Webchutney in bid to be media owner

<P>NEW DELHI Interactive agency Webchutney will launch its own social networking site in what it hopes will be the first of several ventures creating and developing media vehicles online. Nidhi Dewan, Webchutney's corporate communications manager, described the launch as an experiment that could provide useful learnings for other launches in the future.</P> <P><br><br><BR>"We would definitely like to be a media owner," she said. "We would like to come up with ventures and concepts we can call our own. "</P> <P><br><br><BR>Demonstrating what Web-chutney could achieve online could also encourage advertisers to initiate their own projects on a larger scale, she added. "Owning and creating media is huge. It makes us more interesting and more bankable."</P> <P><br><br><BR>The new site, a specialised travel community, will be built on the foundations of an online contest Webchutney was running at presstime, dubbed 'Ok Tata Bye Bye', in which the winner will blog their way across India in a 15-day journey in July armed with a web-enabled laptop and digital camera. The contest secured over 8,000 registrations through marketing within India's blogging community, Dewan said, highlighting the   project's potential.</P> <P><br><br><BR>Despite blogging's popularity in India, large established social networking sites such as MySpace have yet to take off, Dewan said, prompting Web-chutney to try its own site. <BR></P>