By Sunit Arora

You know that placement time in the country's top B-schools will never be the same again when a site promises to cover the rites of passage as they happen. Coolavenues.com is the big idea of 3 IIT-IIM grads-Lokendra Tomar, 26, Shailesh Vikram Singh, 27, and Sandeep Dhaka, 26-who want to get the latest news from IIM campuses to the corporate world. The site, promoted by Zygote Technologies, also has sections on career options. At an advanced stage of negotiation for seed funding from NRI investors, the trio expects revenues to come from corporates and head-hunters. But that's after the placement season. 

Convergence is Sukaran Singh's calling card. The 30-year-old CEO of Broadcastindia.com-which integrates video, audio, and text media-wants to be India's first ''rich media'' man. Well, richer by $1 million of venture cap, Singh has been tying-up with content partners: Doordarshan, among others, for video, and a clutch of Bollywood producers for audio. He's also launched Zingmail, a phone-to-PC voice mail service. But for the real video revolution, he smiles, wait for the private international gateways. Beam me up, Sukaran!

Regional harmony-that is, promoting it-is part of Jayesh Vaidya's new job as the CEO (India) of the South Asian community portal, Chaitime.com. The media veteran-Walt Disney and Discovery-will have his hands full, launching the Chaitime brand in India, which got $25 million in VC funds from e-Ventures. The money will be useful, as Chaitime is hardly first off the community portal block in India.

Trade Intelligence is the on-line mantra of Rakesh Saraf, 32, a Calcutta-based exporter-turned-Netizen. His Infodrive india.com attempts to bridge the information gap between exporters and importers, who must pay Rs 6,000 per year-or $150-to delve into a comprehensive database, deal in advanced licences, or track vessel movements. Will it swim in a sea of trade sites?

S. Ramakrishnan, the Director of Intercept Consulting, an-on-line marketing solutions company, is pioneering an attempt to bring Indian content-owners and advertisers closer. Intercept's centralised ad management tool serves ads to a sea of consumers, depending on parameters, like content, country, time-of-day, and domain location. Nothing that Doubleclick.com hasn't done already, but definitely a desi first.

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