Business Standard Launches Instant Messenger - BS Buddy

Financial daily Business Standard has launched a branded Instant Messenger called BS Buddy, which appears to be a customized version of Mundu IM from Geodesic Ltd. The Instant Messenger allows access via a single messenger, to MSN Messenger, Yahoo IM, AOL Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk and Jabber Talk. That’s nothing new - Pidgin already allow access to multiple IMs.

What’s noteworthy is the access to content that the IM allows - when you click on the yellow blob (seriously - what were they thinking?) in the IM that represents BS Buddy, it opens up a pane as shown below, called BS Dashboard.

The BS Dashboard provides current news, stock market information, stories from the days Business Standard, content from BS Motoring, and a merchandise from BSshopping (powered by IndiaPlaza). Details of the features available here. They appear to have a couple of advertisers already on board in Nokia, HP and Oracle.

As a product, I quite like the BS Buddy, but I don’t really see the point for Business Standard to launch somethng like this. Even though they have, they aren’t really communicating the key feature of the IM is the interoperability between various IMs, and they haven’t communicated that on the main page for the service - http://bsbuddy.business-standard.com/ . Without that being communicated, it appears to be a Business Standard IM, and hence there’s no incentive for a user to download it - that fact that users are also getting BS content is just an add-on.

NDTV Convergence Ties Up With TutorVista; Our Take On Their Strategy

Going through NDTV.com, we noticed a few sites and sub-sites that we haven’t come across before: Among them, is a tutoring site NDTVTutor.com, powered by Tutorvista.com, which primarily targets their US based visitors. While we don’t endorse Alexa as a measure of traffic, according to Alexa, only around 8.5% of NDTV.com’s traffic comes from the US.

The movies site - NDTVMovies.com also features a new look. We also noticed a couple of other partnerships that the company has inked, though we’re not sure of how old these are - a commodities site powered by commodityonline.com, and an astrology section powered by Astroyogi.com. Interestingly, there’s also an environment site called Green.NDTV.com, sponsored by Toyota, with Dr Rajendra K Pachauri, Director General of TERI as their expert advisor. There’s an environmental anthem for you to sing along to (you may download it here)
Quick take on NDTVs strategy
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Yang Steps Down, As Yahoo Looks For A New CEO

An uneasy year so far for Yahoo has perhaps worsened with co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang stepping down, and the search for a new CEO…maybe even a CEO who will be able to negotiate a sale for the troubled company. Yang had replaced Terry Semel as CEO in June 2007.

The real trouble for Yahoo began when Microsoft made a public, and almost boisterous $44.6 Billion, $31 per share bid for Yahoo in February this year. At that time, Yahoo was trading at around $19 per share. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, blasted Yang for being hostile towards the Microsoft deal, as Yahoo declined the offer. After the deadline for negotiations to be concluded lapsed, Microsoft withdrew the offer in May. Icahn, who owned almost 5% of Yahoo, tried to garner support for renegotiations with Microsoft, despite the announcement of an advertising partnership between Google and Yahoo, around Yahoo Search.  Eventually, Icahn settled for three board seats at Yahoo - including one for himself. 

However, a recent threat of an anti-trust lawsuit against the Google-Yahoo deal made Google withdraw. Read their blog post on the same here. That’s when Yang again sent out feelers to Microsoft, saying Yahoo willing to re-negotiate the deal though this time, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer declined.

BoomTown reported that Yang was stepping down - they published an internal mail sent out by Yang to Yahoo employees, here. Yang will return to his previous role as Chief Yahoo.

None of this is good for Yahoo - such an uncertain environment for a company impacts growth as potential partners may defer deals, and employees may look for more secure environs.

Saving Indian Media: Part I - The Internet

Note: If you have an opinion to share with our readers, please do send across your contribution at nikhil AT medianama DOT com. However, please bear in mind that the selection of posts for publishing is a subjective decision, and we may request you for changes. 

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by Shyam Somanadh

Indian media has had the good fortune of being in a market reality that is different from the ones we see in the west. Empowered by our third world status, we have a market that is still far from being saturated and playing on potential than actuals, we have had it good for a while now. The past five years has been a time of extreme prosperity in the segment, with everyone and their uncle (or aunt) starting a publication or a television channel because the uncle (or aunt) next-door has one.

Quite a few of these entities were built on the ‘invest-now-reap-the-benefits-later’ school of thought that is the cornerstone of a bullish market. When the industry as a whole is trending upwards in its vitals, almost everyone wants in on a piece of the action. Losses are glossed over, since at least some money is coming in and ‘it is just a matter of time’ before the huge chunk of change comes in. Which is all fine when the going is good. Trouble is that the going is not that good anymore.

Internet

If there is one thing that has marked the eight-plus years that I have had the good fortune of being a part of this industry, it is the perpetual promise of a better and bigger tomorrow. The number of times you hear “when the market opens up” at any industry event is always greater than the sightings of companies actually having a clue about what they are trying to accomplish in the long run. I have written at length on this topic before, so i won’t subject you to more of the same torture and we’ll look at the possible solutions:

1) Cut content creation costs: Let us face it, 80% of content across the majority of the media websites are pretty much the same. The troubling aspect of that equation is that every year it gets more expensive to produce this content, while the returns on it decreases every year. With the advent of the new traffic brokers like Google, Digg, Fark and a multitude of other aggregation points, it is extremely important to get the outlay of effort (between original and non-original content) right.

Content in this age and time is very much like data in consumer internet these days - not all of it is created equal, nor should it be treated equally. The takeaway from this being that you cannot put equal amounts of effort across your content segments. Content needs to be treated in accordance with the returns you receive on it. Well-performing content does not add much to existing numbers when you work on the quality side of it. You need to work the quantity side on those to make a difference.

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India TV Sets Up Interactive Company; To What End?

It’s over a year since India TV launched their website, and began streaming their sensationalised (occasionally comical) news content online. The company has now announced the formation of India TV Interactive (ITVI) with Arvind Mahendru as SVP (New Media) of ITVI. Mahendru will report to India TV MD Ritu Dhawan, and joins from GroupM. He has worked with Bharti Airtel as GM Marketing, Indiatimes as Chief Manager (Broadband), as well as media companies like Zee Turner and Star TV.

ITVI will focus on the digital domains - Internet, Mobile and probably other platforms like IPTV. Over the past couple of years - with an eye on valuations and possibly an IPO, several Indian media companies have established separate digital subsidiaries:

HT Media - Firefly e-Ventures
India Today and TV Today Ltd - India Today Digital (Digital Today)
UTV - UTV Interactive and UTV New Media
NDTV Ltd - NDTV Convergence
Network18 Group - Web18
BAG Films & Media Ltd - BAG Convergence

The problem is that many of these digital companies haven’t yet turned a profit, and with a global recession in sight, a $1 Billion IPO on NASDAQ (you know whom I’m talking about) is certainly not on the cards any more. So, from India TVs perspective - too little too late?

India TV had raised $11.5 Million from Fuse+ Media (part of Velocity Interactive Groupfor a 19.17% stake), and another Rs. 20 Crores from Shyam Equities earlier this year.

STAR JV With Korean Co Gets FIPB Approval For Shopping Channel

STAR CJ Network India, a joint venture between Star India and South Korean company CJ Home Shopping, has received an FIPB approval for setting up a home shopping channel in India. The approval allows the joint venture to invest up to 100 percent foreign investment in the channel. Media reports had suggested that the JV is looking to invest around $2 Million, and is probably going to be launched in early 2009.

The channel will compete with HomeShop18, the venture from Network18 which has both a TV and an online presence. In July this year, Homeshop18 had raised Rs. 90 crores in a second round of funding from its investors SAIF Partners (Rs. 68.3 crores) and Capital18 (Rs. 21.3 crores).

What attracts STAR to this genre? Well, for one thing - the growth. Going through Network18s financial results, I noticed that Homeshop18 has doubled its revenues since Q1 - they reported a quarter-on-quarter increase in operating revenues of 64%, at Rs. 5.03 crores for Q209, up from Rs. 2.46 crores for Q109, and an increase in orders of almost 50 percent. So how big is the market for sauna belts in India? Not that Network18 is doing well, though - the company has reported net losses for the last many quarters - this time, of Rs. 16.77 crores.

Disclosure: I own an inconsequential number of shares of Network18

Malayalam Newspaper Mathrubhumi Goes Mobile

Mathrubhumi, among Kerala’s most prominent newspapers, has gone mobile as a co-branded site with Kerala based startup MobMe Wireless. While access to content is free, and users can download images published on Mathrubhumi in various sizes for free, they do need to sign up to comment, and verify their mobile number. MobMe co-founder Sony Joy told us that the registration is necessary to ensure that the commenters are traceable.

MobMe has a revenue-share deal with Mathrubhumi, and are combining to sell ads for the mobile platform. “It’s easier for Mathrubhumi to get advertisers. We’re testing the waters on the usage patterns, and how the SMS marketing is working right now. Around 46,000 subscribers have subscribed via SMS, and we’ll be sending them WAP links - 2-3 alerts every day. We’re not looking at advertisements on those SMS’ right now”. I asked Joy about operator tie-ups, and he said they’re looking that option, since the site helps increase GPRS usage.

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