Naukri is finally there in the education space now. This news broke first around six months back. Naukri had earmarked a substantial part of money raised through its IPO for further expansions and this portal is one of it. Infoedge has got a nice name for this , they call it Shiksha.com
This is not a elearning portal, rather more of an information and knowledge sharing portal. Students can search for courses ,colleges , they can form groups and interact. They can also search for institutes which help in test preparations. Interesting thing is the question and answer feature which allows you to ask questions to current students, discuss with alumni . This would be definitely helpful in identifying colleges.
To moderate the quality of interaction which happens over the portal people are categorized at different levels. These levels go like bronze, silver, gold, diamond and platinum. You earn points for referring people, asking and answering questions. The more active you are the more points you earn.
Couple of features which I found interesting was the section on”Important dates” and SMS. With loads of colleges and exams happening, one centralized listing of information related to admission schedules would help the student community. Shiksha.com allows you to SMS important info. That’s an extra bit of convenience.
Overall the idea is good. And Shiksha is targeting the right segment. For folks coming out of school this can be a good place to check. The features are well thought and the flow is good. I can search for a college, get in touch with someone from that college and have my queries answered here. The UI is little disappointing, not much to write about. Guess that’s been the case with Infoedge always. None from their stable scores well on the usability part
However Infoedge needs to strongly moderate and filter the info being published on the site. I did an search for my Alma mater. I graduated from NITK , Surathkal and it happens to be in Mangalore, Karnataka. Shiksha shows the location as Surat which is in Gujarat. Also the description is awfully off the mark.
I was wondering ,apart from ads where does Shiksha plan to get it revenues from. One possible place is via Lead generation. With loads of private colleges coming up, often they struggle to fill their seats. Shiksha can make money by helping them reach out to to the students. Colleges can have their application process integrated online with Shiksha.Same can be the case with coaching institutes. Infoedge through Naukri.com has been able to build a strong database of people in jobs. Now its going one step up, they will able to catch the crowd getting into the colleges.
So now Infoedge has jobs, matrimony, real estate and education to offer. What next then ?
Posted by asutosh 
