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Hindustan Times shuts down digitalht; sets up new portal

Vipin Kumar

NEW DELHI, June 23

THE Hindustan Times has wound up its portal, digitalht.com, as the newspaper has launched a full-fledged horizontal portal, `go4i.com', in association with Chase Capital Partners and the HDFC group.

From today, visitors to the digitalht site will be automatically taken to the go4i.com site, said Mr. Piyush Gupta, CEO of go4i.com (India) Pvt. Ltd.

``After consultations with management gurus, it has been decided to shut down digitalht immediately rather than doing it later. We have moved the entire team of 20 people in digitalht to go4i.com,'' Mr. Gupta told Business LineJun. 23

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Although a good deal of brand building has been carried out for promoting digitalht, The Hindustan Times has decided to focus entirely on go4i.com rather than having two similar portals.

``There will not be any brand building for digitalht now although it is an established name,'' Mr. Gupta said.

Mr. Gupta said go4i.com would leverage on the content and sales force of The Hindustan Times to emerge as a leading portal in the country.

A slew of channels such as `go4cricket.com' and `go4health.com' are being launched to cater to different tastes and to address different segments through joint ventures and tie-ups. This would also ensure a range of revenue streams.

``We have already launched `go4cricket.com' through a joint venture with Midday and a group of individuals. Now we are forging another joint venture with Nicholas Piramal to launch a healthcare portal, `go4health.com'. In the offing are channels on trave l, automobiles etc through tie-ups with other portals,'' he said.

On the range of revenue models of the portal, Mr. Gupta said go4i.com would have earnings from advertisements, business-to-consumer (B2C) offerings, merchandising cricket memorabilia and content syndication.

``Our plan is to offer a bundled package for advertisers. For example, you may place a full page ad in the HT and also one on the site at a discounted rate than otherwise. We also have similar plans for the classified ads,'' he said.

Under the B2C strategy, the portal will tie up with various vendors and institutions to offer products and services. ``We have already tied up with Music World, HDFC and Bajaj Capital and more such alliances are in the pipeline,'' he said.

go4i.com will also syndicate its content, especially on cricket and travel, to other Web sites and publications. Selling cricket memorabilia would also rake in money for the site, Mr. Gupta claimed, adding that the site has already signed up 10 cricket s tars to write exclusively for the site.

The portal is also attaching an offline revenue model. A 51:49 joint venture with US-based Stanton Chase, `go4careers.com' has already been set up for placement services. Another joint venture, `go4ticketing.com' has been forged with Big Tree to offer au tomated ticketing for movies and other entertainment events.

``We are hopeful of a turnover of Rs 30 crores in the second year of operations,'' Mr. Gupta said, adding that go4i.com would break even in the next two years and become profitable in the year thereafter.

``We are planning a public issue of the portal in the next couple of years. Whether to go for an overseas float or a domestic one would depend on the prevailing market conditions at that time,'' he said.

The Hindustan Times and Chase Capital Partners hold 38 per cent each in the venture, while the HDFC group has eight per cent. The remaining equity is earmarked for employee stock option. The total investment in the venture in the initial phase is $15 mil lions.