So what all do you have to do to read a Financial Chronicle news report online? First, go to http://www.mydigitalfc.com, click on the story in the e-paper, register for the e-paper, open the confirmation mail, verify your email address, and finally click on the story to read it. Far too many steps are required for accessing the content, and I hope this is a stop-gap measure.

Compare this with what Mail Today, the India Today - Daily Mail (LSE: DMGT) JV has done: though they’ve also only got an e-paper, they’ve ensured that their content remains accessible - there’s no registration required, and you can read stories by clicking on the e-paper. Furthermore, they’ve displayed most viewed articles to help content discovery.

It’s a tradeoff for FC - having readers register to read allows them to create a database of users, but at the same time, FC might lose out on readers who would switch to other sites like Business Standard, Economic Times, or even UTVi and Moneycontrol for their business news. Oddly enough, I just checked and financialchronicle.in and financialchronicle.co.in are still available.

In case you missed the NDTV New Media Congress, they’ve uploaded speaker presentations and videos from the conference, here. Three that I missed out - presentations from Azhar Rafee, EVP Reuters (video, ppt), Kim Reid, CEO (Mobile TV) MIH Group (video, ppt), and a rare talk from Rediff (NSDQ: REDF) Chairman & CEO Ajit Balakrishnan (video, ppt). I’ve uploaded a few photos from the conference here. Our coverage of the conference:

-- @NDTV NMC: Mainstream Digital Media; Display Beats Search Advertising?
-- @NDTV NMC: Old Media Evolves With Consumers; Regulation Biggest Bottleneck; Who’s The Consumer?
-- @NDTV NMC: TV On TCP/IP; Leapfrog To 4G; Nearly Good Enough Quality On Video; Companies In Flux
-- @NDTV NMC: Advertising Isn’t Infinite; Free Content Model May Not Last - Andrew Paulson, LiveJournal

So it’s not two-three weeks, but the next three-four days: Info Edge (BOM: 532777) (Naukri.com) has planned to launch its education portal Shiksha.com by the end of this week, contentSutra has learned; a team, lead by Apurva Kumar, VP and National Head of Mobility, Ad Sales & Investments, has been visiting agencies. As Info Edge executives had mentioned in the earnings call, Shiksha will be an education marketplace, and will take up significant investment. $5-10 million over a period of three years is what COO Hitesh Oberoi has told ET.

Shiksha is likely to be B2C classifieds business - free for consumers, and paid for educational businesses targeting them; businesses like colleges (particularly private colleges), agents and coaching classes etc; supplementary businesses like coaching classes have been thriving in India for years, and there are towns like Kota in Rajasthan which survive on just entrance exam education. Foreign education is another opportunity, and companies like the QS World MBA Tour have been operating in India, as have GMAT and GRE coaching centres and agents for foreign universities. The QS World MBA Tour hosts offline events, allowing colleges to showcase themselves to prospective students, which is a market that Info Edge should look at, like they are doing with job fairs. Not to forget: Info Edge is late for the current graduate and undergraduate admission season.

There are community portals around the educational segment that have been operational for many years - PagalGuy and CoolAvenues are two that come to mind, but no one attempted to get establish a business in this domain at a large scale; if done right, this could be bigger than the jobs segment itself. But this isn’t the job segment and I don’t think people will come just for listings. Information and context will have to be a key component - user generated reviews, ratings, info and tips on student selection criterion (interviews and group discussions), student experiences, local information, brochures, forms, and alerts for admission date/form submission dates. There has to be a community.

Speaking of communities around education, do read these excellent articles by Apurv Pandit, Editor of PaGaLGuY.com - Part 1 and Part 2.

Disclosure: I own an inconsequential number of shares of Info Edge

So it looks like Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) doesn’t have an exclusive deal for the iPhone in India: Airtel has also announced a tie-up with Apple to bring the iPhone to India later this year. PTI reports that the launch may be around the festive season of Diwali. Nothing on prices yet, though. This is a part of a deal that Singtel (for Singapore) and companies it has investments in - Airtel (for India), Global Telecom (for Philippines) and Optus (for Australia) - signed with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). Not that it really matters - there are iPhones aplenty in India.

A great explanation for what the iPhone is, from PTI: “iPhone is a mobile phone that allows its users to make calls by simply tapping a name or number in the address book. It leads the customers to select and listen to voice-mail messages in whatever order the consumer wants.”

Wow.

• Vodafone To Launch iPhone In India This Year