The question Surya Mantha, CEO of Web18, is asked most frequently is “Why are you doing what are you doing? I’m asked how many more sites have you added since the last time we spoke?” Well, that’s a question we’ve asked many times as well. Mantha says that TV18 is moving online because they don’t want to miss out like their media counterparts in the west. Traditional media thrives on individual talent, so there’s really no threat. The issue with the web is that two smart guys on the net can screw an existing business model. From a web 2.0 perspective – the wisdom of the crowds is key. India straddles web .20 to web 2.0.

Trehan also spoke about the need for the IT act to evolve – people in the government are living in the middle ages. As far as spam and clutter is concerned – the internet is a vast jungle, and the characteristic of it is that orderlessness. Whoever creates some sense of this madness makes money. Creativity out of confusion. You cant tame it or change it.

Bikhchandani also asked me and Rajiv Dingra of WATblog for our comments. My take is big media is threatened – look at all the acquisitions. One finds that big media is weakened by marketing compulsions and editorial space is up for sale. The TG is moving to the digital space – how many kids read the newspaper? And what do we really know about TV when measurement systems track less than 5000 households in the country? Life magazine shut offline publication in the US earlier this year – and magazines are at risk since TV and the Internet will break news, and newspapers (like the Mint is doing) will have more features. There are innumerable instances of blogs with consistently great content – only, the advertisers haven’t discovered them, and many those that have discovered, haven’t understood them. I deleted yet another mail just this morning, offering to buy editorial space on ContentSutra. The key is still going to be editorial independence – which we as a company will keep fighting for. Dingra gave the example of a mainstream paper that picked up their content (happens to us too), and also that they’ve received interest from a mainstream publication for syndicating their content.

I asked Trehan and Mantha about whether they intend to use their video steams for user generated content online, or whether they can imbed advertising into it since it must be losing them money: Trehan said that they had around 20,000 paid subscribers (industry insiders say max 10,000) but decided to make it free for brandbuilding purposes. They’re going to experiment with paid models. NDTV India will go live online very soon, and NDTV 24x7 has already gone live on 3Gwith Kuwait’s Watania Telecom. Mantha agreed that the live video streaming is burning a hole in their pockets with high bandwidth costs. They’ll look at embedding ads when the technology is there.