Get Islamic Information At Your Fingertips With iAlif
June 30, 2009 by Gwendolyn Regina T
If you’re an Muslim living in Singapore and has always found it hard to find out where the nearest Halal dining establishments or mosques are, iAlif aims to solve that problem by providing a searchable location-based directory listing.
List of mosques.
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Problem: Hard to find location information on Halal restaurant and eateries, or the nearest mosque for a prayer. You most likely need to have taken mental notes before.
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Idea: Directory of the necessary information Muslims need like Halal eateries and mosques.
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Solution: iAlif went live on 31st Dec 2008 and aims to provide location-based information on places that Muslims need. Now, all you have to do is to automatically let the system pinpoint your location or enter one, and look at the list of nearby Halal eateries or mosques found.
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Money: Currently we see a few online display ads at the profile page. More can be done with web and mobile advertising. Their niche user base will be very attractive to clients who need such a targeted group.
Their social networking component leaves much to be desired.
Review
I do think there’s a huge untapped market here that the likes of iAlif can fulfill. Even though you can find information on Halal eateries at HungryGoWhere, MUIS’ (Islamic Religious Council of Singapore) Singapore Halal Directory, and MUIS’ list of mosques; iAlif’s interface and auto-mapping of location and information makes it easy for the consumer to acquire the necessary information.
However, a big problem is that the information on Dining is not updated – at all. (The one for mosques seems fine and is iAlif’s trump card for now.) This search for McDonalds within 10km from 1 North Bridge Road only turned up one outlet at Bedok North.
Flawed information. Only one McDonalds outlet within 10km of North Bridge Road?
The real playground for iAlif? Mobile of course. They’ve made inroads with their Alif Prayer Time for Mobile. If they step up a notch on its dining search and go mobile with that as well, iAlif could be a real hit in the local community.
Problem now for investors is scale. With such a data-intensive model, iAlif will need to acquire the necessary data in the markets they’re trying to hit. And unlike Singapore, some markets may not have such data readily available. On the bright side, once they make themselves the key holders of such valuable data, they could easily gain loyal users in the various markets and be able to sell this traffic to advertisers.
About The Author
Gwendolyn Regina T - Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Apart from SGE, Gwen is also a Partner at Thymos Capital, where she focuses on early stage investments in technology firms. She has had two exits out of her investments via the firm, one of which is iHipo. A frequent judge for business competitions both locally and overseas, she graduated from the National University of Singapore. Gwen also spent some time in Silicon Valley and studied in Stanford University under the NUS Overseas College programme. Gwen is a mentor at Spanish incubator Tetuan Valley, Polish incubator Gamma Rebels, the Singapore Ambassador for the Sandbox network and the Singapore curator for StartupDigest. She enjoys languages, travelling, dance and adventure sports. Gwen can be found on LinkedIn and Twitter.
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