We noticed that website for India Today, the flagship publication of the Living Media Group, was soft-launched in the evening yesterday. The India Today Group Digital (ITGD) has also launched publications Money Today, Prevention and Business Today earlier this year; India Today is the groups most significant launch yet. Remember – this is a group which had launched initiatives like thenewspapertoday.com and mailmetoday.com before the dotcom bust, and then went off digital for a long time.
What interests me most is how the magazine – a weekly in print – has updated news content on the website; I wonder how the site will differentiate itself from the website apparently planned for the groups daily newspaper Mail Today, which is a joint venture between the Daily Mail (LSE: DMGT) and Living Media. Supplements like India Today Aspire, Woman, Simply Delhi, Smart Money and Spice are also available online. India Today will probably drive traffic to the website from the magazine with Web Exclusives and the the Q&A with Editor Prabhu Chawla. I think, on the web, exclusivity of content is transient; what remains is the interactivity. India Today will probably try to draw in the readers with its brand, and then use interactivity to foster repeat usage. Unfortunately, the articles on the site do not allow comments, though blogs do.
The publication has also made available its archives to readers, and I quite liked the archival snippets – 30 years ago in IT. There’s additional interactivity with the Answers section powered by Rediff, as well as social bookmarking. There’s also an e-magazine, but I really don’t see the point. I prefer RSS feeds and newsletters. I wonder what this means for the magazine – I won’t pick it up from the newsstands anymore…will you?
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