Angad Bhatia is the co-founder of Xpert Media Technology, a digital media company, launched in late 2007 and runs a mens lifestyle online portal MensXP.com. The company had secured its first round of angel funding in September 2008 and is looking for funds to launch two new portals – WomensXP.com, a women centric content initiative and atGadget.com, and technology portal. In an exclusive interview with India Digital Review, Angad shares the journey of MensXP till now and the company’s plans going forward.

What was the idea behind launching MensXP.com?

The idea behind MensXP.com is to provide Indian readers, expert lifestyle advice to help them navigate their day to day lives in a useful, relevant and entertaining way.  Our content helps millions of users in India solve everyday problems and live better lives. MensXP lives up to its name by listening to what people want and by giving them the content and rich online experiences they crave.

It's this innovative approach that engages more than a million strong and rapidly growing readership on MensXP.com.

What is the prime revenue model of MensXP?

MensXP.com connects leading brands with millions of intent-driven online consumers every month. We have two streams of revenue:

Advertising. We provide brands targeting urban Indians with environments and mindset with a high impact advertising avenue. 

Editorial Solutions/Properties. We provide clients with editorial integrations and aspirational environments. Out here we help create 360 degree lifestyle projects designed to cater to advertising needs of specific brand and product launches. 

How has been the revenue growth of MensXP so far? What are your revenue expectations this fiscal?

We have seen significant revenue growth on MensXP.com. We are in a hyper growth phase, with our quarterly revenues increasing at almost 30-40%. We opened up MensXP.com for advertising in early 2011, and have already worked with over 20 of the Fortune 500 brands. It is interesting to note, that off these 20 or so brands that have advertised on MensXP.com once, are now consistent advertisers. We are expecting gross revenues in 2012-2013 of about USD 3.0 - 3.2 million.

You have been doing content tie ups with various horizontal portals. How has been the uptake of that and what are your plans on this?

We power lifestyle content for Yahoo India and are working closely with certain other horizontals at similar integrations.

Xpert Media (XPM), is working on a distributed content media model as an additional revenue source. We are actively working to create ‘content channels’ on several online platforms with exclusive content that offers publishers a new way to attract the valuable, intent-driven audiences that their advertisers actively want to reach. We will be helping these publishers engage a new set of audience with high quality, topic-focused content served directly to their website and optimized for their platform. We will deliver partner publishers, content around the areas of lifestyle – how to's, self-help, content guides, and tips.

The key principles behind content channels will help elevate Xpert Media and our web properties into the ComScore (India) top 15 media properties within the next year. Further, this basically generates a new income stream with revenue sharing arrangements.

What are your priorities as the MD of Xpert Media? Any new ventures planned?

I have a single, clear cut mission - to put together, the largest source of lifestyle related high quality information for the Indian user and to present it in an environment, conducive to their requirements.

The Internet overproduces certain types of content and underproduces other types. It overproduces Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif. But it doesn’t have much about how to handle a nagging girl-friend or how to manage deadlines at workplace. People are kind of left on their own to find the right answers. My core mission is to fill this void.

We are working hard towards making the company’s web properties - MensXP.com and other soon to be launched verticals, the de-facto source of lifestyle related information for the Indian user in a unique, rich and truly innovative environment. To make a difference to their lives by offering information that they seek.

We’re launching a women centric content portal - WomensXP.com and a technology centric portal called atGadget.com by the end of the year. Beyond these launches, we will be working towards strengthening our content creation platform - XPM Studios, setting up video production capabilities, and actively expanding our network of free-lancers for MensXP.com.

What is your funding status? Are you looking for funds? If yes, how would you utilize the fund?

Our initial angel investment was about USD 300,000 through which we have been able to organically scale up. We are looking to raise about USD 5 million to scale various ongoing efforts and new launches.

How do you see online publishing evolving in India?

Internet in India is in a hyper growth phase. With an estimated 80 million monthly users adding to that users from mobile, the internet industry is amongst the fastest growing industries in India. But does this really affect the online publishing industry? Yes, to a certain extent at-least! Larger is the audience pie, bigger would be the viewership.

Although, I feel that online publishers in India would have to focus greatly on solidifying this demand through a considerable amount of innovation and out-of-box thinking. This may come in form of creating a whole new and fresh way to experience content, creating stickiness around content through social elements, interactions and engagements. In India, the balance of power within digital media publishing will shift, this time to the experience that envelops the content.

Certain trends that we are currently witnessing include: Mushrooming of several independent niche content verticals creating value and focus for both users and advertisers; Localized content and content around special interest groups; Print publishers looking extend online in a bigger way; Advertiser demand for niche content avenues with affluent audience; Further demand for focus and high targeting in advertising; Customized solutions and editorial integrations for brands from publishers; Demand for video content and solutions; Increased advertising budgets from  various sectors.

It is believed that in India monetization of content is more of a reality in offline. What is your opinion on this?

Traditional media companies started their digital operations as an extension to their offline businesses. Although, the online industry is seeing significant growth and traction in their online presence. The digital ad market, in comparison to TV, Print or even MVAS is still relatively small. We’re currently operating in about a INR 2500 Crore digital ad market. But the potential, both in terms of products innovations and the growth in the market size is still tremendous.

How do you see traditional publishers take the route of convergence in India?

Quite a few leading traditional media publishers already have taken this route. Web 18, NDTV, Hindustan Times, Times Internet, to name a few. This basically depends on the revenue potential of the market.

Has social media and user generated content changed the dynamics of the online publishing industry?

Social Media - Yes, certainly! The balance of power within digital media publishing will shift, towards the publisher that can envelop the content in a truly unique and aspirational environment. Greater the appeal of the content and the environment it is in, greater the chances of it getting shared. This makes content less dependent on Google/Search Engines for its traffic. It basically adds another avenue of discoverability of content.

The term ‘User Generated Content’ itself is perhaps way too general to be particularly useful to online publishers. It may refer to anything from comments on the website to a video post by someone on YouTube to an article entry on Wikipedia. For us, it helps create a dialogue around our content on MensXP.com, which in turn leads to  more visitors.

According to you, which are the key advertiser segments where spend has been increasing on online media?

Segments like Consumer electronics, FMCG, automotive and e-commerce are seeing increasing spends online.

What are your thoughts on innovations which publishers can offer to clients for advertising their products in a better way?

Besides rich media advertising, video integration, we are seeing a lot of traction in editorial integrations that we are actively offering clients. Brands are actively looking for content integrations.

Do you see online inventory pricing growing over the coming year?

Brands that are looking at creating certain customized experiences online are willing to experiment with higher CPMs. In my opinion, the quality of the audience will determine inventory pricing to a certain extent. More premium, the quality of your audience (like at MensXP.com) the higher the CPM the publisher may demand. Although, this may work well for niche publishers, at scale we at Xpert Media would be looking for more competitive offerings.

How have Indian publishers used the mobile technologies to offer mobile services to their users? What are your plans around this?

We are already witnessing significant growth on MensXP.com through its mobile site. Adding to this our upcoming iPhone, Android and HTML5 applications, we are looking to create certain customized experiences around our content.

How do you see the revenues of Indian online publishers growing in the coming years? What role does regional content have in regards of growing the online publishing industry? What are Xpert Media’s plans on this?

The regional language space, as per ComScore, is believed to be growing at about 40 per cent. Horizontals like Yahoo have already reported significant growth rates in their already operational language metrics like Tamil with about a 160 per cent growth of page views in the last 6 months. There is a significant demand for lifestyle content in regional languages, especially in the areas of health and fitness. We will looking to build capacity for offering portions of our content in regional languages depending on market trends.