Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Free local magazines Contd

After posting my previous post, i did the mail all the columnists mentioned there.
It was quite good and indeed was very happy to receive replies from all.
Balakumar of Talkmedia did reply a detailed mail which not only opened my eyes but also my thoughts.

It was very candid.

The highlights of the mail are
  • As mentioned in the update of previous post, the columns are available online.
  • Online advertising is not that successful in India as it is to be reported in India.
  • Revenue model of Online Ads
  • ROI for the media organizations to keep the net editions alive is neglible.
  • Our customer is happy with the reach provided from print media.
  • Lack of internet penetration
Look at yahoo and AOL, they are not profitable. May be you could call them dying dinasours. Still Microsoft wants to buy it. that too for $45 billion dollars. possibly even hike the offer.
At the same time google is still raking in money.(Will they be tomorrow's yahoo and AOL is altogether another interesting topic) Google does face controversies about its revenue from ads as well as ad click frauds

oh are we talking about India?
Local Commerce portal sulekha will enter capital market when they clock revenue of $30 million

So i feel it is all about the way the business is run, rather than the business model. May be the online advertising is not successful due to the lack of internet penetration.

ROI is neglible. Well this was the one that surprised me the most. Why i was having an understanding that it is possible to reduce the intermediate costs or make them disappear.

Reg the customer point of view, my point is mostly the customer never knows what he/she wants. ( did we ever ask for a walk man, or ipod?)

A strong word of caution, the above are my theoritical standpoints, possibly an illusionary one hallucinating with a myopic vision. When a person who goes through the grind day in and day out facing the an myriad of practical problems, it is better to listen to him

P.S
learnt a very big lesson, that i should do my research before i write! As well as i should learn to make a stand!

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