In.Com Out Of Private Beta; Ties Up With More Labels
In.com has come out of a limited beta and is now open to public. Changes include a more comprehensive homepage, additions of more games and tie up with more labels. I didn’t have a chance to check the email as I wanted to take a look at the terms and conditions, of which there were none. Finally, when I bit the bullet and got around to registering, the Mail page manically kept querying the server back and forth. They now seem to be indexing BollywoodHungama as well. I had pointed out earlier the lack of T-series and other indigineous labels on the music service previously, Web18 seems to have voted in favour of the decision, doubt it would have come cheap. In addition to T-series, they have also added Sa Re Ga Ma, Venus and Manorama Music amongst others. There seem to be a huge number of re-directs coming in from other domains having .in as a suffix, would be interesting to note how they sift out this traffic once they start selling inventory.
PS: As an aside, I find Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Trends for Websites better by a mile compared to Alexa. Besides its minor misgivings, which include limited timeline views, is this the non-apologetic publicly available industry resource everyone has been hoping for?
Hey Cerius,
Just did the same story 12 hours ago.. Check it here -> http://www.watblog.com/2008/07/22/watblog-spots-web-18s-incom-goes-public-beta-big-media-spend-expected/
Your story is shorter but uncannily similar.. By any chance did you see watblog before writing this one ;)
Hope you will be nice to us with a link back if thats the case as we may not have written it.. But we did blog it first :)
I have seen the portal and mail services and it looks like a pretty neat job – better than Hotmail Live service and more cleaner interface as compared to gmail and yahoo!. This time technology wise web18 might have just pulled it off although cant really comment on success as in this industry its not the quality of product but hype around it which carries it forward.
Hey Rajiv,
That old saying about people in glass houses…
I can point out numerous instances where our posts have been blatantly ripped off, re-written and put up on Watblog without even a credit or a link back. Everything, including the tone and points made were merely re-organized and posted as original content.
You are clearly referring to an event which is publicly accessible. The word that in.com had gone out of public beta was sent to multiple people yesterday. For the record, it is by no means an exclusive. Secondly, would you be kind enough to share the points which "are uncannily similar but shorter"?
Would that be the point about more labels being signed up with?
Email having issues?
Homepage having more content?
Besides the redirects being a common point, I don't see a single point being repeated.
Are you Cerius?
Sorry, couldn't resist! :)
Haha.. Well Point me one instance where watblog hasn't linked to contentsutra and ill do free blogging for CS.. :) Thats all I have to say. We have been linking to contentsutra since it was Sahad blogging on this platform.. Hope you had spent some time with sahad. Its sad that you show such disrespect to contemporaries. Anyways to each his own. Wont comment again on Contentsutra. Though that in no way reduces our respect for Rafat.
Here is one: http://tinyurl.com/5c5mxu
Funny how you decided to stop commenting after asking me to point out an instance. I guess you can't reply to the link mentioned above now, can you?
As for writing for free, mail me your stuff, let me have a look at it :)
Nikhil Pahwa had sent a mail to harshil on this post and probably the only post where a question was asked and resolved between them. You know what's funny the way you are behaving is only going to harm your readers. With a high handed tone and arrogance there is only as far as you will get. Im probably one of the earliest and most dedicated readers of contentsutra. I guess the writing on the wall is clear to me you dont care about your readers and you think you are above them.
With regards to free posts.. Well I wont want to compete with the great cerius shah and his contentsutra and embarrass myself anymore. I would like to be humble and limit myself to a humble watblog.com. Thanks for your kind words.
Since I've been brought into this discussion… Rajiv – I'd contacted Harshil about the iCube report in Jan, not the one Cerius mentions for May.
And since we're talking of specific instances where credit hasn't been given, I thought I might mention a few that MediaNama didn't get credit for:
– Rediff Developer Program (19th Jul) – Ashish (Pluggd.in), Rajiv (WATBlog) and Rafat (ContentSutra) did not credit us with it. I contacted Rafat, Staci, Rajiv and Ashish about the Rediff story three days ago; Rafat, again, twice.
– Eros-Hungama deal (17 Jul): Ashish (Pluggd.in) didn't credit. Many mainstream media sites didn't credit either.
– NDTVs NoGyan (30th Jun): neither Kapil Ohri (Afaqs), nor Rajiv (Watblog) credited us. I contacted Rajiv and Kapil Ohri
– Goosefish's Vertical ad networks (27 Jun): neither Kapil Ohri (Afaqs) nor Rajiv (Watblog) credited us. I contacted Rajiv and Kapil Ohri.
Crediting appears to be a gray area. It is an ethical issue, not a legal one. It's the editors call on whether to credit or not.
As I'd mentioned to Rafat and Ashish – I'm interested in defining a set of crediting guidelines that some/all of us can adopt, in order to put an end to this ambiguity.
In case any of you would like to get in touch regarding definition of guidelines – nikhil AT medianama DOT com , +91-98-103-100-53, nixxin AT gmail DOT com (GTalk)
Nikhil
@Rajiv: Wow. What a sweeping generelization on caring about readers. I do hope you notice you were the only reader involved in this discussion.
As for statements on 'your humble watblog", it wasn't meant to be untowards the quality or standards that your publication stands for. Just take care before throwing accusations (arranging them in a polite sentence still doesn't make them less defamatory).
Everyone, behave. I am closing comments on this post…you guys can decide on crediting policies elsewhere in the world…we credit in all cases, and we fight for our own credits..nikhil learned this lesson with us, of course. nikhil: i missed one coz i didn't read your story..grow up.