lystn

Did you know that in Tier 3 cities of India, the search icon, or the magnifying glass that you see in the Amazon app was interpreted as a table tennis racquet? Such an irony.  Amazon’s forte is Product Search and Recommendations. This is why Amazon had to reinvent it’s App for it’s Bharat strategy. There are 100’s of other examples where What-Worked-In-Lucknow didn’t work in Etah. Or What-Sold-Like-Hot-Cakes in Jaipur never caught the user’s eyes in Bhilwara. Cracking vernacular India is the new holy grail for everyone. But it takes more than just translating your app into the regional language. Building any product that hits the masses in a country where 780 languages are spoken and culture changes on every 100th milestone in a daunting task. The exact thing that the team at News18 seems to have mastered. They have not only built a news and media product that serves this audience, but they have also now started championing monetization of this audience. Sounds almost impossible right? That’s what we will unravel in this conversation with Sudipto Nandy - Head of Product at Network18 and Sonakshi Sinha - Lead on Monetization at News18.