It's a URL that's touching the lives of a lot of Indians. And rediff.com is now going international.

From mush to sport, education to movies. And news too. It's all there. In the one stop-website: rediff.com. This most familiar face of the internet for the Indian eyeball has in the past few years crept slowly into the Indian netsurfer's life. For a lot of people, it's a regular place to drop in.

Whether you're single and want a soulmate; or send your moment perfectly long-stemmed beautiful roses; or want to book tickets for the World Cup -- it's all on rediff.com. 'All our services are in line with our aim of providing content, community and commerce on the net,' explains Ajit Balakrishnan, the man who envisioned all this about three years ago, when India had just about caught the net fever.

But somehow it's e-commerce -- books, movie tickets, travel and hotel reservations -- that Rediff on the Net is often quoted about. Not that e-commerce has really taken off so well in India yet. Balakrishnan refused to divulge figures, but market sources don't talk of very attractive figure. What he's willing to say though, is that about 98 per cent of the purchases off his site are through credit cards. So much for the Indian fear of giving credit card numbers over the net.

For this company, that started with an online news magazine and a chat site, lots has happened. And there's lots more to happen. Within a couple of weeks, rediff USA will go online, targeted mainly at the US-based NRI. Then, it will be Singapore.

"We want to build an online media brand. We want to be seen as an international website with an Indian orientation,' says Balakrishnan. He's particular that his company isn't considered a technology company. 'Technology is an important driver of the early stages of the development of any medium. Then it's content that drives the medium,' he says. Anyway, it's content that Indian consumers are already lapping up.