Shaken and Stirred

So, HT buys DesiMartini for a cool $10 million. Cheers to that, because the exit strategy seems to have worked for them, although i saw many sites warning about the impending bubble 2.0 in the Indian context.

I have always wondered about the business model of the ‘main bhi’ social networking sites, and this makes me all the more suspicious about the intentions. I really wonder how many of these guys are actually in for the long haul, although the other wondering is what exactly do they tell the VCs about revenue models when they go in for the initial funding. Maybe they give conspiratorial winks to each other when they reach that slide 🙂

But to pull back, how do you think an offline major player like HT can leverage social networking? While DesiMartini was one of those sites which had a fairly good burst in the television media (which would’ve driven up their user base), I’m sure they would be minnows if compared to the videsi orkut or even facebook these days. Do they see some potential for bundling print and web in terms of ad sales? Or is it a strategic buy to gain a footspace in the still nascent Indian internet space?

Or hey, do you think HT’s trying to increase their valuation? 😉

and i bid adieu, while you should start work on that start up of yours 😀