India daily launches mobile news site in Hindi

Posted by Erina Lin on January 14, 2009 at 4:20 PM

Jagran Prakashan, publishers of the India paper, Dainik Jagran, has unveiled a news mobile portal in Hindi, Wap.Jagran.com, afaqs! reported.

The title already has a portal offering national, international, sports, business and breaking news, but with the mobile location-based technology, it now can provide district-level news to people across the country.

According to Rajeev Dhal, country head of J9 Ventures, the division of Jagran Prakashan which developed the portal, "It is quite obvious that there is a dearth of Hindi news content in the mobile space and there are a number of consumers in India who want to access Hindi news content on their mobiles."

"News will remain the primary focus of the mobile portal," Dhal added. "We have plans to introduce citizen journalism on the mobile site and enable our users to upload photos and news on the site. We will offer localised news content as well. This implies that users can opt for news related to their districts. News from more than 200 districts will be integrated and made available to users."

The site will soon also feature content including cricket scores, school results and jokes, as well as free downloads of entertainment and spiritual wallpapers, afaqs! reported.

Dhal said the portal will be monetised primarily through advertisements. "We are talking to some mobile ad networks in India who will represent us and do ad sales for our mobile news portal."

According to Dhal, J9 Ventures expects to launch another four or five mobile portals in the near future, including a classified ads site, an entertainment site, and a mobile gaming portal, afaqs! reported.