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In.com Integrates Cricketnext, Tech2, Josh18 & Buzz18 - Launches Shopping, Photo Sharing & Mobile Version
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Well In.com the horizontal portal from web18 whose expensive domain name was talk of the town has been very active offlate making upteen number of changes not only on In.com but also on other sister sites of Web18 which are being integrated as a part of In.com.
So which are the Web18 sites that are now a part of In.com?
Storeguru.com the ecommerce portal is now -> Shop.in.com
Buzz18.com the entertainment portal is now -> Buzz18.in.com
Josh18.com the hindi portal is now -> josh18.in.com
Cricketnext.com the cricket portal is now -> Cricketnext.in.com
Tech2.com the tech news portal is now -> Tech2.in.com
Yes! even if you type tech2.com on your browser or Cricketnext.com on your browser it will redirect you to tech2.in.com and cricketnext.in.com respectively!
Now why would Web18 which actually invested quite a lot of its funding in creating or acquiring these brands and domain equity now suddenly shift everything to In.com?
The answer according to me is consolidation of traffic. Till now besides for moneycontrol.com and ibnlive.com most of the other large web18 properties have been integrated under the In.com domain name. Im sure pretty soon even compareindia.com the shopping comparison portal that web18 acquired and Indiwo.com the women centric portal would also be integrated.
The reason is clear Web18 see’s a winner in In.com. The response to In.com has been phenomenal (Check alexa and Google charts below)
In.com has overtaken sify.com in traffic according to both alexa and google trends. So it surely can be termed as the 3rd largest Indian portal now behind Rediff.com and Indiatimes.com. Its no surprise then that Web18 is searching a winner in In.com and therefore integrating all its verticals under one umbrella which can create a fortune for a company thats making losses as of now.
Launch of Shopping, Photo sharing and Mobile version?
As mentioned earlier Web18 has not only integrated storeguru.com which it had launched earlier this year but has also made it into shop.in.com. The other interesting launches is a photo sharing feature much like flickr.com which hints at more social networking features in the future as well. Last but certainly not the least In.com has gone mobile and can be access on m.in.com and the site is created by Mi Channels of July systems which also recently created their Cricketnext mobile version. I guess July systems is doing all the web18 mobile versions from what it seems.
We have sent an email to In.com to know more about the real reason behind these integrations and their future plans. So stay tuned to know more from the horses mouth.
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wow, did you see that graph ..astonishing:) I guess in.com is the next yahoo(atleast in india)
That’s a bad Internet strategy. Reason for creating domain names like Storeguru.com, Buzz18.com, Josh18.com, Cricketnext.com, Tech2.com is not because they are great names but rather because proper domains like Store.com, Buzz.com, Josh.com, Cricket.com, Tech.com aren’t available. But when integrating these domains with a bigger domain then the naming should be more like cricket.in.com, store.in.com or buzz.in.com. Adding 18 in the sub-domains just doesn’t make any sense. It works negatively for new users. Look at how Google and Yahoo name their sub-domains. mail.google.com (not gmail.google.com even though gmail is a pretty big brand), groups.google.com, cricket.yahoo.com, movies.yahoo.com, etc.
Internet domains work best when they contain common words and fewer words.
In reply to animesh,
Look where yahoo stands right now…
frankly… I heard surya during the watblog debate at iimb and thought he was a smart guy… but this is a dumb strategy… there is no point in maintaining websites that cannot stand on their two feet, beyond a certain point… and if you want to create a parent site just to push all your core sites, well, you are doomed anyways (the equivalent of throwing good money after bad)… seriously, I think they would have been better off spending the same amount of money marketing their properties on internet/otherwise one at a time… frankly, what a waste of time and money…
PS: For all those Web 2.0 lovers, I am not questioning the execution (which I think is great) but the overall strategy… just that I do not see any point in stretching yourself so thin… that is all…
Well, it really depends upon what Web18 is trying to achieve. From what I see, they have switched their priority to generating revenue from the earlier priority of building communities - which every web portal business does.
Portals like rediff and Indiatimes are general entertainment and service websites where you will find little bit of everything. But each channel and service loses its specialty and focus that specialty domain gives.
For e.g. Google has Search, videos, mail, photos, etc. But they have always kept it separate to maintain focus on each product\service. However niche portals have a hard time to survive in India due to low internet penetration. But the future lies in domain specialty and features.
Being integrated at the current moment makes sense from traffic and revenue point of view. For some business in india like the web, taking one step at a time has much more benefits than taking two steps. All we can say Web18 took two steps ahead and one step backward.
They already had their share of learning and operating niche portals which gives them an advantage of the next step than compared to Indiatimes or rediff.
Subbu, I don’t think the brands are changing in any way besides traffic consolidation. They will probably continue to be marketed as cricketnext.com , tech2.com etc
It was similar to what you are suggesting like mail.google.com so buzz.in.com.
But we do get hyper at times to start comparing in with yahoo looks naive at best at present.
Though nice strategy, i liast check josh quicte a few mnths abck at that time also i liked it hope it only would have improved from there
They’re putting all of their eggs in one basket, but In.com is one hell of a basket, so if they leverage it well, they are going to be successful with this. It all depends on the execution really. The idea is not bad, it’s o.k., but if they mess up on the execution, they’ll mess it up big time, if they get it right, they’ll get it right big time. This is definitely a high-risk move by Web18 and I hope they’ve measured the roads lying ahead of them nicely and patiently.