Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, December 31 2009:
E-Pao! (www.e-pao.net), the popular web-portal from Manipur has completed 10 years of service today.
The first installment of the website was launched on December 31 1999 on a free webserver.
Within the next three months, the do-main e-pao.net was registered.
Two more domains have been registered since then.
www.e-paolive.net caters to high volume traffic of the videos (Ooba) and songs (radio).
www.e-pao.org caters to the newer projects of E-Pao! such as "chakhum" (recipes of Manipur), "e-Ming" (baby names database), "e-Rang" (Film world of Manipur) All sites are hosted on servers and with services located at the USA.
Other services available to users of E-Pao! are: eFrenz (a social net-working site), chat, Panorama (where one can watch 360 degrees of a popular site/spot in Manipur), Yellow Pages (listing of business contact addresses and numbers in Imphal), Yellout (a platform for the budding musicians from Manipur), Mayek Tamba (a place to learn the Eyek in an interactive way) and Books (Books from Manipur made accessible in the e-format) .
The site also has sections on India and World news: editorials from leading Imphal based news dailies; opinions of users ranging from topic such as terrorism, politics and discrimination; features by known and unknown writers, interviews and profiles of Manipuri personalities; articles focusing on women, jobs, education and media; articles on ancient and modern Manipur and its travails.
According to the webmaster of the site, the top three countries from where the highest viewerships are drawn are India, UK and USA.
The site receives hits from several other countries around the globe.
According to the website traffic information company, Alexa, www.e-pao.net is ranked 61,995 in the world and 4140 in India.
Started out to let the world know about Manipur, the site has carried on to create a definitive e-platform for the Manipuris.
E-Pao! can boasts of a treasure trove of information and gems consisting of original poems, songs, articles along with the daily news and opinions.
With news archives dated back to 2000, E-Pao! is considered to be a archiver of Manipur news and events on the internet.
English News items are courtesy of the two Imphal dailies 'The Sangai Express' and the 'Hueiyen Lanpao'.
The Mayek news are courtesy Hueiyen Lanpao.
Other newspapers that had earlier extended their news content to this site were: 'Imphal Free Press' and 'Yakairol'.
E-Pao! has also supported educational events such as: TAPRO Handloom Show, MITEX, MASTEC Science Meet, Linux Manipur IT Talent, etc.
It has also reported on such important events of Manipur such as: elections, Santosh Trophy, Sharmila's fast, etc.
E-Pao! also supports the state's indigenous script.