In yet another country-specific step, Yahoo has announced the launch of Yahoo India Advertising. The site’s getting some mixed reviews, however; it’s pretty professional, yet it’s also nearly identical to the original Yahoo Advertising.
From a visual perspective, the biggest difference is in the “New Yorker Weekly Cartoon” (the original version involves a quip about setless televisions, while the Indian site jokes about the tobacco industry’s euphemisms). Nikhil Pahwa notes that, otherwise, “The India specific customization aggregation of news feeds from exchange4media, agencyfaqs and the IAMAI’s e-zine Thinking Aloud,” and “there’s some India specific research, creatives.”
So it doesn’t look like a whole lot of effort was put into this new product. But, perhaps in the vein of “it’s the thought that counts,” Shahnawaz Sayyad adds in contentSutra’s “Comments” section, “[A]s far as I am concerned these guys know wht [sic] they are doing (though of course, they too have their ups and downs).”
Nikil Kanchan chips in, “yahoo is really doin wel and i thk d new portal is gr8….keep it up yahoo i thk ul match up wit google pretty soon.” (And rather than put [sic] after every word, well, let’s just say that it’s implied.)
Yahoo India Advertising is certainly creating a bit of controversy, but then, that’s equal to publicity. And as Pearl Uppal, Yahoo India’s director of sales, stated in a press release, “This will help us effectively create a platform for dialogue, sharing of views, evaluation techniques and other relevant information . . .” That quote concludes with “on online advertising,” but at least Yahoo’s on the right track.
