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Indiatimes.com, a portal owned by Times Internet, has been revamped. The site will now give priority to entertainment and leisure based content to cater to the demand of young users.
Speaking to afaqs!, Mohit Hira, director, Indiatimes.com, says, “From our own research and the traffic details on our site, we figured out that users look more for entertainment and leisure oriented content. So, we decided to bring more feature based content upfront.”
Hira adds, “Indiatimes.com is targeted at young users and they look out for social networking, videos and community oriented features.”
As part of the re-prioritisation of content, Indiatimes.com has shifted the position of various sections on the home page. For instance, news based sections, which were at the top of the page earlier, have been pulled down below a feature based section called Showcase, which now appears at the top of the page. The stock market section has been moved to the right corner.
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Times Internet has integrated its other sites with Indiatimes.com. Social networking site iTimes.com, automobile portal Zigwheels.com and the site for Virgin Radio have been integrated with the portal. HotKlix.com, a social bookmarking site launched recently by Times Internet, has also been integrated.
The level of integration for iTimes.com and Virgin Radio is limited as the portal only allows users to click on their links and get redirected to the home pages of iTimes.com and Virginradio.co.uk. In the case of Zigwheels.com and Hotklix.com, the site is aggregating content as well as redirecting users to the respective home pages.
Times Internet is not planning to promote the revamped site in a major way. However, Hira indicates that a print campaign may take off in the future.
After revamping Indiatimes.com, Times Internet is getting ready to launch some more websites. Hira says, “We have plans to launch a Gujarati website for the Gujarati edition of The Economic Times. We will also launch one or two Internet portals in a couple of months.”
Times Internet, which has recently picked up 50 per cent stake in A1Books.co.in, an online marketplace for books owned by Webnotions Books India Pvt. Ltd, is now looking at acquiring more Internet properties in the coming months.
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