WatBlog Newsletter Archive: WATBlog Update There are 2 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

Monday, September 22, 2008

WATBlog Update There are 2 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

Here are the WATBlog email updates for watblogna@gmail.com

Introducing WATSearch - A Web, Advertising & Technology Search Engine
“95% Of Our Current Revenues Come From Advertising” - Gurmeet Singh, CEO - Rajshri Media
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Search WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India

There are 2 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

Introducing WATSearch - A Web, Advertising & Technology Search Engine

Hi All,

Earlier this year we played an april fool prank which we centered around a service called WATSearch (http://search.watblog.com) which we termed as a social search engine then and got 25 comments. But now we have gone ahead and seriously launched something which we would term as a web, advertising and technology search engine.

WATSearch which can now be accessed from that same url (http://search.watblog.com) uses google custom search to search a set of handpicked india centric blogs and news sites which cover the digital media space. So if you want to know everything about a certain digital media company then this search engine could be quite useful and far effective than the normal google search or even feed search (as you may have different kind of feeds i.e. Indian and International)

Just to test the results we did take it out for a spin by testing it with three different keywords:

Keyword 1 - Rediff (A popular Indian portal) Check results

Keyword 2 - Ibibo (An Indian Social Network) Check results

Keyword 3 - Funding (Incase you want to search all the funding in this space) Check Results

Ofcourse there is a lot of improvement that can be made to this search engine by adding specific pages and reports as well and including more sites. One can easily submit their site by using this Submit form.

To whom can WATSearch be useful?

We feel Researchers, Bloggers, Digital Media Professionals, Venture Capitalists, Startup owners and anyone who wants to research or know a wholistic opinion on the digital media industry in India will find WATSearch useful.

Do give WATSearch a spin and let us know what you think?

PS: This is one of our experimental initiatives intended to add value to the Digital Media Industry. Do give us your feedback so that we can continue to create such tools and provide them to you.

WATSearch - The World’s First Social Search Engine Raises 3 Million in Funding!

Also check out

Our Jobsite: WATJob

Our Video Show: WATShow

Our Gaming Blog: WATGame

Our Consulting: WATConsult

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“95% Of Our Current Revenues Come From Advertising” - Gurmeet Singh, CEO - Rajshri Media

Rajshri.com has changed its positioning and the current design and layout makes it look like an ad driven free to view video site. Though the pay to download model is still being pursued by Rajshri the current revenues indicate that till now only advertising has worked for them as 95% of their revenues come via advertising whether in video or on the site. So this repositioning is surely aimed at increasing online viewers.

Check out the new site screenshot below

The most notable difference from the earlier site is the logo.. Check the logos below

Earlier logo

rajshri old

New Logo

rajshri-new

We spoke to the CEO of Rajshri Media, Mr.Gurmeet Singh on the new repositioning, revenue break up and future strategy.

Q) You seem to have repositioned Rajshri.com as a free entertainment video portal with the tagline “Enjoy Films.. Free!”. What is the strategy behind that?
A) We had a Consumer Research done which showed that people were surprised to know that they could actually watch movies LEGALLY on the net for free. Thats why the tagline. Its also aimed at getting new visitors.

Q) What are your current revenues in % from downloads vis a vis advertising?
A) Currently 95% of our revenues come from advertising. We are putting a strategy in place to scale up the Downloads Business.

Q) What % of your revenues do you expect from downloads vis a vis advertising in the coming years?
A) From current ratio of 5 : 95 for downloads vis a vis advertising today we expect the ratio to be 50 : 50 in the next 12 months.

Q) NRI vs Indian Audience which segment do you cater to currently? If at all would you like to change the segmentation of visitors going forward?
Currently 40% is US, 20% India then UK, Canada and Middle East form the same. We would like to retain the same ratios.

Q) Do you plan to promote rajshri.com via online and offline media? If yes what are are plans (investment in promotion)? and when will they roll out?
Yes Of Course we will promote rajshri.com through all forms of media which will be led by digital media. Advertising Budgets are confidential and cannot be disclosed.

Q) Currently a lot of the inventory on the site (non video based) is being powered by google ads. Is there a plan to ramp up an ad sales team or would you be looking at ad networks for the same in the future?
A) Yes, we have already brought in a VP Ad Sales and we will have a complete Ad Sales Team in multiple cities from October 1st. The team has been recruited. They are currently serving Notice Periods with their existing employers.

Q) You have recently launched mobisodes as well.. How has been the response to that? And where is that headed? Are there plans to create more mobisodes?
A) Mobisodes have been well received. Idea Cellular is marketing them aggressively as a part of their overall strategy. We will recover the investments and we plan to have more of these in the future. We have set the ball rolling towards our vision of being the world’s and therefore also India’s first Web & Mobile Studio.

Q) What your strategy for future content acquisition for the portal?
We have Exclusively Premiered Mukhbiir on our site for Free Streaming. Lots more in the pipeline. Rajshri’s Ek Vivah Aisa Bhi will also be premiered on the web this year.