When Yahoo!, one of the global Internet media giants, together with venture capital firm Cannan Partners, announced its investment of $8.6 mn in Bharatmatrimony.com, an Indian online matrimonial site, it heralded a new phase in Indias evolving Internet space. Yahoo!s investment decision comes close on the heels of its top brass, which includes co-founder Jerry Yang and CEO Terry Semel, recent visit to India. But Yahoo! is not the only global media portal to chase the India dream. A host of other biggies that include Google (the search engine giant) and MSN (Microsofts flag bearer in the cyberspace) have evinced keen interest to play on the Indian cyberturf. Recently, MSN announced that it would launch its AdCenter, similar to Adwords of Google, in India by mid-2007. Google has already launched its Adwords service in the country, early this year. However, much before India was spotted on the radar screen of Yahoo! and Google, the US-based online auction giant eBay had already developed a strong base in India by acquiring bazee.com in 2004.
The
biggest lure for these Internet majors is India's emerging online classified ad
market. Experts suggest that as online biggies bet that classified advertising
revenues would be moving away significantly from newspapers to the Internet, as
witnessed in developed markets like the US, it would offer significant growth
potential for them. Already, a handful of local Internet sites are diversifying
into other areas to augment their revenue base. For instance, bharatmatrimony.com
is foraying into Web-based marketing for real estate and job segments. Indeed,
as many suggest, these firms want to replicate businesses which have been successful
in the US and other developed
markets.
With
the global Internet majors all set to storm the Indian Internet advertising space
in a big way, it is surely going to pose significant challenges to the local bigwigs
like Sify and Rediff.
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