Size of Indian Web 2.0 industry: An inconvenient truth

According to a report <link here>, Indian web 2.0 industry excluding the established, large global players like Orkut, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia et al, Indian 2.0 start-ups have a combined user base of about 1.5 million users.

Now a blogger has an interesting take on this abysmal data. After some amount of number crunching, it says:

Assuming an average of 10 pageviews per user (a random guess) at 1$ CPM (5$ for an American user parity adjusted), the Indian Web 2.0 industry generates a not-so-whooping 15,000$ per month combined.

At 10X revenues, the entire industry would be valued at an abysmal $1.8mn.

But still I'm kind of optimistic about the future of web 2.0 in India due to following 5 reasons:

• A huge domestic market (Oh I heard India's middle class is infact bigger than US's total population)
  
  
• Access to large intellectual capital and worthwhile talent base.
  
  
• Decreasing communication cost, be it mobile or internet accessibility which is bridging the digital gap.
  
  
• Venture capitalists are now pouring in lot of moolah into new Web 2.0 start-ups to find the future Google, Yahoo or MSFT!
  
  
• Cultural shift as risk taking and innovation is being rewarded.
  

So let's see what future has in hold for us. As of now we have 5 aces in our pack.

Related Stories:

• How Indian social networking sites are raging a new kind of war
• Orkut: Paradigm of future Branding