Bindass TV Channel Launches Bindass.com – An Online Platform For Buddies
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Bindass, the youth centric TV channel from the UTV Group has launched Bindass.com – a community platform for the youth. Just like MTVIndia’s connected they seem to have integrated it with facebook connect platform to reach out to the youth on facebook. Bindass already had a platform in Bindass.tv which showcased their TV programming. Bindass.com though is different as its trying to be a platform for on campus youth by providing both campus related content and entertainment content.
We caught up with Vahishta Mistry – VP – Interactive at UTV to know more about Bindass and its initiatives online:
1) How is the current site different from the previous site? What features have you added? Why a new platform when you already had Bindass.tv?
a) Bindass.com is a standalone web product. Our earlier site was a support mechanism for our shows – while we had a number of very rich and interactive offerings there, they were ultimately tied to the television channel. While all of those initiatives will continue even though Bindass.com has been launched, the fact is we feel there is a distinct opportunity for Bindass to become an even more relevant brand with its TG, through this product. The new features which we believe are viral and sticky, are the Bindass Buddies tool (located in the Campus section); this is a support network for new college students. We allow colleges to create their own spaces online wherein mentors, or Bindass Buddies, who are senior students, coach and guide junior students or fresher’s through their initial few months in college. On an ongoing basis, they also send updates on stuff happening on campus as well as posting events and opinions, answering questions, etc. Our scalable technology allows any college to sign up and create a page as well as nominate buddies. This three-click process happens when a user signs up and indicates what college he belongs to. Another feature we’re quite happy to implement is Facebook Connect, which enables users of Facebook to sign in to our site using only their Facebook username / password combination. The added benefits to us and the users are: no sign up form to fill, higher pool of potential users to tap into, the ability for any activity that takes place on our site to be reflected on FB. Finally, the rest of our site too, is a very robust content offering – we have identified the key types of content that dovetail well with our TG and our brand and we have striven to bring out the essence of ‘bindassiyat’ in all our content – from movie and music reviews, to gig coverage of local college bands, to interviews of some of the hottest stars in Bollywood and the Indian music industry and even our celeb bloggers, who will be launched soon.
2) Who are you targeting via this online platform?
a) Our primary target, as with our television channel offerings, are college students and first jobbers, people who understand and instantly vibe with what it means to be Bindass, to live their lives with humour and masti and fearlessness
3) What is the long term goal of the platform? Can you give us numbers in terms of projected users you plan to attract in first year?
a) The long-term goal is to make the Buddies product as much a part of the college experience as possible – the offering is viral, fills a gap in the market (both offline as well as online – no similar product exists despite a clearly vocalized need from the TG) and to make Bindass.com a destination for the sort of content that brand Bindass is best known for – iconoclastic, funny, edgy and irreverent. In terms of actual user / page views numbers, while its early days yet, our initial response leads us to believe that we should see at least a few million users by end FY2009 / 10 and our page view per user number are high (avg. of 11 – 12) so we should be quite comfortable!
4) Is there a revenue model for this platform? What is it? How long before you start making money?
a) Our model will always be a blend of advertising (online + on air) and creation of cheap, easy-to-buy and high-on-value web products / downloadable. While it’s too early to discuss the latter, the former is already in motion – we have great partners in Virgin Mobile and NIIT who have come on board to help make our Bindass Buddies even more successful. Virgin Mobile is our presenting sponsor and NIIT is an associate sponsor. It is always gratifying to see people buy into a concept and share our faith and vision of a successful and profitable product. The advertising support from Virgin and NIIT point towards even more success in the (very) near term.
5) Would there be a mobile aspect to the platform? How soon?
a) Yes there is – our technology platform supports the site being browsed on almost any handset – though we will need to implement this. The timeframe for that is a couple of months. However, we believe that merely allowing passive browsing is nowhere near enough for a mobile product – we intend to launch easy-to-install and easy-to-use applications which will allow our users to interact with the data on our site. We might launch extremely targeted apps for each type of user – college student, general content browser, etc because the needs of each user will differ and with that will come the logistical issues of how to market them, etc, but we have a very clear plan on how to do that and we are highly convinced that these products will be as much of a success as our website currently is.
6) Would bindass.com be a separate business unit? Or be a part of the TV channel?
a) Bindass.com is a part of the TV channel right now and its costs, revenues, etc form a part of GENX Entertainment’s P&L statement.
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Looks good.
But who will really get benefitted from this.
We are unable to tune this channel on our cable service.