Rediff Vs Indiatimes Vs Web18 : Indian Internet War

We have seen several internet wars in the past:

1. Netscape Vs Internet Explorer

2. MSN Vs Yahoo Vs Google

3. Facebook Vs My Space

4. Google Vs Bing

5. Facebook Vs Google [Which still continues]

But they all were in USA and we have never seen this to happen in India till now.

Today when i saw an advertisement in Times Of India showing Indiatimes getting more unique visitors than Rediff and Web18, smell like a new war will start soon. Actually this all happens because of report of Comscore showing Indiatimes over Rediff and Web18 in unique visitors and Web18 over Indiatimes and Rediff in terms of traffic.

Lets see on what front can they fight and who will emerge winner:

1. NEWS: News the most important service given by them. Indiatimes has an advantage that they have the leading newspaper Times Of India, Economic Times and Financial Times so people will prefer reading its online news. Web18 has leading news network woth CNBC and IBN so they may also lead over Rediff. With Rediff we have the advantage that its famous in US so they will be prefered in US which contributes most of the advertising revenues. My rank Indiatimes>>Web18>>Rediff.

2. Mail: Rediff is quite famous and their Rediffmail NG has proved to be one of the best mail service on Mobile at Rs 50. In.com Mail is also good enough and people will like it after they use but it needs to gain market. In.com Mail has done quite an advertising so may be we see it growing. Indiatimes Mail is below standard and even they pay no attention to it. My rank Rediff>>Web18>>Indiatimes.

3. Search: Rediff is light so a preferred home page of many and will go under a seach deal. While other two: Web18 and Indiatimes, have a partnership with google. My rank Rediff>>Web18>>Indiatimes.

4. Social: Rediff has “My Page” which needs revamp. Inditimes has Itimes which has integrated mail service but lacks chat. Web18 has no presence in this area. My rank Indiatimes>>Rediff>>Web18.

According to me its going to be tough fight among them and Rediff seems to be emerging as a winner.

My Rank:

1. Rediff (which may be Google of India)

2. Indiatimes (which may be MSN of India)

3. Web18 (Which may be Yahoo of India)

Rediff focusing back to India

It is very essential to have market in US for a Internet company to be in profit since most of the advertisement spendings comes from there. Indian companies like Rediff kept their focus on NRI to earn the market share in USA.

But with there mobile approach India has emerged as the most important market and now they have their focus primary on India. With the launch of Rediffmail NG they have shown that they will now provide push mail type service on mobile and will try to best Yahoo and Google using this kind of service at Rs. 50.

It will be interesting to see that where does this new Mobile focus approach take them. Still according to me it is the most impressive launch done by Rediff in recent time. They use to be famous among students but lost there market share later. It can be a come back move by them. Still i will say that Rediff should launch a social site as social sites going to give all facilities in future and will be the all in one integrated Internet solution.

So sites which are social will only survive and rest will have to loose their market share. Its already started with the rise of Facebook and Twitter, and fall of Yahoo and Aol.

Future of Rediff

Rediff is one of the oldest internet company in India. Rediffmail and Rediffbol are one of the most popular mail service and chat messenger in the history, respectively. But in the last four years company has seen only downfall but recently they have seen the upside. The reason for reduction in loss is mainly because of their new move to enter into mobile.

At the beginning of 2010, when Rediff revamped there homepage and mail service, it was for sure they have mobile as the main focus. And with the recent revamped Rediffmail NG and new push mail service at Rs. 50 shows that they will now be more mobile.

The idea of Rediff going mobile is good for the future keeping in mind that India has more mobiles than computer and laptops. Also 3G will boost the web on mobile with range of smart-phones in the market. Rediff use to be popular among the students and hence targeting mobile might help them to stay with Facebook and Gmail which has become the web youth icons.

Rediff has realize the fact that “For rediff to win, there is no need for google and facebook to loose” . Hence all three can survive with their next generation products.

Rediffmail revamped: Rediffmail NG – The NEXT GENERATION

Rediff is all set to make a comeback and get all users back from Ymail and Gmail. Rediff with the launch Rediffmail NG provide a cheap push mail at Rs.50.

Good Points of Rediffmail NG:

1. Faster and Sleek: With the use of Ajax its now faster and better service. Its sleek design give a feel of faster and easy to use look.

2. Send SMS: Now you can send SMS from your inbox, no need to go to any specific site to send sms.

3. Themes: Like Gmail themes, now Rediffmail also have a collection of themes.

4. Tab Features: Like Ymail tab feature, we can easily do multi-tasking using tab feature of Rediffmail.

5. Auto-Forward Mail: Now you can forward all your mails to another email id automatically.

6. Push Mail: Not at just Rs.50 you can get the push mail on your Microteck phone. Even on Android, Blackberry and Symbians etc.

In short, Rediff has worked well and combine some useful features from Gmail and Ymail. Rediffmail is now ready to compete with them in the market.

Bad Points of Rediffmail NG:

1. Compatibility Issue: It works well on IE 8, Firefox 3.6.10, Chome 7, Flock 3 and Epic 1.1 but have design issues in Opera 10.63. Hope will rectified soon.

2. Chat within Inbox Missing: Chat from Inbox is one of the feature in demand these days as we cannot waste time in installing the chat messenger on every system (home and office) we use. Gmail chat got so popular that Google stop working on Gtalk.

3. Lab Feature Missing: People needs to do experiment and want something new. Gmail gives them with the new feature every week and also give them a choice to use or not. This helps Google to analyze the user preference and work on that. Also give a choice to user to select what he wants. This should be included.

All these features are a requirement of next generation so hope that will be included soon.