Want a personalised, Hyderabadi touch to your social networking site? Ameenuddin Atif, a 19-year-old college student from the city, has come up with the perfect solution for you. Now, Gen N in Hyderabad will finally get its own social network site, where one can chat and socialise with other Hyderabadis for free on www.wakaao.com.
With regular features like chatting, photo sharing and school and college communities integrated with other service based facilities like business listings, free SMSes, local news, this site might prove to be just what the average Hyderabadi is looking for. “I realised there was no such forum meant for Hyderabadis alone,” says Atif, a third year IT student at VIF college of Engineering and Technology. “Even the registration process, which is done using a mobile number, screens out anybody who does not have an Andhra number, thus, restricting it to Hyderabadis. All the schools and colleges in the city are listed on the site and you can interact with members across communities too. A list of companies in Hyderabad will be added as well.”
When asked if juggling college studies and designing and maintaining a website simultaneously is an uphill struggle, he says. “Not at all. I developed the site from scratch during the vacation at the end of my second year in engineering. The daily job of maintaining the site and making it spam-free will be delegated to somebody else.” Atif is already on the lookout for a team.
Meanwhile, Atif is also calculating the finances involved. “I already have the Adsense facility on the site and I’m planning to integrate ads with SMS service as well,” he says. Atif has received great responses from people around him. “450 members registered so far. My friends are excited and so are my parents, though they do not fully relate to it,” he says.
