Im essentially a child born in the TV era where after every episode there was a sponsor note “This episode was brought to you by…”. Well though the internet has just been around as a popular medium for over a decade in India. The creative minds are already looking at leveraging it as a medium that can entertain like TV does. So if TV has episodes for serials Internet will have webisodes.
The companies that seem to be engaged in this webisode format of 5 minute videos are companies like PixelKraft whose online sitcom ram and ria is something we have previously covered on WATBlog as well. Even women oriented sites like Indiwo have launched webisodes for health related content earlier. The other companies that are looking aggressively at the webisode space are rediff ishare which is looking to have free webisode streaming on its platform.
Echoing his belief in the webisode revolution Manish Agarwal Rediff’s VP – Marketing said“It’s this behaviour shift that has led to the success of YouTube which has around 3.5 million Indian users. Rediff currently has around 1.5 million users and in the coming months with webisodes we intend to take over YouTube”
So the online guys are sold on the webisode 3-5 minute story aspect but are the big boys of the TV media looking at the same space with the same kind of enthusiasm? Im afraid NO! Traditional production houses like Balaji and Creative eye have a wait and watch theory. According to this business standard article traditional production housed dont see a real business model in webisodes yet. They would rather wait and see someone like rediff make a real splash both in terms of users and revenues using webisodes rather than get into them themselves.
So all in all though the revolution of webisodes has started on the internet there is still a few years to when you and me can regularly hear.. “This Webisode is brought to you by….”
Would love to know your thoughts on this.. Participate in the poll below to let us know whether you think webisodes will work or no!
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This kind of techniques have already be adapted by several companies …… though they have not named it as a webisode.
How does it make a difference of adding this phrase”This webisode is brought to you by…”
Even though I posted a YES to the above poll, it will largely depend upon how the broadband ISPs perform in the coming years