Webdunia.com , India's first language Internet portal, is undergoing a major make-over in technology and branding with a view to emerge as the country's largest portal.
As part of its ambitious plan, Webdunia portal is now available in 5 additional languages, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Kannada and Punjabi. The new language portals now take the number of language portals to 9, the highest to be addressed by any single company. Webdunia has invested over 1200 person months of software effort in creating these new portals. Webdunia foresaw the potential of the Indian language portals in the country early and pioneered the launch of Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam portals in end 1990s
500 mn to access Webdunia.com in own language
With these 9 portals, Webdunia will now be able to address over four-fifth of India's billion plus population. Given literacy levels of over 60%, this allows Webdunia to share the latest from the world of news, sports, entertainment and astrology to over 500 million Indians.
Based on the advice of global experts from the field of internet branding and customer feedback, Webdunia has also adopted a common contemporary look & feel, and identity under the Webdunia.com brand. Earlier, the language brands were being promoted as Webdunia for Hindi, Weblokam in Malayalam, Webprapancham in Telegu and Webulagam in Tamil.
The company plans to invest over Rs. 25 crore in the next three years on brand building and mass media advertising.
Strengthens technology: Jump starts Search, Adopts Unicode
Webdunia achieved major technology breakthrough by migrating to Unicode that allows a portal in any of the 9 languages to be accessed on virtually any computer without having to download the language fonts. The company's software R&D teams are at work to further strengthen the search engine backbone. This will allow users to search information in their own language on both Webdunia.com and the World Wide Web.
Some of the distinctive services like the mythology of festivals, religion and useful tips from the world of science and health have already given it the necessary pull (termed as stickiness in Internet terminology) from registered users whose number is growing 6-8% month after month even as the beta version of the portals get ready for a full fledged launch in the coming festival season.
Being early creators of language content and technology for global software majors has given Webdunia unmatched expertise to build in ease of input in 11 Indian languages, seamless transmission and display on a recipient's computer screen. Oriya and Assamese are the two additional languages for which email service is available.
"Our indigenous technology makes Webdunia one of the finest language emails not only in India but the world over," says Mr. Vinay Chhajlani, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Webdunia.com.
Interestingly, for sending an e-mail in any of the 11 languages the sender does not need a language key board or language software. Nor does the recipient need any language software.
Full flavour of the native language
Webdunia follows the values of editorial and language integrity imbibed through its rich heritage of N aidunia, the 60 year old Hindi newspaper from Central India .
At a time when some of the Indian language newspapers and, therefore, the portals have been inclined to dilute the purity of the language, Webdunia has built a pool of writers and journalists who are passionate about their language.
Dispelling the myth that one single organisation cannot have the expertise in serving up content in multiple Indian languages, Mr. Pankaj Jain, President and Chief Operating Officer of Webdunia said, "Webdunia content teams operate across multiple locations in India so that the writers and editors bring in the a well rounded flavour of the native with the authenticity that each of the languages deserves.
Webdunia's digital greeting cards are designed for diverse Indian festivals and occasions and capture the distinctive style of native art and form.
Speaking about the challenges in achieving its goal of becoming India's largest portal, Mr. Chhajlani said, "The growing number of users on Webdunia.com is indicative of the benefits of Internet that Indians are seeing. The computer penetration at one computer for every 50 Indians is indeed limiting but I would say internet access is the biggest hurdle.
"In order to enhance Internet access in the country the service providers have to devise inexpensive lifetime broadband packages at prices that are hard to resist," Mr. Chhajlani added.
About WebduniaWebdunia, India's largest multi-lingual portal, offers quality content to the people of different religions, cultures and age groups. Nine Indian language portals of Webdunia offer channels like news from the world of politics, sports and human interest stories, Bollywood, Life-Style, Religion, Science, IT, Career, Astrology, Literature, etc. Live cricket commentary, ticker and Webdunia Poll are some other major highlights of Webdunia language portals.
Email service is available in 11 languages—Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu.
Headquartered in Indore, Webdunia Content and Technology development centres operate from Chennai, Indore and Thiruvananthapuram.
For more details please visit
2. Email service is available in 11 languages-Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati,
Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu.
Or Contact:
At Strategic Communications and PR Counsel
Sanjiv Kataria
+91 98100 48095
sanjiv.kataria@webdunia.com
sanjiv.kataria@gmail.com
At
Sandeep Sisodiya
customer.care@webdunia.net
