[by Cerius Shah] Cross media has been pegged as a theme in 2008 by Nikhil and it seems to be happening already. Ibibo has partnered with Zee’s biz and news channels to launch Public Ka Vitt Mantri. According to this Mint article, users are invited to post a blog on their ideal budget on Ibibo, to be judged by Former Union Finance minister Yashwant Sinha.

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The article states that Yamaha Motors, Bharti Airtel Ltd and Rediff.com’s (NSDQ: REDF) iShare, are all planning similar moves. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is currently on track for launching its Office Makeover series. Users will be invited to give ideas on how to re-do their office, winning entries will get a makeover (more Windows Schmista). The Raghav Bahl funded Campus 18 had recently started a print and online campaign called Rock Idol, an all online reality talent hunt.Importantly for the Ibibo-Zee deal, its the first time a mainstream politician will be using the network to gauge user response. While Campus18 and iShare will be pre-dominantly traffic and registration generators, it’s not easy talking about national economics from a learned perspective.

Web properties will be looking at gratifying user’s in-order to facilitate traffic, wonder how they plan to monetize it besides a landmine of advertisements. Opinion and interactive tickers, the kind powered by Cellcast, have a definite benefit associated with them based on reach and time spent of the tv channel. In addition, whether quality of content generated online is suitable for broadcasting across various platforms is still open to debate. In the battle of eye-balls between broadband and television as well as the quality of experience, TV wins hands-down when it comes to video and sustainability. Reality shows on-air or online. What do you think?