Update: via our discerning readers @codelust and @arjunram, we're introduced to the "ten ways' phenomenon: Indiatimes, Yahoo, Sify, Rediff, AOL, MSN. Earlier: With newswires accounting for much of the content on Indian horizontal portals, what really differentiates horitontals in India? Is usability and site design enough for you to choose one over the other? Or is it content: is there a specific story or report that you remember from, say, Indiatimes, Rediff and Yahoo, or even Sify, MSN and AOL.in? In most cases, the content mix is the same, right down to the bikini babes section. Sure, they all have some amount of original content, but for years now I have had no major reason to pick one over the other, apart from perception. The thing that strikes me most about these portals (at least, the first three) is that at their level of traffic and pageviews, getting 5-10 million pageviews a month more or less probably doesn't make much of a difference: what matters is how their brand is perceived by users and media planners in comparison with other close competitors. Harping on Comscore numbers, however little they themselves may know about how the numbers are arrived at, is another means of changing a media planners perception. But what matters more, in my opinion, is how often they are talked about in a positive light, and who is talking about them. Changes in design are important for a change in perception; for example, I think better of a more…
