It would be unfair to predict Indian Web journalism scenario, taking a cue from US example. Earlier Indian news industry just followed what their US counterparts did.
However, now gaining internet technology supremacy, Indian news industry is making its own experiments with its indigenous concepts and ideas.
The initial dusts has been settled, and unlike the early days of web news portals (when newspapers and magazines were making websites for sake of net presence) now people definitely know what they are doing.
blogs.dw.com
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Even organisation like Times Group, Hindustan Times, Living Media etc. are far more focused in their efforts and aim on Internet.
A couple of trends are worth watching in the coming months:
Web user’s readers will take more control of selecting information or news.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
With millions of pages of information on the Web, Web users are becoming their own editors, preferring to receive personalised news each day rather than pre-packaged news and information. Dozens of newspaper and other services offer many variation of personalised news. Some Indian examples include theindiaguide.com, thenewspapertoday.com.
PointCast, a free service, lets users pick areas of interest, then delivers stories either via a news “ticker” on the bottom of your computer monitor or, when the computer is idle, as a full-size “screen saver.” It offers good service in delivering breaking news, sports and stock quotes.
A growing list of other services delivers more specialised information than PointCast. Most of the services, such as Moreover.com, charge for delivery of daily news reports on topics of a super’s choice. But a new entrant, News Tracker, offers links to articles from 300 Web publications for free.
The Real Audio Time Cast Web site takes custom news into the realm of multimedia by letting users select a custom daily playlist of audio from daily news and information sources around the Internet. Users then can listen to the news while doing other things, rather than being forced to read the news on their computer screens.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
But none of these services can do what a good editor can do: Find the quirky, offbeat and important stories and information that do not quite fit into a set of search terms but which have great appeal for the reader.
That ability comes from establishing an intimate knowledge of the reader. That is not to say that the services are not coming closer to acting as editors.
Push Base Technology:
With more than 150 million pages on the Web, it becomes harder and harder for users to find information they need and want, even with the help of the most sophisticated search engines.
It is no wonder, then, that many Web producers are turning from trying to “pull” visitors to their sites and instead is “pushing” content to interested people.
New browsers, such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 4.0 and Netscape’s Communicator (aka 4.0), are integrating push technologies such as PointCast, thereby blurring the line between push and pull.
In addition, some Web producers are delivering Web pages directly to readers via e-mail. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today are among those using Netscape’s In-Box-Direct to “push” content to readers. This type of “webcasting” looks like one of the most active areas for Web producers in the coming year.
News Sites:
News web sites in India fall under three main categories:
First are simple news based content sites. Like that of major print newspapers. Such sites are simple translation of newspaper into web.
Majority of news sites fall under this category. Such web sites are much in demand among NRIs and readers in fall flung areas, especially where print edition reaches late. Such web sites are easy to use, easy to update and easy to maintain financially.
The other reason, why these sites are there in news industry is that “someone” can simply book URL of any renowned newspaper/magazine/newswire service and can start a new web site. So before “anyone” hijacks goodwill of print newspaper on web, the companies feel that it is better to launch partly static, partly news updated site.
But things have changed a lot since 1995, when first news web site of Hindu newspaper was launched. The new generation newspaper web sites have completely different staff than that of print editions.
The original reporting is being taking place for news web sites (check out Tehelka.com). There are newspapers like Times of India, which has different staff for print edition, web site edition (timesofindia.com) which is not replica of print edition. And has different web portal (Indiatimes.com).
The other types of news sites are the new generation news web sites. Recently the technology savvy journalists (with business sense) have brought out many news web sites in India, where innovative technical, journalistic and market experiments have been conducted.
For example the Newspaper Today com is a subscription based electronic newspaper by Living Media. News Link Services (newslinkservices.com) is a news service having a major news set-up in New Delhi, providing subscription-based news via e-mail to seafarers world-wide.
And, lastly those web sites, which try to provide everything and along with that also provide news. Or there are web sites, which show loyalty to one field area (like medicine, law, sex entertainment etc.) and bring out news from that particular field area.
Lots of Bollywood’s web sites, which also provide films related news have been instant success. The main aim of these web sites is “everything else,” but news. They normally subscribe to some other content provider or news agency to fill the gap.
As with any system of categories, this one is not perfect. Some sites overlap more than one category, and the evolution of Web publishing ensures that new categories will continue to appear. In the meantime, though, these categories serve as a good reminder that no site should try to do everything. Do one thing, and do it well.