Erodov
Erodov.com is a technology forum based in India. The site caters primarily to The INDIAN technology community, with an entire section dedicated to the purchase and sale of hardware (new and used) within India. While a majority of members are Indian, there are a few international members as well. Also, a substantial portion of the visits are from locations in the USA, Europe and elsewhere in Asia. The site went online for the first time on the 13th of February 2007, but the site administrator prefers to consider April 1 the ‘official’ site anniversary.
Highlights
The primary feature of the forums seems to be the ‘Bazaar’ (market) section. This area provides a friendly place for users to buy and sell used hardware, as well as for registered dealers to sell their products. Of special note are the ‘Group Orders’ in this section – whereby multiple orders for the same (or similar) products are clubbed together and purchased to lower the effective price paid by the buyers.
Another aspect to the forum is the relaxed environment. There are very few restrictions placed on members with regard to off-topic posts (OT), signatures, avatars and the like. There is also an entire section of the forum dedicated for non-technology related topics and discussions, including automotive interests, jokes and artwork.
Also, there are frequent ‘meets’ organized, for members from various areas to get together in person and spend time together. This gives many of the forum-goers a sense of familiarity with each other that is sometimes uncommon on other sites. In addition to these, there are the usual sections, filed broadly under the categories of ‘hardware’, ‘software’, ‘gaming’ and so on.
Articles/Reviews
The site also features a section for user-reviews of various products. Members are encouraged to review (in as few or as many words as they’d like) the different products they own, from hardware, to software to games. Tutorials and buying guides are also a popular feature of this section.
Gaming
Erodov also is the host for ‘TradeMarc Gaming’ (often abbreviated to [tMg]) which consists of two of India’s leading multiplayer clans for CounterStrike: Source and Team Fortress 2. It also hosts a separate site called ‘TF2India’ for the promotion of Team Fortress 2 in the Indian gaming community.
Modding
Additionally, the ‘Indian Modder’s Guild’ (IMG) is hosted/supported by Erodov. This site aims to encourage and popularize hardware modding (modification) in India. It features guides and articles to help along new modders as well as a ‘work-log’ section where users can post step-by-step progress reports on their modifications.
Popularity
Of late, the site has been climbing steadily in page-views and Google PageRank. This can probably be attributed to the high quality of articles that are published fairly regularly for a site of its size and scope, as well as the considerable amount of activity on the forums themselves.
See Also
SuperPrime, a PC benchmarking tool created by Karan Misra, the site owner.