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In the news: India.CNET.com
Priya Srinivasan
Mumbai: CNET Asia, a joint-venture between Asiacontent.com and CNET Networks has launched India.CNET.com, the technology site which is the seventh vertical country-specific channel of the JV, in India. CNET Asia is already present in Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia. CNET Asia has committed about $13 million to the region but officials were unwilling to disclose a country-wise break up of the investment. India.CNET.com has been launched with four channels: news, hardware, software and gamecenter. The site has tied up with Webduniya.com, a regional language site to translate content for the Hindi section. Speaking to eFE, Andrey Purushottam, director, Asiacontent.com said that the channel had tied up with Stayamonline to create co-branded pages and was also in talks with various other horizontal portals including Yahoo! to enter into co-branding arrangements. "We believe in having various online as well as offline channels of distribution," said Peter Schoppert, director, CNET Asia. "We see horizontal portals as one channel of distribution, as far as offline distribution goes, we sometimes work with industry players wherein we could maybe supply product reviews for their sites as we've done for Compaq or put out CNET shows on television and on the radio as we've done in the US and other markets," he added. Schoppert added that CNET Asia would pursue all of these avenues to push distribution in India. Asiacontent is a majority stake holder in CNET Asia and is actually responsible for managing the brandall over Asia, supplying content as well as planning strategies for the brand. The company recently entered into JVs with CBSMarketwatch, the popular US based finance site as well as CBSSportsline to chart their foray into Asia. Asiacontent's other JV includes one with MTV Networks (whose India site is poised to go live by September) besides license agreements with E! Online and Mplayer. CNET Networks Web content has been localised for nine Asia Pacific markets so far, including Australia. The company plans a foray into Europe shortly. The company's television programs are broadcast in about 100 countries worldwide. Both Asiacontent and CNET Networks are Nasdaq listed companies. Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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