The first years of Internet in India were virtually unknown and hardly noticed. First, ERNET (Education and Research Network), a division of Department of Electronics, and later, the National Informatics Centre (NICNet) and the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) set up Internet hubs.
However, these were limited initiatives. It was only in August 1995 that India got its first public Internet service. It was provided by Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL), a Government of India undertaking, The service, named the Gateway Internet Access Service (GIAS), connected Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai to the net. Later, Bangalore and Pune got hooked to the net.
# First Sites
The initial years of Internet in India were frustrating. The dial-up connections were slow and broke down repeatedly. But this did not deter the Indian elite from acquiring these connections and logging onto the net. There was greater interest when The Hindu, The Times of India and The Indian Express set up websites. This happened in 1996. A few language sites, like Dinamani, also were set up around the same time.
However, it was the overseas Indians who were the main users of these sites They logged in from America, Canada, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and parts of Europe to know what was happening back home. The fact that the sites were low-tech and published the newspaper content one day late did not seem to bother them.
These were the early days, and the media was not much impressed. The general belief was that the web had a long way to go to become a mass medium. Companies therefore outsourced all website work — from designing to programming to hosting. American servers were used to host sites because India did not have any server farms.
# The turning point
The turning point came in 1998, when the government took away the monopoly status of VSNL, and allowed the private sector to set up Internet infrastructure. The sale of Samachar.com to Satyam Infoway, for a much touted Rs 425 crores and the purchase of Hotmail by Microsoft for 400 million dollars injected excitement in the environment.
The arrival of venture capital and the ensuing dotcom frenzy during 1999-2000 made the media sit up and take notice of Internet in India. Three major media houses even set up independent companies to look after Internet business. These included The Times of India, The Hindustan Times and The Indian Express.
The interest in the net was not limited to English-language media, but extended to regional media too. Websites were set up by most language dailies. Initially, the language fonts were a major issue. Some newspapers tried to overcome the problem by converting news reports into images, and publishing them. Later, web fonts were stored on the servers for users to download. The language newspapers also experimented with on-the-fly fonts developed by Bitstream, an American company.
The period was marked by a burst of activity both within and outside the media. The newspapers especially benefitted from the advertisements released by websites like Baazee.com, Indya.com, Indiainfoline.com, Indiainfo.com, Hungama.com, My Iris.com and Sharekhan.com. Indya.com, for instance, was rumoured to have spent over Rs 4 crores on its launch campaign.
An important site that came up around this time was Tehleka.com. The site shook India’s defence establishment with its sting operation. Another interesting development was the arrival of Internet giants Yahoo! and MSN. Both set up Indian portals. Yahoo! also entered into revenue sharing deals with several media companies from which it sourced content.
# Dotcom bust and after
The dotcom boom did not last long. But for the short period that it lasted it did create manpower problems for traditional media. Scores of journalists left newspapers for the dotcoms. At the same time, the media had to hire or train a new group of professionals whose skill sets were different from those of the existing ones. These professionals included web designers, web programmers and journalists who could edit and publish copy on the net.
The mood changed by 2001. Despondency replaced euphoria. Several high profile dotcoms went bust, and there were retrenchments and scaling down of operations. A depressed economy added to the woes of Internet enthusiasts.
Thenewspapertoday.com, a website launched by the India Today Group, tried to change the rules of the game by introducing a paywall in 2001. The development was watched with great interest by media websites. The hope was that all media sites could start levying a subscription fee if thenewspapertoday.com succeeded. But it was not to be. The website was shut down within months of introducing subscription fee.
Clearly, Indians, like the rest of the world, were not willing to pay for online content. No serious experiment was conducted after this setback, and most of the news content on the net continues to be free to this day.
Part II: The Web changes lanes in India
Part III: Web 2.0 rises in India, so does mobile
Part IV: Chronology of Internet in India
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