Just like everyone else reported, a $17 million for a majority stake would be just like a desperate deal. Something seemed very odd about the numbers.

Comments

• July 2, 2008, Sonia Malhotra commented: $17 million for majority stake in travelguru was unbelievable at the first stage only. Travelguru acquired desiya for $25million & after that getting valued was something not possible. Thanks for clearing out the rumour Sonia Malhotra www.GhumiChale.com India's First Hotels Comparison Engine

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So, why should someone buy MouthShut ?

As per a recent survey by Nielsen, 73% of Internet accessing Indians trust online user reviews over other means of advertising. That is more than advertising on TV, radio, magazines and search engine / online banner ads. Considering that MouthShut is the main (and probably only) consumer reviews site for the Indian subcontinent, you can only imagine how much influence it yields on the average, online, Indian user.

So, who should buy MouthShut ?

Amongst the international players, I’d say Yahoo, MSN, eBay and AOL. Yahoo has always been a proponent of community building, but considering the recent turmoil surrounding Yahoo, I’d say they have other things on their mind. MSN and AOL are both laggards when it comes to their Indian presence. Buying MouthShut would give them a good boost in terms of traffic, community and a decent competitive edge over Google and Yahoo. Of course, buying MouthShut would make the most sense for eBay, since MouthShut strategically fits very well into Shopping.com, the reviews site owned by eBay.

Amongst the home grown portals, I’d say HT Media should seriously consider it - they’ve been lagging the other Indian portals as far as their online strategy goes. Since they’re playing catch up, they might as well consider growing inorganically.

I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Comments

• February 29, 2008, gautam commented: I'm bit surprised by your mention of HT. Why not Indiatimes or Rediff or even NDTV ? HT's recent purchase of Desimartini.com has created enough stir. I'm sure HT is not the right candidate to buy mothshut.
• February 29, 2008, Rajesh commented: I feel that most of the reviews at mouthshut are of negative quality as many try to vent their anger there when they receive a bad service from any of the products or service sector, this is clearly evident there.
• February 29, 2008, pranav commented: @gautam, the desimartini deal is not the reason why i suggested ht media. Rediff is already, probably the leader in the Indian portals. They've had a strong online presence for some time now (btw, have you read user comments on any rediff story) ..Ditto for Indiatimes....If any of these portal goes for MouthShut, it would bolster their online presence even more. Since HT is playing catch up, they need that extra boost -- and hence i mentioned ht. But you're right about NDTV. I unintentionally left them out - my bad.
• February 29, 2008, pranav commented: @rajesh, negative or positive - it doesnt matter - they have a gold mine in terms of the number of user submitted reviews. besides, most of the times, a consumer feels a strong urge to review a company / product only when they've had a -ve experience -- think abt it. every time your cell phone works exceedingly well, you dont go write a +ve review about it. thats just human nature.
• February 29, 2008, Jai commented: Whatever u guys r talking about. There is a new site, www.kyayaar.com, posting real reviews by real people, catching up indian market now a days. The name is good. People handling this site do have nice experience. so will get in market. Because of its name, people do come on site, and write reviews here. thats just human nature.
• March 1, 2008, Santosh commented: Pranav, The number 1 reason why Indian Media companies aren't shopping for web businesses is that the potential value add is still unclear. A quick question - do you think Pehredar (IndiaTV) has greater awareness than Mouthshut? Don't get me wrong, I really like the team behind Mouthshut and am an Internet Startup guy myself. I'm praying like everyone else that croudsourcing becomes a reality with greater Internet Penetration. I am also an optimist :-). - Santosh
• March 3, 2008, pranav commented: Santosh, If thats the case, then I'd say they've got to wake up to the possibility. Before long, a new entrant will come in and force them to reconsider their web strategy - and may the value add will become much clear to them at that time. If only, it isnt too late by then.
• March 5, 2008, Ramesh commented: I don't think Rediff can be called the leader in Indian portals. They only have Rediff.com, which is a popular news site. All their other ventures (Rediff Bol, Shopping, Jobs, Matrimonial etc) have been damp squibs. Even with Rediff.com, they were never able to innovate in terms of design, usability or adapting web 2.0 features. Let's not comment about the standards of reporting and their infamous comments columns!
• March 5, 2008, pranav commented: @ramesh, the point of the post wasnt to highlight who is the leader in Indian portals.
• March 7, 2008, rai ravi commented: i will be hurt if mouthshut.com is bought by a bigger player since i use mouthshut and i want it to remain indepnednet. mouthshut will be killed by google/yahoo/msn if its bought. but i agree mouthshut has great influence in india/ atleast on me lol
• March 8, 2008, Raman commented: I share your opinion of MouthShut. It is to be lauded for consistently delivering a high-end Indian presence - something few have succeeded. I suspect the big American players are still too buys ironing out their issues here. But Mouthshut's time will come. I think whowever buys it will be well-served.
• March 11, 2008, pranav commented: @rai ravi @raman -- it would indeed be a crown jewel to anyone's portfolio.
• May 14, 2008, e.ling commented: mouthshut is very slow. can improve its speed. i use bsnl braodband 500 per month plan.
• July 29, 2008, Mohit commented: This is a proxy blog posted by mouthshut as they are desperately seeking a buyer but I don't think there is any taker for mouthshut as they have only but a bad reputation. They have a review factory and 50% of their reviews are fakes, they publish fake traffic figures, do click fraud for their advertisers, already Maruti left them as they caught mouthshut red handed doing click fraud (read the news in alootechie.net), they also delete genuine reviews and issue threats to genuine consumers. They are like mumbai mafias and that's why after 8 long years they are not getting an investor who is interested. Because most of the figures published about mouthshut are fake!
• July 30, 2008, Double Haji Baba commented: Your guys are all losers who are criticizing MS, MS rocks and will continue to rock because it pioneered the user generated content when no one knew about it. Check you the Alexa rank of mouthshut and I am sure you will stop blabbering, actually Faisal need not even care to respond to you crooks, he is far away from your reach guys, I don't want to take names but check out your Alexa rank man before commenting on Mouthshut.
• September 3, 2008, abhishek yadav commented: mohit ...you may be right , by calling the mouthshut team as fraud... coz i was just looking at their alexa ranking ( 2969 )... God... how did they manage it??? surprising ly they have 5% viewers from America....and 2% viewers from Pakistan....( GOD.. what are americans and pakistani doing with reviews of indian products....) I think it is these kinds of startups who have tarnished the image of internet startups....God help us!!!!!!!!!!

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Its now reported that the rumor is bogus and is SOE has denied any such deal.

The ET story has since been taken down.  Way to go ET !!

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TravelGuru has raised $25 million in funding over two rounds.

via ET 

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Why was HT Media shopping for a social networking site ?

Recently, HT Media has been very aggressive in the Internet space. Spun off their Internet properties under Firefly eventures, launched the online edition of Mint, their business paper, revamped the HindustanTimes website, ventured into online classifieds etc. Did the social networking fad catch the fancy of a HT Media exec or did they feel threatened by the aggressive push for BigAdda by Reliance ADAG ? Or do they just have an extra pile of cash lying around ? We wont know for sure what prompted HT Media to foray into the social networking scene.

Why DesiMartini ?

Assuming that HT Media was looking to acquire a social networking site, what options were out there in the market ? Yaari, DesiMartini, MingleBox, Fropper, BigAdda and IndyaRocks. BigAdda and Fropper are ruled out, considering that they are owned by ‘competitors’ (Reliance ADAG and People Interactive Pvt Ltd). Yaari appears way beyond defunct to me. Minglebox valuation would be way higher considering that they got a $7 mill Sequoia funding. So, the only options that remain are DesiMartini and IndyaRocks. While it is unknown if HT Media approached IndyaRocks, the price tag for IndyaRocks would definitely be higher than DesiMartini, considering that the former gets ~10 million pageviews as opposed to the latter’s ~2.5 million. That leaves DesiMartini as the only cheap, viable option out there (this is what I think - differing opinions welcome).

The acquisition price

While the price was quoted as a vague “less than $10 million” in most of the media, Vivek Pahwa, DesiMartini founder, clarified that the acquisition price was “significantly less” than $10 million. Considering that Vivek is now doing seed investments of less than $200K in other Internet startups, I’m taking the liberty to assume that probably the acquisition price was in the $2.5 million range (just a hunch).

With a user base of 250,000, this puts the valuation at $10 per user (a higher acquisition price and this valuation would jump even more). Compare this to $21 per user that Fox paid to acquire Myspace (27 million unique visitors at time of deal). Digg, with a user base of 18 million, would make $16.30 per user if acquired for $300 million.

That makes you wonder (and evokes the jaw dropping reaction) — is the HT Media - DesiMartini deal for real ? DesiMartini is a shabby, half-ass, semi-defunct rip-off. Does it make sense to even cough up $1 million for it ? Wouldnt it be a better idea (and way cheaper) to build your own social networking site ? And leverage your existing channels (print, web, radio) to market it ? The argument of getting a direct entry by acquiring an existing player doesnt fit too well with me either. HT Media wasnt in a Microsoft-like deparate scenario, where they were so late to the game that they had to cough up a premium to gain entry.

All in all, either Vivek is a really smart entrepreneur and/or someone was asleep/clueless at the helm over at HT Media.

So, what does this deal mean for the Indian Web 2.0 scene ?

Whether this acquisition sets off a trend among other media houses (ABP, MidDay, IndiaTimes etc.) remains to be seen. If it happens, it would definitely be good for the other Indian social networking sites out there - who, otherwise lack a viable exit strategy.  This in turn could garner some mainstream attention for the Web 2.0 scene in India.

Comments

• December 24, 2007, Santosh commented: > That makes you wonder (and evokes the jaw dropping reaction) — > is the HT Media - DesiMartini deal for real ? DesiMartini is a shabby, > half-ass, semi-defunct rip-off. Does it make sense to even cough up > $1 million for it ? Wow, you aren't cutting them any slack are you!
• January 1, 2008, pranav commented: @santosh prove me wrong on any of the adjectives and I'd owe you a beer :-)
• February 5, 2008, rajnish commented: There are much better websites with rich content being offered for free to which no one is looking at the moment. These websites look to be under performers at the moment but will surprise many in times to come. Wish I had the money to invest in one such website. One website that I feel is the underdog at the moment and has a huge potential is www.competitionmaster.com
• April 21, 2008, Balendu Dadhich commented: I can't understand why HT media, which is so successful in traditional media forms, lags behind in Internet? Even this deal doesn't impress me with their possible plans and strategies. Hindustantimes.com is an incredible portal but what else? Shine.com doesn't seem to have shined yet. Desimartini is still the same that it was prior to its acquisition. Their other Internet properties too appear to be lacking in innovation and drive. Buck up boys! If you can change the fortunes of Hindustan Times and Hindi Hindustan, you can also shake the Internet world, if you work smart and hard.

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Now, LiveMint reports that Seventymm may very well be on way to be acquired by an even bigger fish - Reliance Entertainment Ltd., a part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG). As per the story, two senior execs at R-ADAG and Seventymm said that negotiations were at an advanced stage. With 25,000 customers and 15,000 titles, a Seventymm acquisition gives R-ADAG a direct entry into the DVD rental business.

R-ADAG also recently launched their own entertainment portal, BigFlicks. I guess Seventymm assets would complement the online, entertainment on-demand portal ?

Comments

• September 11, 2007, kanny commented: that wud be a sad happening as i am currently a happy member of seventymm and i know how reliance-adag sucks on customer service front !
• September 11, 2007, Team Seventymm commented: Mamla filmy hai ! The gossip bug now seems to have bitten the serious financial publications as well. The story in today's edition of 'Mint' with the headline - R-ADAG in talks to buy out Seventymm (Pg 7) is completely speculative and baseless. We at Seventymm strongly deny any such development and even intent in near future. We are progressing strong, hale & hearty and hope to continue the momentum with your support - our family members' and business partners.
• September 12, 2007, Jammin commented: Interesting story. Not quite sure what the business sense in this deal is? Consider these facts:Its been almost 10 years since Netflix (online model with physical delivery of the media)and 3 years since MovieLink, Amazon, etc (online download model)have hit the market. After all the hullabaloo these guys account for only 16% of dvd rentals in the US (where by the way PC penetration and downlaod speeds are gazillion times better and cheaper than India). Organised Retal chains like Blockbuster / Movie Gallery / Hollywood Video / TLA, etc., have 9000 stores and together with the mom and pop stores account for 82% of the US rental market share where the concept of a customer phone-in model does not exist. DVD rental ATMs account for 1%. My last dollar would be on more 'hands on approach' operators like Clixflix who are penetrating on all fronts.
• September 12, 2007, pranav commented: Jammin, I'm not sure about the numbers you quoted above so I wont comment on it. but most of the Netflix subscribers I know are loyal converts.just for the sheer variety and flexibility and genres it provides. What is the 'hands on approach' you're referring to ?
• September 12, 2007, shashank commented: Jammin, Not quite sure about your figures but endorse your view. If assets are to be coonsidered valuable, then one must consider at what cost they were built or acquired. When 70mm launched they raised 40 crores at a time when the home video market was estimated to be Rs 400 crores. So you start of with funds equivalent to 10% of the organised market and then after 2 yrs have only 25000 customers to show for it spread across the country. The cost of serving these customers might erode the intrinsic "asset value". Dont quite see how buying an over capitalised company is a good deal particularly when the online size of the market would acccount for the "crumbs" of the industry and not the "pie" - which is offline.
• September 12, 2007, pranav commented: Shashank / Jammin, In case you werent aware about the wordpress feature where each comment is logged by IP. So, it doesnt take me more than 2 seconds to figure tha you're the same person.. You might want to be more careful the next time you go on a hidden agenda..
• September 12, 2007, Jammin commented: Pranav, The figures i quoted are from the Entertainment Merchants Association which is a not-for-profit international trade association dedicated to advancing the interests of the $33 billion home entertainment industry . EMA represents approximately 600 companies throughout the United States, Canada, and other nations. Its members operate approximately 20,000 retail outlets in the U.S. that sell and/or rent DVDs. Membership comprises the full spectrum of retailers (from single-store specialists to multi-line mass merchants, and both brick and mortar and online stores), distributors, the home video divisions of major and independent motion picture studios, and other related businesses that constitute and support the home entertainment industry. EMA was established in April 2006 through the merger of the Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) and the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association (IEMA). The "hands on" approach is a robust model which would combine the online model with the offline model - the need of the industry (in being able to offer legit product) and present movie renter (for the sheer convenience). Blockbuster's TOTAL ACCESS and Clixflix's ALL ACCESS would be good examples. As for the 'loyal' Netflix customers, theres talk of Netflix 'fixing' their internal churn figures. Simply put if the churn is 4% per month X 12 months = 48%. Netflix would suggest the AVERAGE to be 4% - good use of the English language I guess. The churn experienced by Netflix is actually in the vicinity of 63%. Netflix's last quarterly report figures also do report for the first time in its history a decline of customer acquisitions. But, I buy your point about the variety. The 'Long Tail' is a great leverage in a mature market and industry like the US. But in India, we are still searching in the dark on the best way forward to grow the home entertainment industry. And while the pundits opine and dispense with ideas, the common man just wants original stuff conveniently and at an affordable price. He does not want to jump through hoops and be restricted by user discipline (make a queue,etc.,) or by technology (find a computer, get a good dialup, log on, etc). It kills the mood of watching the flick to start with.
• September 12, 2007, Jammin commented: Pranav, Thanks for the 'tip'. Will be sure to tell my buddy Shashank not to blog from the 'OFFICE'. PS: We do get our flicks from Clixflix.
• September 12, 2007, Gaurav commented: I think it doesn't make much sense for R-ADAG to acquire a company with 25,000 customers and 15,000 titles. They can easily build this model into bigflicks or start a separate business. R-ADAG can get much better rates titles if they buy in bulk. They can easily beat 25,000 customers even if they promote the new service via their own existing marketing channels.
• January 6, 2008, nemo commented: Seventymm - HORRIBLE SERVICE! Not sure why Reliance is interested to invest. Nothing to gain, I'm sure they can start off on their own and build a stronger service model. This company first needs to invest in Systems and Customer Service before adding new features to make more money! Recently subscribed and all the positivity vanishes the moment your cheque is collected. Ask for a suggestion and they will give an uneducated one! Order a DVD and wait until the delivery boy arrives, or you can call the next morning to check and the reply is its been dispatched. I waited half a day and then called again to check. Now the reply is "SORRY, SYSTEM FAILURE, DVD WAS NOT DISPATCHED" Guess these guys can do with some serious investment in SYSTEMS & CUSTOMER SERVICE PEOPLE if they want to be a leading online rental service.

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Google, which comes a distant second to the Chinese search engine Baidu.com, has been playing catchup in the Chinese market and has recently ramped up its efforts to make headway in China, which is now the worlds second biggest internet market (~162 million internet users) after the US.

via Reuters

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And majority of the exits have been successful, as per Arun Natrajan, founder of Venture Intelligence. As per his estimates, there are about 100 active players in the market with 30-35 VCs and about 60 private equity investors.

via Asian Age 

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FLAG Telecom has reported profits for the first time and plans are to expand from 40 to 60 countries. The Yipes brand will be going global leveraging the FLAG network.

Several other tidbits in the rest of the story.

Comments

• July 19, 2007, Saurabh Chandra commented: Considering the speed with which wi-max plans are being rolled out by reliance, they may just do it. The strange thing is they have rolled wi-max (in bangalore) targeting home segment rather than office. So the connection needs a user/pass everytime you login making it difficult to configure in office environment. Anyways, people (like me or my friend's company) have figured work arounds and it is a reliable and fastest 2 MBps connection you can get in bangalore! The other wimax provider aircel is no way as fast or wide spread.

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In a world mad for Internet stocks, some of the maddest valuations have gone to two Internet companies in India that trade on Nasdaq, Rediff.com India (ticker: REDF), India’s third largest portal, and Sify (SIFY), India’s largest nongovernment-owned provider of broadband access.

The report seems to be a direct outcome of the sharp increase in Rediff’s stock price due to the acquisition rumors by Yahoo / Google.

I think Rediff would make an ideal buy for AOL India or MSN India as opposed to Yahoo / Google. If the public perception and Comscore metrics are any testaments, Yahoo and Google are already more popular and get more pageviews than Rediff.

Comments

• July 16, 2007, Parisista commented: Yahoo, Google after Rediff's poor customer service: A riff on their customer e-mail... I was surprised to see a lot of hubub around Rediff. Only 2 days ago, I had my own bout of poor customer experience with Rediff. Have you seen their shopping site? Sucks, big time. The strategy may be good but their execution, quality control and custo...
• July 17, 2007, satpalparmar commented: @ Parisista I share your views and experinece you had over Rediff.But evaluation has nothing to do with quality.Rediff is a ready to use scarse resource in a apotentially big market.Evaluation is about future and no dooubt lots of potential exist. Now I am sure you will have not have doubt on yahoo or google's ability to use this resource to its full potential. Question is not size of valuation.Its the the "valuation" it self.Why managment of a known brand in potentially large market and decade of market knowledge doubts its ability to make it BIG? What make them to think of selling rediff? Is it greed to cash the investment? or fear to loose market to global leaders?

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via ContentSutra

Update: Hindu has an interview with Lynne Frank, MD, ESPN EMEA on the CricInfo acquisition.

Comments

• June 12, 2007, daksh commented: Pretty interesting development ! Just read.. that there won't be any website overhall and even the management would be pretty much the same. Perhaps, ESPN global wants to have pie in the cricket following over the internet.To start we can even expect cricinfo television ads.

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See here for my comparison of the online DVD rental players in India.

Comments

• June 20, 2007, Ganesh commented: The dvd rental industry and home video industry are still very nascent. Deals between online rental companies sounds good but does not affect the masses. Its like the US and Russia discussing ICBM shields over their respective territories in preparation FOR THE ONE FATEFUL DAY ;-), WHEN THE REAL GROUND WAR IS HAPPENING IN Iraq and other parts of the world. When it comes to movie rentals, lets get real - the commerce of the rental market is IN the market - through stores, shops, vendors, the phone and the like (online perhaps?). This deal might sound like a lot, but its really a case of runners in tracks 7 and 8 in a race declaring themselves as no 1, when the real race is being run elsewhere. As for the BIG BOYS, lets not forget that everything is BIG!!! - starting with the noise they make in the mkt place without really doing anything as yet, the BIG rollout which could be flawed by newbie mistakes (it is after all a new business for them) multiplied by the no. of locations (adds to a BIG learning cost). I think its the low key oerators with multiple customer addressal models who will win in this one.. Their learning has been SLOW AND STEADY! Perhaps a BIG company will do well to learn from the tried and tested..

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