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Quick Summary: With its new magazine style look and not-only-news focus, Alootechie will strengthen its position as the dominant authority on the Indian digital media industry.

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Alootechie, which has established itself as the Indian online industry’s news monitor, has a new look and a new focus.

I have known about the revamp for a few weeks now through conversations with Sidharth, Ravneesh, Saket and Asfaq, so when Ravneesh told me today that the new website was up, I knew what to expect.

Apart from the staple Indian and international digital industry news, the new magazine-style homepage displays a featured news story, an interview of the month, job and event boards and several guest articles. Inside, Alootechie has extended its coverage to include mobile and gaming.

While the present website is still work-in progress (watch out for the newsletter, podcasts and vidcasts), I must congratulate the Alootechie and Webchutney teams for the really cool revamp.

My favorite part of the revamped website are the guest posts, which are basically expert opinion pieces written by industry insiders. While each topic covered in the first set of these guest posts deserves a separate post on this blog, here are my top of the mind thoughts on some of them –

- Sandeep Singh, Business Director, Quasar on the future of the digital advertising agency in India —

The specialized agency model has come of age and has proved itself to be a successful one. The success can be seen by the interest large global advertising networks & VC’s have shown in the space. Now, with specialized agency model getting more specialized and niche (search marketing agencies, mobile marketing agencies, social media agencies, and digital creative hot shops making their presence felt) the scene is heating up further.

We will soon see a deluge of digital agencies and, apart from the top half a dozen integrated digital agencies, the only players to stand out from the crowd will be specialized search marketing agencies, mobile marketing agencies, viral marketing agencies and social media agencies.

- Manoj Dawane, Chief Executive Officer, Mauj Mobile on the future of the Indian mobile VAS industry –

VAS revenue predictions (are) estimated to reach Rs 4, 600 crore by the end of the current fiscal from Rs 2, 800 crore in 2006-07, according to Assocham. Going ahead, content, platform and exhibition are the key factors that will mould the existing structure of the industry.

My top-of-the-mind views: In future, Mobile VAS will drive not only mobile usage, but also web 2.0 usage. In fact, mobile will be one of the three dimensions of differentiation for Indian web 2.0 startups, including social networking sites.

Kalyan Manyam, Founder, Indyarocks on how can an Indian social networking site differentiate itself –

The possible areas, where a new SNS can differentiate are: 1. Innovative ways of communicating and sharing 2. Localization through Entertainment or Education.

My top-of-the-mind views: I think Language (English vs. vernacular), mode of access (Internet vs. mobile) and social dynamics (global vs. Indian) will be the three dimensions of differentiation for Indian social networking sites.

- Sunny Saurabh, Co-founder, Antya on people-powered search engines –

Simply put, a human-powered search engine is a search engine that takes into account human intelligence and leverages the power of the community to provide the most relevant information to the end user. India today attracts over a billion searches per month. As more and more people come online every year, the need for relevant information increases.

My top-of-the-mind views: I think people-powered search engines will be the limited in terms of both scope and scalability and their promise of more intelligent search results will only be realized once the semantic web takes over.

- Venkat Ramna, Chief, Valuepitch Interactive on how negative search results can erode the equity of consumer brands –

Search phrases on corporates can be categorized as brand words, negative words and research words. For negative phrases (icici sucks), one can expect negative results; for phrases pertaining to research (icici bank reviews) it’s ok to expect some negativity along with the positives; but for brand phrases (icici bank), finding negative results is a bad brand association.

My top-of-the-mind views: It’s obvious to me that online reputation management will involve much more than only search engine optimization.

Sachin Bhatia, Co-founder & Chief Marketing Officer, MakeMyTrip on online reputation management for brands –

With e-commerce growing in India, the Internet becomes a great place for people to both review and then buy a product. Therefore it’s critical for brands to ensure that they are positively mentioned online, that positive reviews are far greater than negative comments that customer ratings are high for their products and this can then lead to immediate and higher conversions.

My top-of-the-mind views: In future, brands will need to embrace social media because social media will be the only cost effective to reach consumers.

Namrata Balwani, Business Director, Media2Win on what ails online advertising in India –

With over 30 Million active internet users, and mobile internet also coming up, this is no longer a medium to ‘test’ but to integrate into the marketing plan. Some of the leading websites in India have more users than the total readership of leading English dailies! And the brand can directly interact with the consumer.

My top-of-the-mind views: My pet peeve is that agencies approach digital media with the ‘interruption marketing’ paradigm prevalent in traditional media instead of the ‘permission marketing’ mindset that is appropriate for it. I believe that digital media works well for two extreme objectives — generating leads and building communities — and for little in-between.

So, I don’t agree with all the opinions in these guests posts, but I think, if done well, they have the potential to start off discussions around the Indian digital media industry. Going foward, the challenge for Alootechie will be to ensure that its guest posts are of consistently good quality.

In summary, it’s a step in the correct direction for Alootechie, and, if you are interested in understanding the Indian digital media industry, I would strongly recommend that you check out the new Alootechie.

Recommended Reading:

• Three Dimensions of Differentiation for Indian Social Networking Sites (7)
• Nokia Research on Mobile Phone Usage at the Bottom of the Pyramid (Part 2) (0)
• Nokia Research on Mobile Phone Usage at the Bottom of the Pyramid (Part 1) (1)
• Nokia Open Studio: Nokia Asks Slum Residents to Design Their Ideal Future Mobile Phones (1)
• Next Big Thing: Social Media Outsourcing (SMO) (Part 2 of 2) (12)