I just came across this site, Starz.pk. The site is a local business listings site and I was astonished to see the number and details of entries available on this website. The site has listings for 26 possible cities of Pakistan. You can search a wide range of business listings and I must say, the people maintaining this site have done a nice job. I tried several searches in Lahore and always ended up with a relevent list of results. Some of the searches I tried on the site were printing, kabab, fish, books, stationers, dentist, vegetable, sabzi, chinese, dvd, cinema, cricket, software house, milk shop and even tyre shop. Wow, I do get results, may be not very close to my current location, but still, most of them make sense.The information on the site is again a community effort and the site expects the users to add businesses to the directory. Users can enter the name, contact details, payment modes and ratings for a business. You may or may not be the owner of the business and if you find your business added to the site already, you can take the ownership. The site is well-built, well-maintained and good-looking. I also found several business listings with the Map location and a very neat Google Maps integration that shows the location of the business on a detailed map. Honestly, this is the first time I've seen a site giving you driving directions for a local business destination (obviously using google maps). The home page is kept alive by adding dynamic sections like latest reviews, top-reviewers, new-arrivals and featured members.
Signing up is also simple and once you have logged in you can rate a business from 1 to 5 stars or you can write text reviews about the business. The site does'nt say it explicitly but I've seen that the moderators are pretty active and they keep reading every post and keep things clean on the website.
Then, I tried adding a business and it works like a charm. Well, to give it a shot, I added a fake business and within minuts the entry was gone from the site. Good job Starz moderation team.
Right now, there is only one big down-side of the site. There are a lot of entries for the larger cities like Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, though I dont find many entries in Faisalabad, Haiderabad, Gujranwala or even Quetta. The site owners should put an effort to draw more contributors from smaller cities to make this site a success.
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The driving directions don't really work for me. We have been working on a similar venture but much more focused on restaurant listings. You can check it out at www.mazaydar.com
:)
its unfortunate though that when i clicked on Night Life under Lahore, all that came up was 8 restaurants.
I mean, might be good to list out other things as well such as theaters, cinemas, mini golf.
Im sure there is more stuff to do in Lahore.
BUt I like most other lahori's would mostly go out and eat and consider that a good night spent out.
We need to do more things other than eateries.
Activities need to be advertised.
This is the step in the right direction but if the sponsors of this site think like just the average lahori, then all they will have on their mind would be Food.
Hmmmm Foooooooooood..... (Homer Simpson Style)
Austin360.com is a site that I use locally here whenever I need to figure out whats happening in town.
Just an example.
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@ Obaid, what browser are you using?
@ Umair, You are right, there's a lot more in the city than what the portal says. The point is, something is better than nothing. Honestly, things in cities of Pakistan are actually not listed at all, so its a good beginning.
@ Umair, how about me'n u making Lahore360.com? :p, wanna try?
@ Ozman, Interesting post but totally unrelated. Please ensure you post relative comments.
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