Livin' la vida local

To add to your predicament of where to choose to access your news and information, SifyMax, the "broadband portal" from Sify Limited, has recently launched bangalorelive.in "" the country's first city-centric broadband website.

The website showcases original video news content, and introduces television-style webcasts like live traffic feeds and events. "It's a great way to introduce broadband to a community that is looking for shared experiences," says Surya Mantha, senior vice-president, Interactive Services, Sify Limited.

Among SifyMax's consumer offerings are over 3,100 Sify iWays "" broadband cybercafes attracting over 7,00,000 visitors a month, with the addition of two cafes every day. And while broadband penetration in India is still painfully low, a little over 1 million households according to SifyMax, India's broadband policy (2004) aims at over 20 million broadband users by 2010.

"Bangalore offers us, possibly, the most internet savvy audience. It is also an interesting enough city for a non-Bangalore audience to track, especially the NRI set," explains Mantha.

The sentiment behind the venture was to make bangalorelive a community driven channel with many possibilities for user interaction.

There is a "make your own blog" section, a daily discussion board, online contests, and even a space for you to upload photographs and videos that other users might find of interest.

The website is distinctly youthful with a strong focus on music, clubs, city happenings, employment and education sections, and the net jockeys (as they've been baptised) are fresh-out-of-journalism school.

Even the launch event is a four-week long "Battle of the DJs" contest driven entirely by user interaction with the DJs online and subsequent voting. There is, however, credible daily news offering as well, with live web streaming of CNN-IBN, and news capsules courtesy Asian News International.

For Sify, a leading player in Consumer Internet Access and Enterprise Services, hosting broadband content has little incremental cost and much advertising to gain.

Mantha says, "We use the same common network infrastructure that we use for corporate connectivity, enterprise offerings and consumer internet access."

And while sponsorship and advertising will be their primary revenue streams, SifyMax is hoping the fact that they are using bangalorelive to promote Sify's e-commerce businesses (sms services, online shopping, music audio and video content) that there will be some conversion to sales.

Mantha clarifies, "While we're hoping this will become Bangalore's favourite community exchange platform, we are definitely using it to introduce Bangalore to other Sify services."

SifyMax hopes to extend the privilege to other cities over the next few months. "While the rest of Indian media is focused on going national with content, with bangalorelive and the next few city websites, we will make local content fashionable," concludes Mantha.