Research Proposal:

Identifying key growth drivers and map the short-term future of Internet Publishing and Broadcasting and Web Search Portals Subject: Social Research Methods

Purpose of the Study:

Till about 2 -3 decades ago one had to rely on the news or happenings published in news papers, magazines, radio and TV. Radio and TV provided most updated news, but there was no repository of data available for a common man to browse through which could come in handy and without wasting time going through tons of bundles of papers, struggling to find news or search critical point with help of naked eye. In tenet came as a boon to the modern world and within no time has become a critical part of our day to day life the biggest information and communication technology provider, its on its way to become the most popular channel to receive and publicize news of any form. What makes Internet so powerful tool of information provider is the functionality of Internet Publishing and Broadcasting and Web Search Portals, which provides user with the capability of researching and fetching information ranging from wide spectrum of facts and fantasies. With help of this study we plan to systematically investigate the future of Web Search Portals and Internet Publishing and Broadcasting.

Introduction: Internet Publishing and Broadcasting and Web

Search Portals
A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way. Apart from the standard search engine feature, web portals offer other services such as e-mail, news, stock prices, information, databases and entertainment. Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with

access control and procedures for multiple applications and databases, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether.

History:
In the late 1990s the web portal was a hot commodity. After the proliferation of web browsers in the late-1990s many companies tried to build or acquire a portal to have a piece of the Internet market. The web portal gained special attention because it was, for many users, the starting point of their web browser.

Classification:
Portals can be broadly classified into to categories Horizontal and Vertical. Horizontal Portal Horizontal portal is, that it is used as a platform to several companies in the same economic sector or to the same type of manufacturers or distributors. Vertical Portals (Vortals)

A vertical portal consequently is a specialized entry point to a specific market or industry niche, subject area, or interest, also called vortal. It is also a specialized entry point to a specific marketplace and or industry niche. VIP's provide news, editorial content, digital publications, and ecommerce capabilities. Separate from traditional vertical portals, VIP's provide dynamic multimedia applications including social networking, video posting, and blogging.
Types of web portals: Web Portals can be brodly categorized into the following:

Personal Potals: A personal portal is a site on the World Wide Web that typically provides personalized capabilities to its visitors, providing a pathway to other content. It is designed to use distributed applications, different numbers and types of middleware and hardware to provide services from a number of different sources. Personal portals can be related to any specific topic such as providing friend information on a social network or providing links to outside content that may help others beyond your reach of services.

News Portals: All the major media houses cross the globe are moving to the new age techolnology of providing all information through WEB. The biggest advantage of this over print media is updated content and reaching out to a wider span of audience/users across the globe and breaking the location barier. Government Web Portals: Governmetn of many countries have created websites for the natives to help them collect necessary details pertaining to country specific laws, orders, tourism, VISA details and norms etc. This includes main portals of the Government and their sub portals aimed at specific audience. Cultural Web Portals: These Portals provides ready access to various cultural aspects which are or have faded out with time. These could be based around specific groups or religion or nation. Corporate Web Portals: One shop resolution for employees to answer queries around companies governance, policies, benefits, vison, mission, culture, structure etc. Corporate Portals also offer customers & employees self-service opportunities. Stock Portals: stock market portals or stock exchange portals are Web-based applications that facilitates the process of informing the share-holders with substantial online data such as the latest price, ask/bids, the latest News, reports and announcements. Some stock portals use online gateways through a central depository system (CDS) for the visitors to buy or sell their shares or manage their portfolio. Search Portals: These are the portals which fetch required data around a specific search related topic being searched by the ueser from multipe sites/databases to provide one consolidated data in a page or series of them. Entertainment Portals: These protals provides users with available list of choices and variety from on line shopping, to buying music, movies, concerts, plays etc. Domain Specific Portals: These portals came in existence to solve the need of specific searchs or addressing the needs of a

specific segment like Property Seekers, Students applying for Colleges, Job Oprotunites etc.

Problem Statement:
Portals.

Knowing the fact that Web Search Portals are now the back bone of any industry or economy new players would like to identify key growth drivers and map the short-term future of Web Search

Scope of the Study:

Identifying top listed companies from this

sector and understand the Cost Structure in terms of Fixed Asset, Current

Asset and Liabilities which will help new players understand and see the future of this industry.

Relevance of the study:

Web Portals cost structure can be majorly broken in terms of: Increase in Stock Raw Material Cost Power Generation and Distribution Other Manufacturing Expenses Employee Cost Selling and Administration Expenses Miscellaneous Expenses Depreciation Other Operation cost

The cost also depends on various factors some of which are constant and those that are variable. The above mentioned cost heads determine the overall cost that a new player will have to keep in mind.

Costs structure [%]

Looking at the figures and graph its clear that employee cost dominates in the cost structure

Market Share of Top Listed Companies

Market shares of top listed companies from the sector Q2 2011 Company Info Edge India Ltd. Southern Online Bio Technologies Ltd. CNI Research Ltd. Interworld Digital Ltd. Nettlinx Ltd. Northgate Technologies Ltd. IOL Netcom Ltd. Net sales 3 144.0 665.6 272.3 117.7 49.5 36.9 8.7 Market Share 28.01% 5.93% 2.43% 1.05% 0.44% 0.33% 0.08% Net sales dynamics 27.46% 63.15% 43.09% 20.58% 3.66% -46.58% -91.81% Net profit 923.1 -119.3 11.1 3 -2.6 -10 -115.8

Data on sales and net profit are in mm INR and represent standalone values from 4 quarters

Investment Structure

Structure of Fixed Assets

Looking at the figures and graph its clear that leasehold land dominates in the fixed assets structure

Structure of Current Assets

Looking at the figures and graph its clear that cash & bank dominates in the current assets structure

Mergers and Acquisitions

Research Design:

To understand the market better its important to talk and consult the existing players and then analyze the data. We reached out to key players mentioned in our research:
Company Info Edge India Ltd. Southern Online Bio Technologies Ltd. CNI Research Ltd. Interworld Digital Ltd. Nettlinx Ltd. Northgate Technologies Ltd. IOL Netcom Ltd.

And spoke with key stake holders (personal interviews) of the likes of: CEO COO Marketing Head Promotional Head Human Resources Procurement

These division or unit heads gave us understanding of critical pieces to connect the dots, in terms of what strategies they follow, how they decide on target set of audience/users, what kind of challenges do they face in terms of talent attraction, keeping up in the race of brand, client data base building etc. Questionnaire: Post interaction with the unit heads, we also prepared a questionnaire for unit employees to help us understand the future of Web Portals, around 80 odd employees responded to our survey question which help us understand what would be the future of Web Portals.

Based on our questionnaire analysis and understanding we came up with following key points which will shape or enhance Web Portals competences in future: Future of Web Portals
1. Micro-Payments For Quality Content Micro Payments is a business concept and the goal is to generate revenue by offering pay-per-view Web Pages or Web Links. Some companies are already making strides in the micro-payment arena. Many current systems accumulate a big number of micro-payments before paying out a single larger payment. But that may change in the future; one is able to spend micro-payments as soon as you get them, rather than having to wait for them to add up.

2. Magazines In A More Interactive Format (Wiki, Digital Video, Etc.) With users getting more demanding and net becoming more user friendly, Mobile phones have taken a step ahead by providing Net on Phone, which helps the user explore all the possible topics that one can do with help of a computer. A whole new segment of online magazines is appearing in a variety of formats, some hold on to the page-flipping print format (except digitally rendered), while others have broken free and are more blog-like. Whatever the format, they are providing faster, cheaper and more user-friendly content than their print counterparts. The trend is likely to continue as costs for everything but Web space go up. 3. More Collaborative And Real-Time Content The Web has long been used by people to collaborate on projects with colleagues or clients who are not geographically close enough for a face-toface meeting. Writing projects are particularly popular and seem to do well across a variety of platforms. As broadband Internet becomes more widely available worldwide, collaborative projects will only get bigger and more frequent. Real-time updates and interaction make it possible to work on practically anything in a collaborative environment. Some projects will consist of small groups of people who already know each other, while other projects will bring together hundreds or even thousands of participants who were till then strangers. Theres really no limit to how many people could participate. 4. More Semantic Content And Apps That Exploit Them Introduction of apple apps like SERI which helps the user type messages or emails and send them without even required to press the send button has made theories and suggestions have been made for ages on how to make the Web more semantic: everything from creating artificial-intelligence apps that interpret data much like humans do, to more semantic tagging conventions that make it possible for current online apps and services to make sense of what code means to humans.

5. Enhanced Mobile Web Applications Real Mode

The new age mobile devices now have built-in digital cameras with video capability, people would naturally now want functionality beyond simple photography. Augmented reality applications can have a range of potential benefits, from making it easier to find your way if you get lost to letting you identify the person sitting across from you at a party. 6. Better Adoption Of Web Standards With more and more users accessing the Web from mobile browsers and browsers other than Internet Explorer, Web standards are only going to

become more important. Standards-compliant design has already become much more mainstream and been adopted by many (if not most) designers. 7. Online TV Programs Moving in a fast pace world we human now desire and want everything within our reach of a radius of finger tips, thats why most of the TV programs or channels will be available for viewers to be viewed on the phone with the help of 3G services.

8. Availability of your Operating System Online

Advanced mobile phones have already started compensating for Computers or ever Lap Tops when it comes to business travelling, by giving users the facility to have operating system on line available 24*7, from Linked in, to Twitter, to Face Book all the social media sites are up and running and easily accessible with help of mobile phones. 9. Customized User Interfaces

As Web apps become more integrated in our daily lives, customized user interfaces will surely follow. Being able to tailor the user experience to ones preferences is a huge plus for many Internet users. And some websites already let you make customizations to the information you see, how you see it and even how you interact with it.
10. The Web Will Be The Center Of Information And Content Distribution The Web has almost always been a major distribution point for information and this will only grow in future. Publishers, media producers and other content creators are already turning to the Web to get their products out to a bigger audience. Within the next few years, the Web may fully replace more established methods of content delivery. Newspapers and magazines will likely be the first media replaced by the Web and not far behind will be TV and movies. The movie theater probably wont be entirely replaced by the Web for a very long time, but more people will certainly be renting and buying movies online rather than on DVDs and other physical media.