nautanki.tv on regional websites

Very recently Digital Inspiration and WatBlog said almost identical things and I quote "This 400x350 Nautanki.tv widget can also be good source of revenue for regional language blogs (like in Hindi, Tamil, etc) where contextual advertising programs like Adsense do not perform so well."

Considering that almost 60% of the internet population in India do not consider English as their first language of choice, we expect to see a lot of action in this space. Lets face it most Indians are comfortable reading in their mother tongue. You will therefore find a Gujarati websites doing better than an English one and so on.

At the same time digital media buyers seem to ignore this fact and pretend to be catering to the English audiences.

nautanki.tv will very soon be activating the regional publishers programs with content created for their needs and advertising thats more local.

work in progress

hi guys,

work in progress to make nautanki.tv, the worlds most progressive online platform in terms of participation.

on one hand, you have content/ film producers participating by displaying their work and monetise;
on the other hand you have viewer participation thru' various blogsites/ web properties wanting more
and finally u have brands participating to take their products closer to the tg.

i will liken it to a movement which is gaining grounds horizontally & vertically.

its great to meet sincere film producers/ content producers young n ol, so very passionate about their work and wanting people to watch their films,
its great to hear content producers reacting positively to every comments that are posted,
its great to read from people unknown who have posted their suggestions to make nautanki.tv better at every step.

cheers and thanks for all ur support

monday morning blues and other such incidents

"Online video viewing has surely become the latest rage. Nautanki.tv is one such site that works as an online video network and also serves as a platform for filmmakers." Says Mid-Day on Sunday. Read more here

The ecosystem of content producers fueling content consumption fuelling ad revenue is now a well established model and nautanki.tv leads the way. Our belief is that regular television content has a mass appeal but there are people who want to watch original content. Last month's experiment with IDPA did prove that we were right afterall.

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AlooTechie featured nautanki.tv's appointment of Srishti and the news item gets three comments too. (whoa! we have almost made it). Prasath has an interesting suggestion that we allow the publishers to make content for us with brands embedded in them. Well Prasath, thank you for the suggestion but sir who will get the brands to participate? And we are not an Youtube clone. Blogger Eklavya expresses doubts about nautanki.tv's ability to touch 12 crores in revenue this year - all I can say is that time will tell. We might as well exceed it too. But then hey it does take time. Blogger Satya asks what the source of revenue is - it is good old advertising using some intelligence. The ads will become clickable but at no time will nautanki.tv jump onto the bandwagon of being a lead gen machine. More as the week goes by.

missings links restored

Thank you Amit for noticing that several links on the nautanki.tv pages were pointing into a black hole. They have been restored.

Some interesting nautanki.tv numbers

Over the last few weeks I have been asked repeatedly why I think nautanki.tv would work. The reasons are simple and came from a media planner in the offline world (he plans media campaigns using newspapers and television). It seems that the overall comsumption of television in SEC A has gone down to about 20 minutes in the top ten metros / mini metros in India. The very same people it seems are now online from their offices and get all their entertainment from the internet. There is lack of genuine made for internet entertainment - segments within the 3.5 minutes duration. What nautanki.tv has done via the video feeds is to take the video content to the traffic that inhabits niche categories. This way the correct audience gets to see the right advertising and that results in amazing brand recall. Add to this the fact that we can send the TVC based on the region where the traffic is coming from, factor in demographics and a little bit of intelligent context and we have a killer medium.

The cumulative viewership on nautanki.tv network is at 500000 plus with a daily consumption of over 11 lakh segments. A segment comprises of a 30 second TVC + the content episode + 30 second TVC. The most popular channels in nautanki.tv are: Angoor, Phillumwallahs and Soul Curry. The websites that carry their feeds fall in the following category:

Angoor & Phillumwallahs - Youth and Bollywood centric websites and blogs
Soul Curry - women, travel, lifestyle centric

Mirch Masala - serious news centric and social issue websites and blogs. Mirch masala also has the highest number of embeds in the vernacular websites and blogs.

Chakachak has the most niche position with almost everyone subscribing to the feeds having websites and blogs catering to bikes, cars, fashion, advertising and young adult.

Republic being UGC centric and gets just 2% of embeds and these are from people who have embedded all the feeds in order to generate maximum revenue.

The maximum traffic / viewership is on Angoor (25%) and Phillumwallahs (20%. Mirch Masala gets close to 15% of the viewership, Soul Curry gets 18%. Chakachak gets 14% while Republic gets merely 8% of the viewers.

We can derive meanings from looking at the share of traffic and corelate it to which category of websites / blogs etc have taken the respective feeds and find out that the maximum traffic seems to come from youth specific web properties. Even if embeds of a channel are in larger number of web properties the traffic generated might be lesser in number.

Unfortunately the media agencies do not know how to classify us. The old media ones say it is internet and the digital agencies are stuck in the rut of providing click throughs and leads. Something tells me that it is time for nautanki.tv to set the standard for online video media and create a sub category. The movement has already started elsewhere in the world, maybe it is time we in India went ahead and claimed this territory.

INSIDE NAUTANKI by Praxation

Abhijeet Ghosh Finally Graduates

After all the hardwork.. (from me Prax) Abhijeet Ghosh had finally graduated from NIFT. His design reached in time and he pulled of one of the most inconvienient attempt which he might not try again ( to graduate). Now the news is he is partying and Prax as usual is busting his $#@ off to finish the scheduled programming.

NAUTANKI GOES LIVE TO CONTENT PRODUCERS

Now all those Content Producers can get a sigh of relief who were ripping DVDs after DVDs, and running to Shivaji Park (no not for jogging... Nautanki's office is there) to deliver the shows. Now you can register to Nautanki.TV as Content Producers and upload you shows from the comfort of your home. Now I wonder is there an examination process for the uploads cuz there is no limitation of perverts in the internet who can provide you explicit content, on a positive note that can increase the views as well as the drools. You can also see the revenue generated by your show through the views once you log on. By the way Mr. Sunil.. I had registered 2 days back and its still not approved.

SPY CAM HITS NAUTANKI

SPY CAM show hits Nautanki(DOT)TV and our favorite viewer Mr. RISHI had ruined our excitement about the show. He actually didnt like the show. Well we will have to take it as it is... but next time I think I am gonna stop having high expectations about my shows :(. Also watch out for WISE GUYS INC, BAZAKUFOOKISTAN, RATE MY TALENT and A BEAUTIFUL MIND.

ZAPAKUFOOKISTAN NAME CHANGED

Due to some unavoidable reasons Zapakufookistan's name had to be changed to Bazakufookistan along with double work for MR. PRAX. So its the same show with the same Horny sheikh with his body guard running around camels leaving behing hot women. I still think the name could have been a good advertisment for the people who sacked the title of this show as of anyways they are unheard of.

THE FEAR IS GONE!!!

The fearful HANDLES of our Content Head had suddenly disappeared. Yes am talking about VIKRAM and his Dangerous Moustache.. its gone.. Now i dont fear him and neither would other content providers. Is that a good thing or a bad thing.. hmmm.

Nyways STAY TUNNED for more....

PRAX

Nautanki.tv appoints ex-Rediffusion hand Srishti Sawhney

"Nautanki.tv, which was launched in November 2006, is on a consolidating spree. The online video media network has roped in Srishti Sawhney as head of marketing and account management" says Agencyfaqs.com. Read more here

What the news networks do not mention is that she is a team player to the core, people relax easily in her presence. Her key strengths include strategic thinking, multi-multitasking and making people deliver (with as little bloodshed as necessary). She is a hands-on problem solver with the ability to initiate change.

Though aloof from the polemics of sexes and the conflict of gender, She wants “half the sky”… is A ‘sucker’ for her yellow Labrador ‘Oyster’, travel and good sushi, she spends her weekends trying every new restaurant in town.

The Monkey, by the Chinese horoscope, Srishti is all Yin. She likes beautiful things: Aromatherapy, karmic healing, artistic yoga and Johnny Depp.

We promise to persuade her to allow us to photograph her and put the pic up here soon.

Welcome Srishti to the nautanki

We were hacked

nautanki.tv was down for 7 hours on 10 May 2007. A hacker managed to enter the nautanki.tv system and insert malicious content onto the system. Ram and his able team managed to get things back up in a phased manner. We are happy to say that we are alive and are rocking as before.

The hacker has been identified and legal proceedings have been started. We have a signed confession from the hacker.

The downtime gave us an insight into how our community views us. There were many emails that questioned us about our ability to run nautanki.tv and such, at the same time there were emails from publishers who offered to help us identify the problem, who went out of their way to give us their valuable time to test the systems before we went online again. We have had this wave of goodwill that came from nowhere. I humbly thank everyone of them.

nautanki.tv is not some great big organisation that has suddenly come alive promising to change the world. We are a startup and we face everyday every problem that people our size face. We stumble and fall, but we get back up dust ourselves and try again.

We are committed to create a viable ecosystem and every member of team nautanki.tv knows it will never be easy. We promise one thing - we will make history.

Thank you once again.


Sunil R Nair
CEO, nautanki.tv

we were hot last month, we are now merely hotter

Wooing NRIs with online videos

Business Standard says "NautankiTV, along with big players like Rajshri Media and StarTV’s indya.com, is targeting the non-resident Indian (NRI) community with online videos and looking at advertisers who also plan to attract this customer base." Read more here


Sure they got the name nautanki.tv wrong and all that but hey we are not complaining. I do remember asking "Google?!!! woh kya?" some years ago.

hum businessworld mein bhi

We are famous!!

how viral is viral? and other musings

Last week saw my belief in the power of the net being reconfirmed. nautanki.tv finally went viral. It spread like wild fire across the net space in India with blogs and rss feeds abuzz with our distribution model for content. We are very close to attaining critical mass and all logic points to a redux of what happens to good ideas. We are gearing up to doubling our feeds every week. Which would mean that we would become a significant player much earlier than expected. The answer to how viral is viral can be answered by looking at the way myspace grew or how youtube redefined video content. We are viral in that sense.

What does this mean for the content owner? The answer lies in the fact that today no one can get content across to audiences the way we can, 24x7 we can feed content to audiences who want to see humour, docu dramas, spirituality etc from wherever they are on the net. It means that someone like Altergraph - one of our content partners can now make shows that will have an audience however small they maybe.

For the advertiser it is more value for their money, here is a way to get to audiences that are focussed, where the brand salience gets established better than on television. Small brands that want to reach targeted audiences without blowing a whole in theirs pockets can advertise in small quantums.

nautanki.tv has started a small fire which now is begining to look like a wild fire.

IDPA Nautanki.tv awards pics

The IDPA Nautanki.tv online awards - bubblies



Gauri Warudi being presented the winners award for Silent Ghungroos by Kavita Chaudhary



Vikram Prabhu - Head of Content, nautanki.tv, Aditya Seth and George of IDPA



Team Nautanki

usual suspects II

Vijay - our camera and lighting expert. If you love the rich look of our in house shows, this is the man you want to meet



Vinod and Poonam. Poonam schedules the various shows on nautanki.tv, Vinod edits and create magic with raw footage.



Thats me :) and the buck stops here

the usual suspects

Here are a few of the people behind nautanki.tv - the ones who make this ecosystem tick.



Priya - she normally is found threatening the clips into submission. She is our Channel Producer



Herumb our resident expert on all things spiritual and head of servicing, he ensures that the clients are kept happy always



This is Mr Prabhu - our head of content. Deep in thought about the next lunch. As you might have guessed it right, Mr Prabhu loves food.

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We will have more pictures added to this series as we go along.

musings from here and there

Been reading a lot of corporate bios in the hope that they would be able to put some light into the workings of businesses that have grown virally. So far have read up the ebay story, google and have dipped into the workings of Apple. One thing is sure after reading these stories - there are no secret sauces for success. Ideas have to wait for the right blend of time, money, people and circumstances to make it big. And not in the same order. A business plan cannot ever get it right. No matter what the VCs say.

nautanki has reached that sweet spot. It is viral in nature, it has a community aspect and it reaches deep into places that did not exist before. It is an ecosystem that is symbiotic in nature, where the viewer feeds the content owner who in turn makes stuff for the thousands of websites. Now one has to make it into a cult brand. Maybe do a Guy Kawasaki and find an evangelist to take to the masses. We have some 27 filmmakers who take the idea to others and now are beginning to bring in people who are not seperated by the proverbial seven degrees.

ah! that reminds me of a journalist asking me if we are going to ever change the name. The answer is a firm no. nautanki is a fine name, Indians will never forget it and the rest of the world will wonder what it means. Either ways we have top of the mind recall. Am not sure if "lets nautanki it will ever" go on to be what Google is but we can try. Maybe "chalo nautanki karein" will be the equivalent of "let us google"

My brother in arms Mr Prabhu says that if there is a word in the Indian dictionary we should have a video for it - this ambitious to say the least. But I think there is value in people searching for something in mumbai and finding a video for the same. Imagine doing it for Guwahati and Alamaty and a small city in Outer Mongolia and then getting local ads.

Like I said we are just about hitting the right spot

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Let me welcome at this point Srishti Sawhney into the nautanki.tv family. Srishti comes with an amazing career in advertising account management. She has handled clients like Coke and has some 14 years of experience in the advertising rumble. Srishti will be responsible for Ad Sales in Western and Northern India.

We are sure she loves doing nautanki once in a while!

boss bol kya bolta hai!

Hi,

We went live with 74 min. of daily/ fresh prog yesterday. God! It was some experience. Now the situation is, we have more than 60 min. of fresh content available for daily consumption and the entrire time goes in putting them together in an uniform basket... Its painful, yet fun.

This entire process of aggregation, production, packaging, marketing, capsuling, selling, promoting has made the team grow as a unit.

Now we can stand up to anybody in the content market and say, 'boss bol kya bolta hai'!

One of my producers excitedly called up saying, 'arre my content which went live yesterday has generated more than 1000 hits in just one day!, i am motivated to do more now, lets talk'..now that 1000 hits a day/ a content is just the tip of the ice berg which runs deeper than what one can ever imagine.

By the way, we've been approached by two of the top most media & entertainment companies, asking us if we could broadcast their content on nautanki.tv...kya bolta hai!

I knew this was true - Internet is God

itz a bugs life!

They say when you get into public domain be ready to take on people who will rip you apart for things that are insignificant. nautanki.tv is in public domain now, we have had a consistent viewership of 100000 segments per day for sometime, some 50 odd web properties subscribe to the nautanki.tv feed. The system works. But as with anything new - its has bugs, these surface when we use the system to its max. For example we upgraded our viewer (the small window that plays the video) last night and realised that the controls get disabled for no reason when the video plays for the first time. When you replay the same video the second time at the end of the segment the controls come back alive. Strange things go on. And we are scratching around to figure out why. It seems now that the problem is at the developer level - the guys who made the basic player have a bug!!!

The viewing experience is better now. You can go full screen. Just right click and follow options. We serve a mean channel!

Last night we also were hit by somebody who wrote thus on a public forum:

"The site is very poor in navigation.
The links are not functional

It is still in Beta testing, I would advise you to set it up and functional before promoting it"

Then the guy writes in private that he did not understand the system. What can one do with him? grin and bear it I suppose.

We are ok with people who take us to task for system failures, who write in saying we suck. Then the very same ones go on and help us rectify the problems. I cannot understand the types who just denounce.

nautanki.tv is a movement and we are happy to be a part of it.

Mixed bag of talent explodes on Nautanki.tv!

April is a very crucial month for us. Nautanki.tv will have 1 hour of fresh programming across all the channels starting from April. When the intensity of pulling off something like this finally descended upon us in Feb-March we all broke out in cold sweat; to put it mildly. We had shoe string budgets at hand and were supposed to create this very generous mass of content that would be impactful, strong, snacky, edgy, stylish and lots more!
So, I was staring at the walls in our office one eventful evening out of sheer exhaustion. How and where were we supposed to start!

Then began our very exciting task of meeting content producers. This I must say was highly exciting. We met people who had made some great short films, we met people who had worked in professional media settings, we met people who wanted to do something related to films and TV and desperately needed a platform and we also met people who were busy shooting their pet dogs peeing on roads and putting these very catchy videos on YouTube. We met a whole bunch of talented, funny and interesting people. Some were really good and some were not, but the most important thing to remember here is that all of these people had something in common. They were all eager. Eager and impatient to direct their own film, eager to act , eager to make it on their on and the eager to succeed. Personally, I loved them all and really wish I could work with everybody.

Now this mixed bunch of people is producing a whole lot of content for us and the best part is that they also get to make good amount of money through it. That's nautanki for you.

If you still haven't heard about us then simply pick up the current issue of Business Today. We are featured as one of the 10 best start ups in the country and mind you, we happen to be the youngest of the lot. Now comes the difficult part of living upto it. But I'm not getting worked up. We have enough ammunition to really crack this thing.

Wish us luck!