Comments on: Who Will Be The Rafat Ali (PaidContent) Of India? Answered by Sidharth Rao (Webchutney), Sahad PV (VCCircle) & Nikhil Pahwa(MixedBag Media)

By: raghav soni

raghav soni — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:13:09 +0000

looks like everyone forgotten…..amit agarwal of labnol ……he is the best indian blogger i have come across………cos he gives out solutions rather thus capturing larger worldwide audience……..and the traffic itself says that for labnol…….

By: mediablog

mediablog — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:22:13 +0000

so you are looking waiting for some one to acquire your blog.basically paid content it was a big joke and it getting acquired is even a bigger joke

By: Rajiv Dingra

Rajiv Dingra — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:01:57 +0000

Dear Rafat,

Thanks for taking out time to comment. Its made this post even more special than it was when I wrote it.

By: Rafat

Rafat — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:56:20 +0000

I am biased, but since my name is in the headline, thought I would jump in: I will lean towards our two own progenies, if only because I think they have learned their lessons well, being part of our company prior to starting theirs. VCC is a broader and more serious play, and has better chances of making it bigger. Medianama is still too early to judge, but Nikhil’s nothing if not persistent…and in the end, that pays, believe me.

By: Harshil Karia

Harshil Karia — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:12:24 +0000

Sooner or later newspapers in India will realise the importance of focussed verticals with an online presence and quality writers. Like you and me they are reading this news as well. When they think the time is right, they will go all out and they will expand the market. They are likely to take leadership. Unlike in the rest of the world, in India, newspaper readership is not dwindling. If you keep in mind multiple contrasting variables, we are anywhere between 5 - 50 years behind the US (5 for technology, 50 for overall standard of living - check out Ted Rosling)… anyway so the point being, newspapers will/ should launch focused verticals online as and when they deem fit. They will then correspond these verticals with offline media and cross synergize. In terms of quality - all the 4 content portals mentioned above may turn out to be better (but that too is not a given).
HT Media has already done it with Shine. Their education and career supplement has Shine written all over it. They can do the same with a technology section/ supplement and a cars section/ supplement. So can all the other newspapers. So guess who is going to get more awareness and hence more readership? Unless there is no supreme offline syndication by any of the portals, there is going to be no spike in readership.
Ofcourse properties like WAT, MediaNama, Aloo, and VC Circle (VC Circle as i see it does not fall into the same category because it has a greater mix of mass market content) could become super - specialized B2B publications or publications with small (but much much larger than the readership they have now - small in the larger scheme of things) loyal followings.
I agree with the others that AlooTechie is better placed. I cannot comment on the others but i know personally that with WAT, Rajiv will do things more efficiently than the others and possibly scout and implement international trends with least possible resources juicing out quality -
If i were a newspaper owner i would start creating online focussed verticals and brand them separately, synergize with content offline. Use similar teams and allow the online portals to grow so that i dont have to spend 30 Million Dollars 5 years down the line. For Indian Media controllers - the future is in their face. They just have to make it locally relevant with content, timing and the right media mix.

By: Mohit Maheshwari

Mohit Maheshwari — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:53:44 +0000

Hi Guys
I think the Indian digital industry needs more authenticated and indepth coverage.

Currently the coverage by Wat , Aloo , MediaNama , CS and others is on top level only.

No one is covering the technical aspects of digital - which is where the true value is to be unlocked.

Apart from online adertising and events -there are 10 other areas which can be easily monetized ( even in the current state of the industry) ,but no one has given a good stab at it so far.

I would really like to see someone working on an E-consultancy UK style model.
They not only do reporting of news , but also publish in depth reports ( which are really good) , have membershipts , organize workshops , demo sessions and mixers in the UK Digital industry.

E consultancy is a small team in UK but they handle a huge volume of information and produce original content.

Thanks
Mohit Maheshwari

By: Rajiv Dingra

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:44:33 +0000

Hey EKa,

I agree with you I think 10k would be closer than 30.. and if you talk daily i think you can say 6-7k is more appropriate.

By: Ekalavya

Ekalavya — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:25:12 +0000

Lol…very well put Sudhir!
Online Media has a really long way to go in India.

And i see WATblog is finally displaying Ads!

Siddharth was talking about VC’s not taking 10-30K readers seriously…does India actually have 30K readers who follow web news on a daily basis?

By: Ruchi

Ruchi — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:20:19 +0000

mind blowing post Rajiv… gained lot of insight

By: Maneesh

Maneesh — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:14:08 +0000

haha nice comparision there Sudhir… and kickass post Rajiv.. I am new to the tech media side of blogging in India so this is the first time I am seeing such a post.. usually read such stuff on popular international blogs so really cool to see it on WAT…

and everyone’s views just adds so much dimension to what the industry thinks of itself… excellent read

By: Sudhir Syal

Sudhir Syal — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:35:57 +0000

Good post Rajiv…the Indian digital industry or the people who follow it atleast are just too few.

It’s like World cricket…its massive - but they are only 8 countries playing

By: manuscrypts

manuscrypts — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:30:14 +0000

i’d agree with medianama, but as nikhil himself said, its also about scale.. so rahat the master had nikhil the apprentice, but the jedis quickly need to dispense with that one master-apprentice funda and get into mass production
Also agree on aloo techie.
But if the web dynamics in India differ from the global scene in terms of content (eg. vernacular), reach etc, perhaps we’ll have an animal different from contentsutra but equally valuable enough to be picked up… so it might end up an apple vs jackfruit comparison..