Friday, May 01, 2009

New Mediabharti.com: Journey's Next Destination

By Dharmendra Kumar

It is a great pleasure to present you this new version of Mediabharti.com, more attractive and user friendly than the earlier version.

After its launch on March 14, 2002, Mediabharti.com has seen lots of ups and downs in the course of seven years. Lots of friends have been associated with me in this journey, some are still around, others left mid-way but the quest continues with renewed determination and passion. And, today, when I look back I can not help acknowledging the guidance and help of many who stood by me encouraging and helping me in various ways.

I recall that eventful evening when some of us Journalism students were engaged in discussing our future prospects at our Journalism Guru Brij Khandelwal’s Home. The topic of discussion was…How to get entry into the mainstream media. Those of us who had failed to get a job were naturally more concerned and a little frustrated. It was then that Mr. Khandelwal suggested why not started a venture of your own till such time as opportunity start striking at your doors. Your own venture would instill not only skills required but a lot of confidence in your ability. Mediabharti.com would be the ideal platform for you to showcase your talent, Khandelwal Sir said. The idea immediately struck and work began. That is how the seed was sown.

Technical and designing responsibilities were given to another faculty lecturer Vikas Dinkar Pandit. Within days the draft was ready! …From that day, I accepted Brij Khandelwal, as the ‘Father’ of Mediabharti.com and Vika Dinkar Pandit as the ‘Mother’. The baby was conceptualized and born, it needed the loving care and patient nurturing. My beloved Late Rashmi Gupta admirably took upon herself the challenging task of bringing up the baby. I had worked on the dream and she shared every bit of that creative process that went into giving the project a shape and a direction. After her untimely and shocking departure on June 27, 2007, for once I almost gave up and thought of winding up the project but friends provided the moral and emotional support compelling me to change my decision.

So the journey continued and has picked up enough momentum and steam to be a trend setter.

Let me now tell you about the new features that have been incorporated to give it a new look and prove more useful for our valuable fans and user.

Let’s start from the logo. Logo has the same ‘M’ as earlier, to keep reminding us of our struggles and the ups and downs.

For smooth navigation, there are three Menus on site. First is Top Menu, which have Links for Other Editions, Contact us and to search the content in site or on internet.

Second, the Main Menu, has various sections like-- News, Editorials, Cinema, Television, Fashion, Automobile, Health, Life, Tech Guru, Variety, Jokes, Book Shelf, Women and Career.

The third menu is for just registered users.

Along with a section called ‘Blog’ has also given for those visitors, who have a low bandwidth internet connection. In this section, visitor would not be served the images and other heavy content.

In the main body of site, the ‘Latest stories’ and ‘Most Popular’ stories are given. Then the main story is being presented with two other stories. Visitors would now be able to rate stories according to their interests and judgments.

Besides it, the story can be seen in PDF format, print can be taken and even one can send the story to friends. Related stories links also would be provided with each story. There would be more features for registered users.

RSS version 0.91, 1.0, 2.0; Atom 0.3 and OPML service is also available for the visitors. With this service you can get the regular updates on your desktop. Even, you can add this service to your blog or Facebook profile.

Latest videos would be displayed on right hand side.

Below the videos, there are some modules. In these modules, you will get various write ups by well known faces of online media, along with photo gallery and special features.

There is a Poll question too.

Below, you will get the information that how many visitors are viewing the site with you.

There are only two advertisement modules to ensure visitors don’t get irritated or inconvenienced. All the advertisements would be shown in these two modules one by one. And strictly ‘No’ to pop ups.

I like to share with you how I have been helped by my friends who have put in a lot of hard work and imagination. I would like to name some of my friends who helped me in adverse conditions. One of my best friends Vivek Rastogi and also Aarti Verma helped me in logo designing and color combination. I can’t ignore the marvelous contribution of Sunil Kumar Sirij, Vandana Verma, Rajeev Mishra, Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Ravikant and Kanika Sharma in web and content designing. I am also grateful of my friend Poonam Sharma, who keeps scolding me all the time to aim for perfection.

And…yes…I can’t forget those late night teas and milk that was arranged by my Mom, my Dad’s insistence to sleep early and enjoy the disturbance by my lovely daughters trinity…

Best Wishes

Dharmendra Kumar

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