India Today Group To Launch General Interest Portal
By Anupama Chandrasekaran - Mon 16 Jul 2007 07:09 PM PST
The India Today Group is planning to launch a general interest portal in by the end of this year or early next year, featuring free content from its print publications, television channels and events. [via agencyfaqs.com] The portal will be a common gateway to content across ten verticals, including business, news, lifestyle, education, travel and health. The company also plans to offer mobile services such as news alerts, polls and m-commerce. Apparently, a team of in-house developers is working on the project, led by Sanjoy Narayan, Business Today’s editor and Shailesh Shekhar, former editor of HindustanTimes.com. The company recenty re-launched the website of its magazine ‘Money Today’ and put up websites for ‘Men’s Health’ and ‘Prevention’ at the time of their print launch. Agencyfaqs comments that the group is finally stepping on the gas with regards to its online business after numerous failed ventures.
Nikhil adds: So we’ve contacted both Living Media and TV Today on several occasions over the last seven months to get an idea of what exactly they’re trying to do...but they haven’t been willing to talk about their sites. Now I know why - going by the story in agencyfaqs they just seem to be putting their magazines online like they did with Money Today. Aren’t they a little too late in the game to do something this generic? The problem with trying to leverage exclusive content online is that content isn’t exclusive anymore, and users have access to a lot more elsewhere. They shouldn’t end up doing some of the things Web18 has, depending on TV to drive traffic to sites.
Posted in: Companies, India Today, Portals
