Journalism is being heavily influenced by the Internet in India, Balakrishnan said. Because many people access the Internet through mobile phones -- Rediff.com has 50 million mobile phone users -- stories are only around 160 words long, he said.
Rediff.com, launched in 1995, offers email in English, Hindi and a dozen other major regional languages, as well as news, blogs, shopping, radio, information on jobs, movies and sports, and its own matchmaking services. Eventually, email users will be able to search their messages for specific keywords.
Although most of the users reside in India, the Web site has established a growing pool of readers who have moved from India to North America or Europe. The matchmaking section on the international site is actually featured more prominently than on the Indian site.
"Matchmaking is an important part of our business," Balakrishnan said.
"Over 5 million matrimonial profiles to choose from!" an ad featuring a photogenic Indian woman promises on the front page of the site. Another ad in the movie reviews and news section offers relationship analysis reports.
India's famous 'Bollywood' film industry is also featured on the Web site, with Bollywood music ring tones available for download and movie reviews and interviews. Reflecting one actor's quest for serious roles, "I'd rather cut my throat than sing" is the headline to a Rediff.com interview with Khalid Mohamed, a leading man in a new movie entitled 'Silsilay'.
Yahoo, founded around the same time, is the second biggest portal in India, followed by Microsoft's MSN, Balakrishnan said. Google, meanwhile, has no substantial domestic presence but is expected to push into the market eventually, he said.
The trend to outsource technology jobs to India is creating a more tech-savvy populace and has propelled many laborers into jobs with higher education requirements and greater skills, Balakrishnan said. "Innovation is what will drive things, so the low-end worker will (continue to) be contracted out."
Outsourcing, though, represents just the beginning for India's tech market and will be followed by more service and product companies, he added.
Talkback
Rediff , is nothing more than a website created to serve the fundamentalist Hindutva(fundamnetalist Hinduism) organizations like VHP,RSS Bajrang Dal ,BJP etc whose main job is to opress the religious minorities in India (Muslims,Christians ,Sikhs etc), they indulge in sensationalizing news,selective journalism and cherrypicking news concerning important national affairs.One of their notorious ways of journalism is to have the users(fundamentalists) comment on something have the most absurd and intolerant comment as the title of a link amongst the links of real news ,so that it seems real as well.Thus a website whose main purpose is to create mistust and hatred in the society cannot be viewed as the successful model of a business.
Somebody in Mad money made bullish comments and the stock went up drastically , that is something pople should refrain from while trying to judge a stock.Rediff has about 200 employees and has never been a profitable company ever sicne its existence.