Webdunia to focus on new e-literates

With several e-literacy programmes on, India's first multi-language internet portal, Webdunia, plans to tap the huge market of new computer literates by going for a technical upgradation and a publicity campaign.

The portal available in 11 regional languages, would concentrate on those who are entering into the virtual world of internet through e-literacy programmes sponsored by the government as well as private companies.

"Around 100 million such literates are going to be added in five-six years and this could contribute to about 70 per cent of the total internet users by the end of this timespan.

We are targetting this segment, for whom lack of knowledge in English language should not be a deterrent in using internet," Pankaj Jain, Chief Operating Officer of Webdunia, told PTI.

The portal would make technological upgradations as part of the initiatives, which include a 'predictive and autocomplete text' function that would make search mechanism more user-friendly in regional languages.

"Even with the first three letters, a whole range of words with the combination would be suggested and this would make input mechanism easier," he said.

Further, all the related words and synonyms in regional languages would be suggested for the user's convenience.

Webdunia has set apart Rs 25 crore (Rs 250 million)

for the next three years for an advertisment campaign to tap the market, he said.

Further, publicity initiatives would be undertaken to reach the fairly huge segment of internet users who have their mother tongues as primary language and English as secondary. 

Meanwhile, Webdunia was in the process of launching an advanced blogging facility, with a wide variety of services like 'community building'. This would be launched next month, Jain said.

The company, was also handling "localisation" of foreign languages, he said.

It already handles such projects in 30 languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Japanese, Sinhalese, Pashto, Spanish, French, German and Chinese.

Localisation involves adaptation of the products to meet language, cultural and other requirements of a specific group, he said.

The company also undertakes localisation in 11 regional languages -- Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu.

Webdunia provides technology, content and service for running seven regional portals of Yahoo India and the sourced content for MSN India's five portals.

According to Jain, the company has 1.5 million users and was adding up its user base by six to eight per cent on a monthly basis.