Well, this was on the cards: Techtree has become the first of the IT Nation properties to be overhauled, post the acquisition by UTV. And it’s not surprising either - TechTree has a tech and gadgets show UTVs business channel UTVi, and it was never a good idea to send viewers to a stone-age site. While the content in the new site appears to be the same, its positioning is significantly different. Take a look at the older version (here) and the revamped site.

The interactive elements - Forums, Ask Techtree, E-Classifieds, Comments and Contests are separated from other categories on top; the opinions segment has also been given a prominent position on the right, and its good to see that they’ve retained the recent comments section from the front page…. Their Price Search has also come out of beta. Apart from that, there are no new sections of note, but the content discovery and usability has been improved.

Tech2 And Ads

TechTree competes head-on with Web18s Tech2.com, both on the web at TV. I just checked out Tech2, and I think it’s obscene what they’ve done with the site, with permanent Nokia E-Series background. Just because it’s possible to put a product as the site background doesn’t mean you do it - I wonder if the editors have any say in this. Then again, if they’re just getting in traffic using Search Engine Marketing, and selling ad space to advertisers based on those numbers, reader loyalty doesn’t really matter.

UTV had completed the acquisition of a 76 percent stake in IT Nation for Rs. 15 crores earlier this year. They’d announced plans to invest Rs. 120 crores in the digital space over the next two years.

Disclosure: I own an inconsequential number of shares of Network18

IT Nation, Portal, UTV
Tags: Advertising, IT Nation, Revamp, SEM, Tech2, Techtree, UTV

1. Early adopters always have an edge… if you see the orkut communities, tech2 has a larger member-base.
   I agree with your point on very aggressive advertising on website of tech2. If you remember, the previous moneycontrol too had too many ads and a clumsy look. They did a face lift recently.

   Posted by Rupesh | August 20, 2008, 3:26 pm

2. I agree with Rupesh. Techtree has been there since long before. So they have an unfair advantage of being there longer. Which is obvious from their earlier older design. Also nikhil’s point of heavy SCM investment by tech2 bears out. Since in tech2 s case, the community building is a party of the SCM strategy, otherwise you dont have communities coming up when the brands forums arent so populated. I think they have a good scm strategy in place.

   Posted by Sanchit Rai | August 20, 2008, 7:41 pm

3. Nikhil, it seems that they’ve taken your comment about the Nokia background to heart. They’ve now switched to a Samsung Printers background! ;-)

   Posted by Gautam Kshatriya | August 22, 2008, 2:09 pm