Asklaila in 500 cities

We started on this journey four years back of building rock solid data layer for our local search business. We realized fairly early in the game that unless we have a solid foundation of good data, it is difficult to satisfy our customer needs. The customer is looking for a reliable source of information and our cities are changing at a pace where it is a continuous challenge to update and evolve our data. Over the years we figured out that what will solve the problem for us is not just technology and not just throwing lot of man power at it. What will solve the issue is a judicious mix of both and something which will integrate all processes into a single platform.

That is how our data management software platform DAISY was born. Don’t bother about the names here. After all when a bunch of guys get down to write code without any girls around, software components get named after girls. We used this platform to integrate all the processes built around data management. Each process underwent a cycle of evolution based on feedback received from people who ran it. One of the biggest partners in our journey to build great data has been our users who have actively participated in ensuring that they tell us about new places and also about places which have closed down. Our sincere thanks to all the users for helping us through this journey and we hope to continue our endeavor of bringing best in class local information to customers via all possible mediums.

New way to tweet

It is easy and fun! You don’t need to bother about what mobile connection you have and it works for all. We are now supporting twitter posts from our long code 99-33-555-555.

You just need to remember the following commands.

to register – TWREG <username> <password>
to tweet – TWUP <tweet>
to direct message – TWDM <screen name> <message>
to get help – TWHELP

So go out and tweet from everywhere and anywhere using any mobile connection.

We are building lot more features on our long code so stay tuned.

Asklaila by 2 – We support Earth Hour

I am sure anybody who has stayed in Bangalore understands what “by 2″ is. Be it coffee, be it juice or soups, Bangaloreans love “by 2″. We are also going “by 2″ to extend our support to Earth Hour initiative. We will be shutting down half of our servers during earth hour. I am sure our programmers have written good enough code to still serve your requests fast enough.

More info on earth hour at

http://www.asklaila.com/article/Bangalore/Earth+Hour+2010%3A+Fight+Climate+Change/155218/

More power to tweeple

We love twitter. Don’t you.

It enables us to put a face to millions of customers we have across all mediums and interact with them on a day to day basis. We love answering your queries and we take pride in that we do it across so many mediums. Here is another way to asklaila.

Just send your query to our bangalore twitter id namma_bangalore. We are trialing this in Bangalore and soon coming to other cities. Just check it out.

You just need to send a tweet which starts with “find”. If you are looking to find tunde kabab in Bangalore, just tweet to namma_bangalore – “find tunde kabab, koramangla” and you will see three results in your twitter account.

One thing to remember is that your queries are public as most of the content on twitter. So just make sure that your spouse is not on twitter when you fire “those” queries

Asklaila on 99-33-555-555 ( double nine double three triple five triple five )

You don’t need internet on your phone to search for local info. SMS search is easy!

We launch our local search service on a long code. Just add our mobile number 99-33-555-555 ( double nine double three triple five triple five ) to your address book. Just SMS the query to us and we will respond to you with results in no time. All the usual SMS search features work like a charm.

Test drive the features at http://www.asklaila.com/LailaMobileDemo/.

Examples Queries
Hungry for Pizza in Koramangala Bangalore?
- just type Pizza,krmngla
Locate a Spa in South extension, Delhi?
- just type spa,south ext
Feel like eating in an open air restaurant in andheri,Mumbai?
- just type openair restaurant,andheri
Find an ATM in nungambakkam, Chennai?
- just type ATM,nungambakkam

We do detect your city from your mobile number so you don’t need to specify the city unless you are trying to find stuff in another city.

Asklaila Street Smart for your Nokia and J2ME phones

Yawn…. Hasn’t this been around for some time on your site. I saw it the day it came up.

OK… Let me accept it. I am a bit lazy who pretends to be busy. I just forgot to write about it on our blog. We bring Asklaila StreetSmart technology to Nokia/Symbian as well as Java/J2ME phones. We have been up and running on Windows Mobile for a long time and now the same technology is also available on more phones. You can find all the local info in the city, see it on maps and also share it with friends and family.

To get started just go to – http://www.asklaila.com/LailaMobileDemo/ and SMS the link to yourself.

We have tested all this on lot of phone models but if it has some issues on your phone, just ping us back.

Laila has a voice now

You have used Asklaila in various ways. We have answered you on web, mobile, SMS, WAP, USSD, twitter, chat and many more mediums. Now we are also available on voice. We got a brand spanking new number.

33-555-555 ( double three triple five triple five )

We are currently live in Bangalore only and many more cities coming soon.You can look for businesses and you can also look for movies running in town.

Check it out….

Asklaila supports Facebook connect and bing maps

You asked for it and we got it…. Lot of users have been asking us to support Facebook connect and maps. We launched both of them today.

You can logon to Asklaila using your Facebook account and publish comments about places you love. The best part is that your comments will be visible to all your friends and they can plan their parties based on your recommendations.

We have also enabled maps using Bing Maps. You can see them while seeing details of a business ( eg. http://www.asklaila.com/listing/Bangalore/HAL+Airport+Road/Zen/VSImNM4O/?showmap=1#listingMapView ).

Check it out and as always let us know your feedback.

New city launched – Kolkata and Hyderabad

Folks – We have just launched 2 news cities with tons of data. Kolkata and Hyderabad are the 2 new cities in the block. It is a great milestone to archive, laila is live on 6 cities now.
Both these 2 cities will also have the WAP site and sms search. So laila will give you local information over web and mobile.

You will also find events and movies running near you place in asklaila.

Do try these 2 new cities and let us know if you find any issues.