 "Mashable to launch in India by August")
New York-based news and blogging portal Mashable, which announced its entry into India in February this year, will officially launch in the country by August. The Pete-Cashmore-founded portal joined hands with Zee Entertainment Enterprises-promoted India.com and it is through this tie up that the Indian version of Mashable will be launched.
The tie-up, among other things, will see India.com provide editiorial and advertising support. Mashable will have a local editiorial team that will generate content for the Indian market. Mashable is also expected to leverage the expertise and reach of india.com that runs several websites specialising in consumer technology, cricket, Bollywood and health respectively.
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The 10-year-old Mashable focuses on chronicling how technology and digital media are impacting the world. It ranks among the top tech websites in the world with a claimed unique visitor base of 42 million a month.
Mashable will compete with the likes of Quartz, Huffington Post, Gizmodo and Business Insider, which have all made their way into India in the last one year. Gizmodo, Huffington Post and Business Insider, incidentally, were launched by Times Internet, the digital company belonging to Bennett Coleman & Company (BCCL) . Some of the other global digital properties launched by Times Internet in India recently include Advertising Age and Life Hacker, both popular websites in their genres of advertising and technology respectively.
Technology, say digital experts, is a top theme with online publishers in India. Times Internet alone has atleast four digital properties in its portfolio specialising in technology-based content.
Like Times Internet, Zee Enterprises' India.com also appears to be building a tech-specific content portfolio with more tie-ups and acquisitions in the pipeline. It currently has two in its portfolio - the soon-to-be launched Mashable and in-house BGR.in.
"Consumer technology is a subject that has a lot of scope and already enjoys a lot of readership. We shall be are looking at more acquisitions in the tech space in India and from abroad. This we believe will help us consolidate readers and help us build a strong tech portal portfolio. We are in talks with some portals, but cannot reveal anything yet," Sandeep Amar, COO, India.com, said.
The tech-specific content platform is also expected to lend itself well to native advertising, Amar added.
In other genres, India.com has beefed up its cricket coverage by getting on board cricketer VVS Laxman as a chief cricket mentor. Laxman will be actively involved in mentoring the writers on the portal and giving insights on analysis during a match.
CLARIFICATION
The previous version of this article misstated Sandeep Amar's desgnation as CEO, India.com. Amar is COO at the company. Similarly V V S Laxman will be chief cricket mentor at India.com, not serve as a consulting editor.