! Yes, we really mean it! Check into our web site, www.TimeMatrimony.com.
Thank you. Wish you good luck!
regards,
www.TimeMatrimony.com team
Dear Sir,
I want to put an Advertising Matrimonial Advert in Newspaper in USA. What are the charges & procedure?
rohit
'if i become a paid members can i get the detail list of members and also i want to know how many members are registering per day.'
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Good article.
www.myDiscretePlace.com
(100% free online dating, matchmaking, social networking and matrimonial site)
Well you can now book your Times of India Classified Ads online at www.releasemyad.com . No need to visit a booking center anymore. Thought it might be relevant to add here! :)
Posted by Sharad at January 4, 2010 4:24 PMBarat Matrimony
BharatMatrimony.com is celebrated as the Most Trusted Matrimony Brand combining tradition and technology. A network of 15 regional portals and over members, BharatMatrimony has been recognised as the Best Matrimony Website 2007 by PC WORLD for technology and performance and is also listed in the NASSCOM's Top 100 IT Innovators. All the awards we have won have encouraged us and we stand as the most preferred site for matrimonial search according to a study by JuxtConsult. IDS266
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