The Hindu ಪತ್ರಿಕೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ’ಅವಧಿ’

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Two Kannada literary sites fold up

K. V. ADITYA BHARADWAJ

Kannada culture web portals suffer from lack of revenue models
Two popular Kannada web portals, dedicated to culture and literature, have shut shop over the past six months. Chukkubukku.com, exclusively dedicated to Kannada books that had a successful run for a year and a half, went defunct two months ago. Another portal, kendasampige.com, became defunct six months ago.
Stories about their closure sound similar. Both ventures began with a proposed revenue model that soon went bust. Passion kept them running for sometime, but even that ran out of steam after disillusionment set in with the lack of response from the community. Eventually, both portals were forced to close operations.
Raghu Apara of chukkubukku.com said the portal wanted to act as a bridge between the readers, writers and publishers. He said they had envisaged a revenue model where they charged for the promotion for new Kannada books. “But, none of the publishers saw its potential. They are still stuck with the weekend supplement of newspapers as the sole platform to promote a book. There was no revenue coming in.” He said they had plans to re-launch chukkubukku.com in a new avatar, and also include an art mart for revenue generation.
Kendasampige started with a bang and had veteran writers, including Jnanpith recipient U.R. Ananthamurthy, as its contributors. A memoir of his childhood was published on the portal. The portal, initially envisaged to have a subscription model, found no takers and soon it provided free content. A former editor said Kannada writers were also not yet prepared for such a democratic space. He said the portal also faced issues with writers feeling uneasy with the comments that their writings drew.

However, G.N. Mohan, founder of the long-running culture portal, avadhimag.online, said the portal has not incurred a loss and that it was sustainable. He said their main revenue came from being media partners for big cultural events and sponsorships for content on the website. He was quick to add that the subscription model was bound to fail as the readers were not prepared to pay, and the content being dished out did not warrant a subscription.
News portals successful
The good news is that websites dedicated to news have mushroomed in the Kannada cyberspace. Many districts, including Mangalore, Koppal, Bellary and Hassan, today boast of exclusive news portals that are successfully being run by local journalists.