2012 is around the corner, while the past year has given us a plethora of good, bad, ugly and sad moments. It has been left to us to decide and mark the year as an overall good or bad year, in whatever context.

UT has taken the initiative to share some of the most happy as well as miserable moments of the year 2011 with our readers. We go a step further and talk about our peer group…the online portals of that have mushroomed in Udaipur. We call this year as the Year of Online Media in Udaipur.

Over the dozen months that have gone by we have seen plenty of websites (more than a dozen, though) related to Udaipur (including UdaipurTimes.com) that have come up. A majority of these websites are news based and based on the blog format, focusing on content related to Udaipur.

We have done a comprehensive exercise of reviewing, marking and picking up the 10 best websites from the sites that have started in 2011 OR have achieved good growth on the charts. This marking is again based on our different criteria, viz. popularity, informative; helpful; etc.

Having said this, it is prudent to note that the following list is not on ranking within the TOP 10, but are listed per their first published date and/or their domain registration date. So, here goes…

Udaipurblog.com – Blog | News

This is one of the first blogs in English, dedicated to Udaipur. It was started by Sanjit Chouhan, a college student and later joined by volunteers mainly students of Udaipur. UdaipurBlog was started in Nov 2009 but its actual activities were noted in mid 2011. The site has reasonable content, not very regular though, but commendable achievements over the year. Of note here is their activity on the social networking site, Facebook, where they are currently touching 18,000 ‘Likes’.

HiUdaipur.com is the only video site which has number of interviews, reviews and features video content related to Udaipur’s commercial and social aspects. It has 46 subscribers on their YouTube channel and some very interesting videos to entertain its audiences. Of note is the fact that it has relatively more activity / following on YouTube rather than on its own site.

Udaipur Talents has profiles of some of Udaipur’s most talented and creative citizens. The site gives a short resume of such persons and lists their achievements. It was started by two friends, Phagun Singh Baya, an engineering student and Mudit Sharma, in May 2011. Apart from the core USP of listing the best of talent from Udaipur, this site also has comprehensive information about the city.

UdaipurThoughts.com was started in Aug 2011 by Rohit Kothari. According to Rohit, he created the site to share any and every thing which interests its readers, and the site is not limited to any geographical locality. UdaipurThoughts frequently writes about movies, politics, sports and Udaipur. They have appreciable presence on Facebook too.

Given its earliest published article, UdaipurNews.in is the first Hindi news blog of Udaipur. It was started on July 25, 2011 by Sunil Gothwal, who has earlier worked as a journalist with a popular Hindi Daily newspaper. UdaipurNews.in is frequently updated with all latest and top news, however it primarily concentrates on social and political activities of the city.

This is another well-updated Hindi news site which published its first article just a few days after UdaipurNews.in. However, UdaipurPost.com has set its own niche during these months. It regularly publishes breaking National and International news with feature articles and news updates from Udaipur and nearby districts too. UdaipurPost.com is founded by Akhtar Khan, a renowned photo journalist and president of Lakecity Press Club.

JobsUdaipur.com has actually transformed the concept of local job portal where anyone can post job requirement and can get desired opportunities around Udaipur. The portal, brainchild of Ankush Khanna, became live in Nov 2011 and his team of professionals. In a short span of time, JobsUdaipur has listed hundreds of jobs opportunities on the portal and is receiving sound response from users.

UdaipurLive.com was renamed as UdaipurLakecity.com, adding a lot of new features and services to its earlier offerings. The concept is based purely on locals and concentrates on local user base by offering news, gallery, chatting and other important information about Udaipur. The site is founded by Sudipto Biswas in Dec 2011. Being a new site, a few of the features are not in the best of working state.

Shilpgram.in is one of the most beautiful website in the list; created and managed by UdaipurPlus.com which is also one of the oldest travel portals of Udaipur. Shilpgram.in has a simple navigation system where a user can view photos and videos of the annual Shilpgram festival. Though the site presently has listed only 2011 information, but it is expected to get updated in the coming months.

The latest in the list, UdaipurDiscountWala.com is a based on the concept of offering discounts on actual price; the company is offering discounts on Education, Real Estate, Automobile and Hotels. This service is free of cost. The concept was introduced by Prashant Kothari and the website has been officially announced in December 2011.