Indiatimes voted the best Indian news site

BANGALORE: On an unusually nippy Thursday night, a picturesque Bangalore Palace resonated with the high-decibel coronation ceremony of indiatimes.com, as the country''s best news site. Winning the PC Quest Users'' Choice Award in this category -- three times in a row -- is indeed a creditable achievement.
Says Rajesh Sawhney, Chief Operating Officer, of the portal: "For quite sometime now we have been assiduously nurturing the brand.The compelling content created from the elaborate network of the parent company and a thorough understanding of our audience tastes has helped us remain in the forefront of innovation."
Infusing brevity, and in certain cases depth, to the news content, has been the portal''s perpetual endeavour. The thrust now will be to form special user interest groups and disseminate content through SMS and voice messaging.
As in the past, the Users'' Choice survey this year was conducted by IMRB. The survey added six new categories this time and covered both businesses and households. The business establishments were divided into large businesses, small and medium enterprises and software companies. The household sample was confined to only SEC (Socio-Economic Classification) A and above, as these are the households with maximum buying power. The survey for households and businesses was conducted in six and seven top cities of India respectively. Close to 1,500 personal interviews were conducted.
The portal has emerged as the leading e-commerce player, with gross merchandising value at about Rs 60 crore per annum. Ad revenues have showed a 300 per cent growth over last year. These highs notwithstanding, the real challenge for indiatimes.com will be to conceive and spawn multiple-revenue streams that scale progressively.
"E-commerce, ad sales and mobile Internet initiatives, like our 8888 SMS channel, have been three areas of high growth. The next major initiative will be to create a robust subscription model for some of our popular offerings on the site," says Sawhney.
As part of this strategy, in the next three months, certain specific offerings are expected to be fee-based. Fortunately, the news-hungry can continue to consume undisturbed for some more time. International trends in this space indicate that the user conversion rate from free subscription to paid subscription is anywhere between 2 to 10 per cent.
But statistics have never deterred indiatimes.com. The portal will continue to rewrite and redefine the rules of the game. For an enduring brand, these are early days, yet.