The Hindu Business Line : Here's a surprise: Pay sites are paying off!

IT was perhaps their biggest gamble for survival, but the few dotcoms in India that dared to become paid sites say their strategy is starting to pay off.

When online ad revenues failed to grow, three free sites - a news portal, an e-mail and an e-greetings site - decided last year to charge their users in a move that is yet to be proved and accepted in the World Wide Web.

It was 123India.com which first made its e-mail service a paid one in June 2001, followed by e-greetings site, ArchiesOnline, in August. News portal, TheNewspaperToday.com, decided to become a paid site after one-year's free ride in November.

Since then the number of `hits' and `eyeballs' - the once-cherished but now forgotten words of cyberspace - to these sites may have dropped drastically, but officials say they have been quite successful in meeting initial user targets as more and more Indians are willing to pay to surf.

"We have had over 12,000 subscribers to our premium e-mail service," Mr Sanjeev Swarup, Senior Manager with 123India.com, claims. "And as much as 60 per cent (of the subscribers) are going in for renewal," Mr Swarup told Business Line.

123India.com charges Rs 600 for six months and Rs 1,000 for a year to subscribe to its e-mail service. Before going paid, the portal had above one million e-mail users.

According to Ms Kalli Puri, CEO of TheNewspaperToday.com, the portal has been able to meet its subscriber targets for the first quarter. "We are in the process of initiating a motion to include TheNewspaperToday in the Audit Bureau of Circulation as a publication," she says, while declining to disclose any number.

Subscribers pay Rs 299 for six months, Rs 499 for one year and Rs 899 for two years to surf TheNewspaperToday.com.

ArchiesOnline, a subsidiary of greeting card major, Archies, too claims that it has over 10,000 registered users who have paid Rs 399 for 100 e-greetings a year.

Says Mr Youhan Darrab Aria, Chief Officer, Logistics & Finance, Archies Online.com Ltd: "Our decision to go paid was vindicated when leading e-greeting site, Bluemountain.com, too adopted a similar model. People have started to accept paid sites ... and we hope to break even by the end of this fiscal."

According to Ms Puri, it is mainly the employed people and businessmen who subscribe to her site.

"They are from SEC A invariably and in the age group of 25-40 years. We have around 37 per cent NRI subscribers," she says.

However, many feel it is a trifle too early to say that being a paid-site is the sure-fire way of success on the Internet.

"Surely, the numbers they are talking about are pretty impressive considering the fact that there are a lot of free sites around. But, it is still a long haul," says Mr Rajesh Menon, Business Head - Marketing, Brandquiver, a firm doing consulting for online advertising and brand-building.

But more dotcoms are going the paid way. Recently Rediff.com too introduced a subscription-based personalised e-mail service called `Rediffmail Pro', which charges Rs 1,499 for a period of one year, targeting corporates.

Remember the time of dotcom boom when some Web sites would even pay you to surf? As you wonder when your e-mail will go paid next, all you can do now is to say how good those days were!

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section
Mobile prices slashed

AI gets a good deal on risk premium payout

More sops for domestic area suppliers likely

PDS grain prices to be cut further

FII investment in pvt banks outside 49 pc FDI limit

Diesel consumption takes a dip in Feb

Here's a surprise: Pay sites are paying off!