Rediff Story

Are you an avid web surfer? If so, what is the site that you view the most?
What is the site that enjoys most

popularity among Indian surfers? Yeah, as most of you must have guessed, it’s Google India (google.co.in).
Interestingly, even number 2 spot goes to Google (google.com)! Facebook stands third as Yahoo and YouTube
occupy fourth and fifth positions respectively. Wikipedia, Orkut, Blogger and Twitter also made it into the top ten.
These stats will definitely hurt the patriotic side of ours. None of these sites that enjoy huge popularity in India
were developed indigenously. But as you scroll down the list, at top 9 th position you will find a site that makes you
feel immensely proud. That’s Rediff.com India Ltd.! For all of you who are unaware, Rediff.com is a complete
indigenous website that was developed in and being maintained from India. This site has a global web traffic
ranking of 159. Rediff is particularly popular in Pune and Mumbai.
For those who idolize Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg, here is a man you should know about. Ajit Balakrishnan, the
Founder of Rediff.com. Unlike Larry or Mark, Ajit Balakrishnan is not a Computer Science graduate. Ajit was born in
a family of doctors. His childhood fantasy was football but since he realized the importance of studies, he topped
the classes. Though he was a good student, he wasn’t interested in Engineering or medicine. He has taken his
Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Kerala University. Although his getting into management studies was a sheer
‘accident’, he loved his days at IIM Kolkata. He once said, “They taught us subjects like sociology and psychology
and I was thrilled!” By the time he completed his MBA, the country was cruising through a rough phase, battered
by various problems like naxalism, wars with neighboring countries etc. Then many of his IIM Kolkata batch-mates
went on to join Hindustan Lever and Tata Companies to improve country’s productivity. But his aim was not to be a
spike in a wheel but to be a vehicle itself. At an age of 22, he started an ad agency called Rediffusion Marketing
with the help of his friend Arun Nanda. The ad agency won many awards during its initial years of operation. The
agency is now part of Dentsu-Young and Rubicam. Ajit was always interested in media and technology fields. At
Harvard, he did a research on CompuServe, the first major commercial online service in US. This research fuelled
his desire of starting an online service in India. By 1995, internet was introduced in India and he immediately gave
over the ad agency responsibilities to Arun Nanda and started the ‘Rediff.com’ web portal with an initial
investment of 2 Crores. Although today Rediff.com achieves an annual turnover of hundred crores, for the first
three years Rediff.com produced no income at all. After many years of meticulous planning and hard work,
Rediff.com made it into the glory path making Ajit Balakrishnan the sixth most powerful entrepreneur in India by
2009.
Rediff.com is headquartered in Mumbai with 300 employees working in it. Rediff.com is essentially a web portal.
Now, what is a web portal? A web portal is a site where heterogeneous information from various sources is
presented to the user in a homogenous way. The information is short and summarized and one can click on the
respective hyperlinks for more details. Rediff has 9.5 crores registered users. Rediff offers many constructive
services like Rediff Q&A, Rediff Money, Rediff My Page, Rediff Bol, Rediff Music, Rediff Search, Rediff cricket etc
that are highly personalized to Indian users. Of these, Rediff Mail and Rediff Money are the most trafficked
services. Rediff is committed to provide current and correct information to the users, thereby gaining their trust.
The problem with Rediff is that its Average Load Time is 2.049 seconds and that’s classified as slow. 69% of
websites load quicker than Rediff.com does. If Rediff shortens its load time, then it may attract more customers.
Rediff.com is also popular in UAE, Pakistan and UK. Rediff recently acquired and began offering India Abroad, a
weekly newspaper published from New York. On average, a user views 8.3 pages and spends 9.6 minutes in a visit
to this site. It’s fascinating to note that Rediff web portal is more popular among Indian web surfers than iGoogle
web portal or Yahoo web portal. So, from now on when you go online, don’t forget to hook up to Rediff.com.
Happy surfing folks!!

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Are you an avid web surfer? If so, what is the site that you view the most?

What is the site that enjoys most

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