Tue, 11 Apr 2000 08:22:39 +0530
From: "Mahesh Murthy"
Re: [IndiaEntrepreneurs] Paper and Portal

There is a small distinction to be made in the Times Of India's case. Yes, the newspaper is Times of India, but its website is Timesofindia.com. Indiatimes.com is, technically speaking, a broad portal with a lot more content than its print parent, TOI, or its news site cousin, Timesofindia.com. It's the same with Hindustan Times, hindustantimes.com and digitalHT.com (or is that now called go4i.com?)

Three issues seem common in these cases:
1. The reason for the new sites perhaps is the fact that the intellectual property around the original brand name is in confused hands and a new generation of people/owners may want clear title to the new property. Perhaps a different title also allows them to be more flexible with the brand. (i.e. one may not imagine The Times of India loudly and seriously hyping an astrology section, as indiatimes.com does)
2. Combined ad-selling is yet to begin - or so one understands, in either case. One believes there are different teams with different objectives leading revenue efforts for these businesses. In Indiatimes' case, one understands that senior people have been lost to other firms - and it certainly is not out there selling as aggressively as the TOI is.
3. In each case, though, the idea is to use the might of the parent property to promote the new in-house brand - see how Indiatimes has 1000s of column centimetres of ad space (one would imagine, for free or nominal price) in Times Of India's print properties. One believes this may be more of a case of people at traditional print properties using their might to launch an entirely new product that's only slightly related to the parent brand.

Just my $0.02,
Mahesh

From: i_shiv_kumar
To: indiaentrepreneurs@egroups.com
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2000 9:23 AM
Re: Paper and Portal

Hello indiaentrepreneurs, Paper and Portal is a very catchy buzzword. Hopefully it will be picked up by others in the industry. While I agree that the paper part of the publication will make more money than the portal part, there is a big really BIG catch. The publication has to be number one or number two in its segment. As they say, the number one picks up the cream and the number two just abt survives. The rest simply die out. An example of a successful paper and portal business is that of indiatimes.com and The Times of India. The paper is number one in Bombay, threatening to topple the leader in Delhi, Bangalore and other cities. Naturally it has a lot of synergies to offer along with its portal avatar. indiatimes.com is already threatening to topple rediff.com and the ToI's managers are threatening to evaluate each of its brands like timesofindia.com, economictimes.com, filmfare.com separately. The size of the organisation which will come about as a result can only be imagined. An important sidelight: ToI is also into music retailing and distribution, so it dovetails nicely with its online and offline businesses. But what is good for the Times will not be good for the rest. The Asian Age which has a respectable circulation in Bombay and Calcutta is not receiving any ads for the last six years. But for the rich businessmen who sustain the paper it would have shut shop long ago. So entrepreneurs who dream of setting up paper and portal businesses from scratch are betting on two horses in multi-horse derby. But take over a successful paper publishing company and it promises to be a different story. If indiainfo.com takes over India Abroad News Service as reported in the press it promises to become the biggest online and offline news network in India. Because, unlike ToI it will sell its news feeds to other parties and agencies.
Shiv Kumar

Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 12:04:04 +0530
From: "Mahesh Murthy"
Re: Paper-and-Portal: Real and virtual publications

One believes there is significant merit in looking at doing a paper-and-portal (there, did we just create another buzzphrase?:-) publication.

A few reasons:
1. When you consider the primary revenue model - advertising - one will probably make far more money on the paper part of it, because that's what clients know how to buy, sales reps know how to sell and ad agencies know how to create. (Sad, but true.) In fact the paper part will probably help subsidise the portal part. Perhaps the 'paper' will make the revenues while the 'portal' will make the valuations .

2. One might be an older user, but I tend to consume bite-sized news online, and yet want a hard copy to peruse at will. (Or atleast that's the excuse I use when my wife threatens to throw out my paper pile of Industry Standards, Wireds or PC Magazines:-)). I do know everything's online - but I don't just tent to "hunt" articles - but also be in "gather" or browse mode a lot of the time. And paper's still a little better, one thinks, for that.

3. Paper's physical presence helps build the online brand. One believes that among the reasons why 'Wired' is bigger than 'Suck', or 'New Yorker' is bigger than 'Slate', or 'Motley Fool' is bigger than 'TheStreet' is that they all have a presence offline.

As an aside, I'd urge the promoters to think of adding a third face, beyond 'paper' and 'portal'. It is physical or personal 'presence' - for want of a better word beginning with 'P':-). Look at how Fast Company has built a physical network by having get-togethers of its readers to create a physical network around the world - it's called "Company of Friends". That will help it get the lead over Business 2.0, one believes. See if you can incorporate an element of community and networking around the readers of your publication - as a niche publication, it would probably be easier to define and locate your readers.

That will, over time, help you build a significant competitive advantage.

My $0.02,

Mahesh

From: i_shiv_kumar
To: indiaentrepreneurs@egroups.com
Hi Ritesh and Ashok, I think the idea of a niche publication coming out in both the real and virtual worlds is a great idea. As a journalist with several years in the print media and now about to get into virtual publishing I can see a lot of potential in the business. For example, I am a subscriber to the print and paper issue of the magazine which comes out fortnightly/monthly. Assuming that it disseminates news of a niche interest, I will have to wait for a considerable length of time to receive my copy by which time the information could be stale. So I log onto the net and read the updates after entering my subscription number and catch up. Alternatively the net edition can be a storehouse for archival material and value-added services like message boards, interaction between subscribers, etc. Both should complement each other or else it would be like the online editions of magazines currently in the business. The same dope is dished out on the net after a gap of one week.

Shiv Kumar

Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2000 13:28:45 PDT
From: "ritesh arora"
Re: Paper-and-Portal: Real and virtual publications
Carrying on with the discussion on developing multiple media for the proposed publication in discussion here. I suggest one visit Investment.com, an efinance website catering largely to the mainstream investor. Investment.com in the last three months has bought two print publications and renamed the magazines under the Investment.com brand. This not only helps Investment.com to sell combo packages across multiple media to its advertisers, but also helps the Company provide print ads to its online business partners in return of business services from them. In essence, a print ad is sold on the magazine and a business service for the dot com has been solicited in the process. Did someone say, "ek teer se do shikaar". And dont forget all the future advertising dollar saved by the Company by creating a media publication of its own. You can check out the details of these acquistions in the press releases on the Investment.com corporate site - hqinvestment.com So, it seems useful not only for print publications to have an online version but viceversa for dotcoms to go the print way. Ritesh Arora
Vancouver, Canada