Thiruvananthapuram : After live broadcasts and telecasts, it's now over to organised live Webcasting. At least one portal in the country believes Webcasting of festivals and melas will serve a social cause as well as bring in much-needed ad revenues by attracting more eyeballs at the national and international level. Thebharat.com, promoted by Nagpur-based Transweb Solutions (India) Ltd plans to enter this segment in a big way through the Webcasting of Maha Kumbhmela in Allahabad from January 8 to February 24."The sole purpose of this association is to provide assistance to pilgrims vis-a-vis information about the event, accommodation facilities, travel programmes etc, according to Mr Vijayakumar Dayma, chairman and managing director of Transweb. For those unable to participate in the first kumbh of this millennium, the bharat.com would provide a comprehensive coverage of the festival. The portal would be updated every two hours and the updates would be Webcast there itself, Mr Dayma on a visit to Thiruvananthapuram told The Financial Express.For the benefit of pilgrims and tourists, the bharat.com would be putting up a mammoth effort of making individuals janm kundalis on the spot. Moreover, the company would also be distributing books on temples, religion and related topics free of cost at Allahabad.
After gauging the response to Webcasting of Kumbh mela, bharat.com would be covering other major festivals where lakhs of people congregate. Transweb hopes to raise Rs 2-3 crore annually out of Webcasting of Kumbhmela.Meanwhile, bharat.com has also ambitious plans to launch similar portals in Dubai, USA, Germany, France and UK. The gulfinfo.com would serve as an information-cum-trading portal for the Gulf, Mr Dayama said. He claimed that thebharat.com must be the only dotcom company in India to break even in the first year of operations. The firm has made a 5 per cent net profit on a modest turnover of Rs 1 crore, he claimed.
Transweb - which is also into Web designing and hosting, software development - has achieved a daily hit rate of 8-10,000 for its portal. It covers a wide range of topics from history, culture, architecture, astrology, news, business, NRI investments and so on.
Transweb is also trying out certain innovative advertising strategies. Now its advertisements will be displayed for a year in cabin baggage tags of all Indian Airlines flights as per an agreement. "This type of ads will help us reach the target audience better at economical rates than print ads ," Mr Dayma added.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.