Personal assistants are not affordable for every one out there. I mean I can’t afford that, to manage my chores, help me find out the right things or news from the bulk available so I don’t waste time filtering the same. This is exactly what many of those social recommendation startups have kept in mind. Perhaps the single most useful thing that social networks and the Web 2.0 has given us. We thought it was time to bring forth a similar startup on this week’s Startup Sunday, bet our readers would love to have one of their own. The startup comes from India.
myBantu is a similar startup keeping in mind the importance of recommendations. From movies that you might like all the way where you would love to dine or go shopping at. What you have to do is simply signup [obvious right?], once the profile has been created you can simply mention what you are looking for in the I need box and hit enter, myBantu will provide you with the 9 top recommendations based on your location, interests, tastes and numerous other features. It also allows you to take opinions on the same from friends and experts to ensure that the recommendations have a human touch to them and users don’t consider them to be generated by an algorithm.
I think there is an absolute need for such services as more people make a shift to the Web as a reliable tool for recommendation. However I think the services need to be more localized. Maybe you are a big startup, right from your startup, but focusing on being more local and at heart with a particular community. The end result is a heavily reliable service that can than be scaled globally.
Again this would deviate from talking about the startup. myBantu, boasting from India helps you find the right product or service. I mean you now also boast of your personal assistant telling you what watch to buy or movie to watch. And what’s more interesting is the fact that you don’t have to stick around with a lousy desktop to use this personal recommendation system. You can download the myBantu App on your Android and the iPhone to make use of myBantu on the go. It wouldn’t hurt when a friend asks what’s the best place to shop in Mumbai and you say:
Hold on, let me ask my personal Assistant.
Update: To err is human, hence comes an essential update. myBantu’s recommendations are primarily based on US relevance and the startup is expanding to include India in its list of recommendation as per country relevance. I know confirm that folks at myBantu are smarter than myself [err, am I a benchmark for smartness?]
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