Exclusive Interview With Ajit Balakrishnan On Rediff Redesign, Search, Mobile, Ad Revenue & Its Future Plans
We broke the story of the Rediff revamp yesterday afternoon and now we bring you an exclusive interview with Chairman Of Rediff.com Mr.Ajit Balakrishnan whom we visited today at the Rediff office. Mr.Balakrishnan was visibly excited at the new revamp and also the new brand campaign that rediff seems to have launched on televisions. Here is our Interview with Mr.Balakrishnan.
Why the Redesign?
Ajit B: We have had 8 redesigns in 11 years. This latest revamp is an outcome of us reflecting on the new trends from consumers. Consumers are clearly saying “show me advertising only if its relevant to me”. Hence the section based form for the new rediff.com. As far as we are concerned there will be no ads on homepage in the foreseeable future.
The new homepage is an outcome of the worldwide shift towards icon based navigation. This was a trend way back in 1995 and now with the advent of touch phones and with touch PCs are not far behind, the trend seems to have come a full circle. We are getting ourselves ready for the future and we want to give our users the same experience on mobile and PC.
On Significance of Internet access via Mobile
Ajit B: As far as Im concerned 100% consumer internet will be accessed via mobile access in the future. How soon will it happen is anyone’s guess but it will happen for sure. For things to take off 3G needs to happen which in in the immediate future may used for voice but data will have to catch up.
Impact on Ad Revenue With No Hompage Ads Policy (Given Last quarter results)
Ajit B: We believe there wont be any impact in the short-term as the last quarter half of our revenues were coming from online companies like naukri, matrimonial, airline, etc which shrunk by half but offline advertisers continued to grow and we believe this trend would continue.
Focus On Personalization For Users
Ajit B: 8 sections which are currently on the homepage would be fluid and not static. We shall add two or subtract two as we feel appropriate. In the near future we would give our users the option to personalize their own rediff homepage and add or delete content relevant to them.
On Mobile Opportunity and Monetization
Ajit B: In India everyone tried making money via downloads ringtones, wallpapers etc. But in the west apple takes 30% of value of app and app developers takes 70%. In India its the revenue share that needs to change and I believe that will happen when as smart phones become more mainstream in India.
Overall Premise For No Ads On Homepage
Our thinking is ‘be good to users and more users will come and the monetization will take care of itself’.
We are seeing 3 strong trends in India:
- Consumer internet is going mobile
- Web is becoming more and more social (social recommendation and consumption)
- Video is becoming bigger each day
The real action on video side will start when consumption on mobile takes off. The the first video film ever produced was 45 second long which was made by Lumiere brothers more than a century ago. We believe with mobile short form content would come a full circle.
On Rediff’s New Brand Positioning – ‘Just your stuff‘
check the video ad below:
Ajit B: Rediff’s new tagline – just your stuff is a move towards more user led personalization. And this shall be implemented across all sections gradually.
On Search Improvement And Its Importance
Ajit B: Our search is dramatically improved in this version. We have added image, qna within the search results. We are also offering search for regional language pages using rediff language search whose technology is powered by tachyon tech (a company invested in by rediff). Our current market share in search is 8-9% share in India and we are a clear no.3 position in India ahead of MSN.
On Vernacular Content & Its Importance
Ajit B: India has about 70 million english knowing people and since the inception of the internet english has been the preferred language. Given the current scenario where jobs are titled towards english speaking professionals we only can expect the english speaking market to grow. So who knows 70 million could become 300 million in 5 years. I’m not sure on regional language as we keep getting mixed signals from our users.
On Alternative Revenues Besides For Ads
Ajit B: Subscription is a possible source of future revenues. I have a feeling something will work out on that front in the next 12 months. As the app ecomomy had demonstrated consumers are used to paying for stuff. With various forms of micro payments coming up I believe people are looking for a micropayments solutions that works and once people find it subscription as an alternative revenue stream will take off.
On Strategy For Investment
Ajit B: We look out for startups with unique technology which can help us in the future and we take a minority in the same. We provide hand holding and connections to industry but let the startup work independently.
Share Of Traffic Among Rediff services in India
Ajit B: The share of traffic for India would be the following:
rediffmail – 1/3rd of total traffic
content – 1/3rd of total traffic
shopping – 1/3rd of total traffic.
In content vertical iShare our video portal is a rising star.
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Rajiv – Congrats and a very timely (and only one it seems) interview!!
With all humility, I think Rediff has erred in many ways here.
#1. The new design makes rediff look empty and incomplete … (There is http://www.rediff.com link above the logo on every page … white space after the content ends and footer starts … the menu in news looks like a place holder … even craigslist is more formal) I’d think there are other design to achieve “simple” and “un-clutter” look
#2. As far as I know 80% of people who visit rediff … go here for current updates and casual news. The constant flow of content as rediff updates and other uploads … is what pulls people multiple times a day … it’s like an addition for most people to keep checking rediff multiple times a day … such content is now kept many clicks away and no one looks for that. It’s impulsive stuff really.
#3. If Rediff wanted to promote other services like Video etc. menu with icons can do the trick … rather than make that the first thing on the left … when a minority come for that
#4. If Rediff wanted to show the power of the new multi-object search and promote the non-ext content they have … they could have easily show associated videos, comments, photos for every article … and slowly increase cross content navigation (like YouTube or SlideShare get u to go from one to the other)
The minimalist philosophy is all right the way in which it is implemented in Rediff.com is bad though. Hmm, Mr Balakrishnan has a lot of things riding on this. Many product managers, directors and vicepresidents who could not agree with this redesign quit the company.Check Linked In for details. Mr:Balakrishnan himself desgined lot of these pages and he has lost touch with Indian internet users. Rediff is losing all those good people they had and the no of people who are leaving this company will only increase if he goes minimalistic through a “forcefit” approach. All the best to the grand old man of Indian internet with his latest experiment.
Interesting article and even more interesting comments