Comments on: Rediff CEO On Current Advertising Scenario, In.com, Paid Services, Apps & Content Deals

By: Vineet Kumar

Vineet Kumar — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:38:13 +0000

hi to Rajeev (http://www.brandsindiaonline.com),
I would like to share an idea on a website. This will be the pioneer in india market. its an innovative idea to launch a website.

By: Vineet Kumar

Vineet Kumar — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:33:34 +0000

I am looking to launch a website, on the basis of 10-15 lakhs visitors how much average revenue i can generate. Any one can help with some references?

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Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:07:56 +0000

[...] to view free content, but growth in viewership should be supported by the growth in revenues. Saying that the world will figure out a business model doesn’t really inspire [...]

By: Nikhil Pahwa

Nikhil Pahwa — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:33:58 +0000

gurpreet: depends on the exchange rate – at the current exchange rate, $4M is around Rs. 18 cr. Secondly, there are quarter on quarter variations in the advertising business, so wouldn’t be right to extrapolate to a year based on one quarter. About the Rs. 300 crores – is that display or display+search?

By: gurpreet

gurpreet — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:01:49 +0000

Thanks Nikhil. So as per this I gather that Rediff’s online ad revenue for last month was 72% of USD 4Mn ~ 14 crores, thus an annual ad revenue of approx 50 crores. Pretty high given that that overall online ad industry is estimated to be 300 crores in India

By: Nikhil Pahwa

Nikhil Pahwa — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:20:21 +0000

Hi Gurpreet,
Rediff splits revenues between two segments – US Publishing (a magazine called India Abroad), and India Online (Rediff.com etc). The figures mentioned above are for the Quarter between July-Sep 2008, not annual.

Yahoo and MSN do not disclose India specific data. George Zach talked about revenues doubling a year or so ago, but as of now, Yahoo is refusing to comment on numbers. We know because we asked them.

Indiatimes – they’re in some kind of a rut now…media planners I’ve spoken to don’t really rate Indiatimes anymore, and look primarily at Rediff and Yahoo. Even AOL appears to have hardly had an impact…but these are early days for AOL.

By: gurpreet

gurpreet — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:58:55 +0000

Question for Nikhil
1)When u say ‘India Online Revenues: $4.04 million (72%) from Advertising , $1.58 million (28%) from Fee based services’ – are you talking about Rediff’s annual revenues or the revenues of the last quarter ?
2) Basis your estimate what would be online advertising revenues for companies like Rediff, Indiatimes, Yahoo, MSN etc.

By: The Great One

The Great One — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:13:57 +0000

I wasn’t defending In.com nor Web18, and I’d also like to make it crystal clear that I am in no way affiliated with Web18 / Network18 or any other organization. I know I came across as a little harsh and perhaps arrogant in that last comment, and I apologize, but my point is that Rediff is really low on innovation, and whoever said about that 200 employees thing, let me tell you, that is a lame excuse for a company of this size. If you can’t afford to innovate and be at the top of your game, business survival laws can pretty much guarantee your failure – that’s how it goes. You either do it, or you don’t. 200 employees or 20, you are in business just like everyone else, Web18, Indiatimes, etc, and if Web18, which is really just a little ’side-business’ of the Network18 group, can be at the top of their game and at least develop good looking if not successful websites, as someone said about In.com, then I don’t see why Rediff, primarily an internet company, can’t afford to do so, and then actually have the nerve to put down their competitors who are obviously doing better.

So there it goes, and regarding who The Great One is, you’ll definitely know that at TiE 2009. See ya.

By: Neutral Indian

Neutral Indian — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:52:03 +0000

Whatever Rediff has achieved with 200 employees they have is commendable .

By: RevenueDude

RevenueDude — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:59:55 +0000

Rediff’s revenue is bad . Majority of the traffic to new sites were build using rediff. They are the first site that anyone would use to read news. So, as a business Rediff is a hot.

Now they should be ashamed of saying that they could acquire only 261 clients in the quarter. I am assuming that they’ve not acquired more than 10 new clients in this quarter. This is so very typical “Advertising/client servicing” mentality. I think they should look at building an aggressive sales team and NOT a bunch of “collection boys” like in advertising agencies.

While saying so, its also important to mention that ‘In.com” is going to be another decent flop show of Indian Internet Industry. With just one or two month of existance , am sure they wouldn’t be doing a Rupee higher than their combined online revenue prior to aggregating web18 sites under in.com. In.com is also not a pathbreaking product. So whomsoever is that “The Great One”, should try and get a life ..for heaven’s sake.