Short breaking news has been a big hit in the recent times with people increasingly finding themselves short on time to keep themselves abreast with latest developments happening around them.
However, the concept of delivering breaking news in 160 characters was launched way back in 2005 by Digital Goa, which is probably one of the first technology start-ups of Goa. Goa Centric professional SMS News Service, launched 12 years back by journalist-turned-entrepreneur – Niraj Naik – has many other unique features which keeps it alive and kicking in this instant information explosion era.
There has been lot of debate in the recent past over the need of independent and unbiased media. Media dependence is becoming a major issue & threat to Indian democracy on the backdrop of media houses being taken over by corporates and political parties or being dictated by advertisers.
Media running out of subscription paid by the public and in turn only accountable to the public at large can be truly independent and people centric. However, this utopian concept is rather cumbersome and non-lucrative when it comes to implementing it on ground zero.
Digital Goa takes great pride in being one of the few media houses in the country which have made such an economic model viable. In addition, despite being an unconventional media Digital Goa has carved a niche for itself in the mainstream media of the state.
Digital Goa has struck to its principle of ‘no advertisements, only pure news’ in the 12 years history of SMS News Service. The service runs exclusively on subscriptions collected from thousands of citizens of Goa.
Right from who’s who including the chief minister of the state to the common man on the street is a Digital Goa Subscriber. Our subscriber base is spread across the length and breadth of Goa. With strong attachment of Goan Diaspora to this land the service is used by Goan staying outside Goa and also abroad.
Digital Goa’s indigenous collection model devised for the collection of mostly monthly payments from the subscribers with motorcycle borne executives stationed in all major cities of Goa is also unique in its own right.
It all started way back in June 2005, when cellphones were slowly gaining popularity in the urbanized state of Goa. Goa’s high literacy, widespread knowledge of English, tech savvy population and most importantly strong craving for knowing the development happening within Goa has largely contributed to making this unique service an instant hit. It may be noted that it was the pre-social media era and there were one or two local cable TV channels that used to telecast one hour news capsule containing news of previous day. The only source of knowing latest news was radio and the newspapers that would disseminate news the next day.
from digitalgoa
Comments
Post a Comment