Samples – FORBES (India)
*(All the images have been used for representational purpose only)
Tag: ‘Virdi’ct
Samples – Careers360 (Hindi)
Samples – Better Photography
Testimonials
Your Endorsement Matters!
Here’s a snapshot of Endorsement on Linkedin for my Skills as a Magazines Consultant–
MAGworld also has a blog owned by G S Virdi, Magazine Consultant – http://mediajunction.blogspot.in that carries the critical reviews of magazines and has got huge liking from the people from publishing and editorial. People have enjoyed these reviews and they have appreciated his efforts at various occasions in these many words –
“…your name should be MAGAZINE SINGH ‘VIRDI’CT
– Colleagues, Friends & well wishers!
* * * * *
“Nice work Virdi, I really like and follow it regularly. In fact I bought the issue of Lonely Planet Magazine after reading your review only.”
– SAI, Dy. Managing Director, ITP Publishing India
* * * * *
“Interesting. Thks.
…Very useful stuff. Thks.
…Splendid work. And a good way to communicate the message to the team.
…Very interesting observations for making magazine even better!
…Good one. pl also see latest pc world and do an analysis quickly.
…Good Reviews Virdi. Keep contributing.”
– KRISHNA TEWARI, GM, SIPD, Infomedia India Ltd.
* * * * *
“Dear Virdi sir, it is a wonderful thing you have done to give a detailed review of new magazines. It is a very good learning platform for people in the business of communication.”
– G.V. SREEKUMAR, Associate Professor, IIT Bombay
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“Wonderful Virdi sir, I hope the concerned magazine publishers also read these reviews…”
– AMRITA GANGULY SALIAN, Editor, Disney Adventures
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“Really good job… it was worth reading :)”
– RAJAT SAHU, Head Global Marketing, Microworld
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“Hi Virdi, I enjoy reading all your anecdotes. It is extremely useful to me. We are launching InformationWeek print edition in April. Looking forward to your valuable feedback on InformationWeek. As always, I value your inputs.
…Virdi has a lot of knowledge and experience in the publishing space.”
…Virdi has a lot of knowledge and experience in the publishing space.”
– BRIAN PEREIRA, Exec. Editor, Informationweek India, UBM Group
* * * * *
“Brilliant! Thanks so much for keeping me in mailing list. Awaiting the 10 page post mortem of Forbes India. Do send soon.”
– DEEPAK AJWANI, Director Online, Forbes India, Network18
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“Absolutely correct Virdi, you are in sink with the current scenario, unfortunately some of the Editors and management are still in the Dinosaur era and will not change. Sad for they will become extinct or the will make the product defunct. Keep writing and posting.
…Thanks pal very interesting… Awaiting your view on Forbes. Well you seem to be now getting a lot of page views on Linkedin as a lot of my friends read your postings.”
– KAISER FARUQI, National Head – B2B, sulekha.com
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“Hey Virdi, I am going to enjoy this!! Cheers”
– SENTHIL CHENGALVARAYAN, Group Editor, Network18 Ltd.
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“Interesting stuff Virdi”
– NABJEET GANGULI, Head-Mkting & Busi. Dev., Reed Infomedia India Limited
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“Virdi, now we need the ‘VIRDI’CT on the Indian edition of Stuff. Their issue is just out.”
– DEEPAK DHINGRA, Editor, T3 India
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“Really detailed & nice review – it is always a pleasure to read your words – thank for sharing. I will definitely look at the design perspectives you are pointing out. Humm… after reading your review, I think I need a serious re-look on the design once again!”
– JAYAN NARAYANAN, Sr. Creative Director, 9dot9 Media Pvt. Ltd.
* * * * *
“Thanks for the review! Could you give me some specifics on what you thought was wrong with the cover?
…Any other bits we could improve?”
– VARDHAN KONDVIKAR, Editor, Lonely Planet Magazine, WWM Media Pvt Ltd.
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“Awesome reviews…Keep it up sir! Plan to publish these as a book”
– SUNDER THIYAGARAJAN, GM, Circulation & Subscription, Network18 Ltd.
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“Virdi, Thanks for your regular updates on ‘whats hot and whats not’…”
– CHITRA PANDIT, Marketing Manager, Better Interior, Infomedia India Ltd.
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“This is interesting. Was just wondering if you could do a compilation of all the magazines you review. It would give a lot of insight into what works and what does not for the magazines.”
– K MADHAVAN PILLAI, Editor, Better Photography, Infomedia18 Ltd.
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“Quite useful info oops links. Highly appreciate your resourcefulness and sharing among the group.”
– MANAS BASTIA, Editor, SIPD (B2B), Infomedia18 Ltd.
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“Welcome to the Editgroup!! And surely you jest when you say that that you wouldn’t dare teach us anything–you have more experience in the editorial process than most people in the industry!
Friends, Virdi has had years of editorial experience in a very special area of publishing–that of formulating special interest titles in our national language, thereby resulting in far wider reach to our audiences across the nation. I’ve had the opportunity to work with him in a previous assignment and am confident that he will work his magic here at Infomedia as well. Believe me, there’s plenty to be learnt from him in editorial process, brand positioning and content structure–if there’s an intelligent Sardar, Virdi is the one! ;-)”
– MARCO ANGELO D’SOUZA, Editor, CHIP, Infomedia18 Ltd.
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“How come Virdi sahib, I don’t see your review of the Forbes India magazine.”
– DINESH KRISHNAN, Director Photography, Forbes India, Network18 Ltd.
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“Very interesting – and insightful!
…Virdi, Can you pull out a few magazines and see what’s the best practice? Let’s then standardize this for all our magazines.
…Virdi + Team Overdrive! Well done. All credit to you!
…Thanks. Glad you liked it. Whats the virdict on the Careers360 mag? Keen to see your review!”
– PRAKASH IYER, Managing Director, Infomedia India Limited
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“I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.”
– MARGARET LE VAN DOMINGUEZ, Artist and Designer
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“Great job sirji…”
– KAUSHIK CHAKRAVORTY, Freelance Photographer
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“Virdi Sir, it was interesting to read your analysis, I did visit your site sometime back, great work…”
– A.R.IYER, Exec. Vice President, Infomedia18 Press
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“Dear Virdi, amazing compilation…U r cut above the class u have proved it again!!”
– MICKY NEELAM KACHHAP, Deputy Editor, Modern Medicare, Infomedia18 Ltd.
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“Sirji, Can you please review the anniversary issue of CHIP. The feedback would certainly be useful.”
– PUNIT LODHAYA, AM Operations, Alibaba.com, Network18 Ltd.
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“Sir, where is your virdict on Vogue?”
– SAJITH PAI, Special Projects & New Initiatives, Infomedia18 Ltd.
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“I found your insights and thoughts on the magazine very useful… The part I really loved about your review is of course the virdict at the end of it. Look forward to more such reviews on magazines.”
– SURAJIT AGARWAL, Managing Editor, CHIP & Tech2.com, Network18 Ltd.
* * * * *
“What do you make out of Forbes – India?
…Any magazine till date that received a five star rating from you?
…Many thanks for adding my personal ID for your reviews. Deeply appreciated.
…You can do me one favor, can you evaluate JCK (a very honest appraisal) in a similar fashion and show me your ranking?
…I can see huge amount of efforts in this. The presentation made perfect sense to me. I believe we at Reed have a lot to learn from this presentation :-)”
– SURESH RAMAKRISHNAN, Head, Reed-Infomedia.
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“I really admire how well you review each magazine. Why don’t you do that with our in-house magazines as well? Each team will really benefit from your evaluation. Me and Deepak would love if you could do an analysis of T3 whenever you’ve got free time.”
– TRUPTI GHAG, Feature Editor, T3, Infomedia18 Ltd.
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“I’m a regular reader of your blog. And basically wanted to send across the magazine I work for, it’s called platform. we’re a contemporary arts bi-monthly magazine. This is our 5th year in circulation, and it would be wonderful to hear your thoughts on the same.”
– SHAHNAZ SIGANPORIA, Features Editor, Platform
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Magworld
100+ Reviews at http://mediajunction.blogspot.com
TRIAL & ERRORS… EK BAAR PHIR SE!
‘Mahaprabandhak of Maruti Suzuki Ltd has done
a ghoshna in a Samvaaddata Sammelan
of its vistaar yojnaa in India for 2020′
or
‘Ford Figo facelift has ekdum braabar
engine capacity of its pichhlaa wala varient’
or
‘10 aisi kaaren jo aap 10 lakh rupaye mein
khareed sakte hain in the year 2019’
How would an English-reader treat if such a headline published in an English magazine or English daily newspaper? Will a reader appreciate such piece of text which has lots of spelling errors, grammatical errors, linguistic errors and has a lot of inconsistencies in the usage of words/technical jargon? Is it good enough for an English newspaper reader that these headlines are written using English alphabets but the Hindi words are written there? Technical terms are fine but why the other linguistic terms are used in Hindi here?
Exactly!
If it is not tasteful and if it is not acceptable for the English content and for any English-reader, same is true for the Hindi-reader and for the Hindi content also. Why do the Hindi content writers or publishers think that content written in English language should be absolutely perfect but the quality check is not necessary for the Hindi content?
I generally review magazines only but recently I have noticed a popular website in the automotive domain, www.CarWale.com, where they have started putting articles in Hindi around three months ago. I have gone through more than 100 (One Hundred) of Hindi articles posted there and found it very disappointing. I am not surprised if only 2 or 3 Hindi articles out of 100 articles have got ‘Likes’ from the readers that were posted in the last three months. That made me to write this review, not to highlight thier mistakes but to bring thier attention to the areas where there is scope of improvement, where they can take some corrective steps.
What if a brand name is misspelt repeatedly and it is written incorrectly at various places and that too within the same article? How would you take it if you read MARUTI is written as MAARUTI and then MAROTI and then MARUTIE or MAROOTI? Or if you read HONDA as HAWNDA or HONDAA or HAUNDA? An excuse can be that if the readers are getting what it is meant for, it is fine. But why a brand owner will tollerate if he finds that his brand and product names are represented incorrectly, for example, if SUZUKI is written as SUJUKI or SUZOOKI or SUZUKE or if CIAZ is written as SIAZ or CIYAZ or CIAJ or if EON is written ION or EYON or EEON etc.? I assume, if the brand owners have not reacted on such errors it clearly means they are not reading these articles or they have not noticed yet. Otherwise such errors cannot be taken for granted that can spoil a reputation of a brand.
I understand that it is not a literary content product where readers go and care for the language, it is a product of domain specific information and editorial reviews & opinions. But information alone cannot hold a reader for longer but the language and the jargon plays a vital role to create a strong bond between the audience and the content. In these articles, not only the technical terms are written incorrectly but usage of Hindi words are also wrong and lots of common Hindi words are written misspelt. As a content critic, I see a huge scope of improvement in terms of quality in this product. I am sure, since it was started, readers might have brought this into CarWale’s notice, but I don’t find any improvement after 100 days are passed and more than 100 articles with the poor language are posted here.
While I am writing this review about Hindi content of CarWale, I can remember that many other publications and content products who have had same issues with the language and they failed even though their content (information) was brilliant. Most of the time publishers do the same mistakes when they come up with idea of launching the Hindi edition of their existing brand (English edition), they do ‘a try’ or they do it with ’no investment’. I have seen and experienced lots of such ‘half heartedly’ launched Hindi products and their failures also, and after failing their analysis also – ‘It didn’t work because advertisers didn’t show faith in Hindi edition!’
In this review, I am sharing my experience in following points hoping that it can be helpful to such publishers and may be who are planning to come up with the Hindi edition as a brand extension for their existing English edition-
- Do not try. Do it with the conviction. I have seen many of such half-heartedly started launches that failed because of lack of confidence. If you yourself do not have faith in your product, why will your client or advertiser will have? Most of the time our sales executives tell this in the first line- ‘we are testing the water…’, or ‘ we have just started for a trial…’ and obviously advertiser never signs the deal.
- Do not take it as a language edition, treat it as a stand alone product. Most of the time Hindi or any other vernacular language edition is treated step-motherly and in many cases such products die because of this only. It would need proper commitment, focus, dedicated resources, time and money as we require to launch and nurture any brand for that matter. Generally, publishers think that they will put resources and money on this once they will get a good response out of this. And, they expect such results within first six months of launch. Do you think that it is correct?
- Its not mere a translation job, its absolutely fresh content development. My experience is that most of such language editions just die even in their infancy. Most of the publishers do blunder that they assume that it is just a translation job and the rest we have already in place and that is where they lose the opportunity to build another stronger product that could have helped them to create even bigger brand.
- Quality from the beginning. I have seen publishers compromising on the content quality in order to cut the initial cost. Their logic says they will put money once this ’trial’ product will start getting response. I have never seen such unprofessional way to launch any other product in any industry. On the contrary, marketers put their best quality for the sampling to hook the customers May be, later they can start compromising the quality once the product becomes popular in the market. But, the publishers think opposite to this. Publishers need to put money in creating good quality content first, they can cut costs on other sides or they can generate other money generating streams later.
- Content Re-versioning. It’s just not enough to translate text from English to Hindi and using same visuals and layout for the both editions. Sometimes you need to change the complete presentation of an article as it is to be served to a Hindi reader from the way it was originally presented to an English reader. Not only the translator/rewriter but the editor/visualiser also need to have great understanding of its Targeted Hindi Audience; their socio-economic understanding, their preferences, their likes-dislikes etc. This is very critical aspect where most of the publications fail.
- Product Customisation. This is very important, As I have said that it should be seen and treated as a separate product, it needs its own identity to meet the needs of its TG. Surely, the major chunk will remain the same as your English edition has, but Hindi edition must address some consumer and small scale developers issues and interests as well.
All the above said issues are ‘strategic’ issues that are mostly tackled by the key decision makers or the publisher of any media company, but the most important part is the ‘execution’ that is taken care by the editor or the editorial team. If this product is going to remain as the secondary or by-product only, then whatever minimum resources you put on this project, that must be the best in their domain. For Hindi publication, the execution part is more critical and complicated than the English edition as it needs great experience & understanding of language versatility & dynamics unlike the English language that is standard for the people from J&K to the Kanyakumari. Hindi team or the person needs special skills to handle the Hindi softwares, fonts & keyboard complications, manual proof reading, consistencies in usage of terms, creating your own stylesheet etc. The execution team must have capabilities to think strategically as well as execute the project independently.
I hope that CarWale team will take a note from this review and will take some corrective measures soon to improve their product and readers will see a great product in terms of information, flavour and presentation also.
मैं हूँ किसान – किसानों की खराब हालत जैसी ही पत्रिका
इस वर्ष का मेरा पहला रिव्यू, और वह भी हिन्दी भाषा में! संयोग से जो मैगज़ीन रिव्यू के लिए मेरे सम्मुख आई है वह भी हिन्दी भाषा में ही है इसलिए हिन्दी में ही रिव्यू करना और भी सार्थक हो जाता है। यह है हाल ही में शुरु हुई मासिक पत्रिका – ‘मैं हूँ किसान’ जो कि कृषि एवं किसानों से जुड़े विषयों पर सामग्री प्रस्तुत करने के उद्देश्य से जयपुर स्थित हैनिमैन चैरिटेबल मिशन सोसाइटी नामक संस्थान द्वारा प्रकाशित की जा रही है।
मैगज़ीन की हालत बिल्कुल अपने विषय के अनुरूप ही है, कृषि की जैसी दुर्दशा है वैसी ही हालत में यह पत्रिका भी है। मैंने अपने रिव्यूस में पहले भी कहा है कि किसी एक क्षेत्र में अच्छा-खासा अनुभव रखने या संबंधित विषय के बारे में बहुत सी जानकारी-सूचनाएँ एकत्र कर लेने या उस क्षेत्र से संबंधित लोगों-अधिकारियों-विभागों आदि में जान-पहचान हो जाने मात्र से लोगों को अक्सर यह गलतफहमी हो जाती है कि वे उस क्षेत्र में या उस विषय पर एक बढ़िया मैगज़ीन प्रकाशित कर सकते हैं। और बस, उनकी इसी गलतफहमी का परिणाम होता है, ‘मैं हूँ किसान’ जैसी स्तरहीन मैगज़ीन। पूरा रिव्यू पढ़ें
Times What’s Up?!: It’s cool…!
Do you remember one of my older reviews about ‘Which Right Choice?’ magazine? It was quite an unusual kind of magazine to help consumers to make buying decision by providing them purely editorial perspective and unbiased verdicts on variety of consumer products and services. The USP of WRC is that they don’t accept any single advertisement or advertorial or sponsored feature (not even for the covers) to put in the magazine to ensure its positioning in readers mind that this magazine is absolutely editorial driven, not the advertisements.
Now ‘Times What’s Up?!’ is recently launched magazine by Times Of India group which is also in the same genre but interestingly it is just opposite to WRC in terms of content. TWU is merely a compilation of advertorials and promotional features except of very editorial articles. A very unique proposition and solves fairly its purpose to help consumers to in buying. Full Review…
Gorgeous Looks: Not looking even averag
Pratishtha Publication has recently launched this bi-monthly title – ‘Gorgeous Looks’ with the tag line of ‘The Health, Beauty and Lifestyle Magazine’. Now, each one of these three areas from the tag line are so wide and broad that you need to be very careful to decide your boundaries and scopes for the coverage and lifestyle, as I see, is the most misused genre in magazines publishing. Anything which does not fit into any category, that somehow gets a seat in lifestyle category. Exactly same is the variety (?) of content when you go through the issue of GL. You actually get lost and forget what kind of magazine you are reading by the way. Full Review…
Travel with Style: Does not take you anywhere
What comes to your mind when someone promises you to take for a ‘Travel with Style’? Obviously, a stylish and luxurious traveling experience! I also expected the same when I picked up this magazine from newsstand which is launched last month only by Sampan Media Pvt. Ltd. But it wiped out all my expectations from this magazine when I read it thoroughly. Full Review…
Innovation + Win = Innowin: Right Equation?
Everything that is out of the box is not an innovation. It is not necessary always is the result of creativity but also can be because of negligence. This belief of mine became even stronger after going through recently launched magazine – Innowin. The moment I saw the launch issue on the stands, when I picked up the issue in my hands, it looked different but was that enough? Here’s how do I feel about this magazine after going through it closely. Full Review…
Ye lo…framed Indian traveler!
National Geographic Traveller (NGT) is another publication surrounded with yellow frame and has earned same respect for its journalistic values. Its Indian edition is launched by ACK media (very well known for Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle & Karadi Tales) this month where it has to compete with other existing international & Indian publications like Conde Nast Traveller, Lonely Planet Magazine, Outlook Traveller, Travel Plus, Geo etc to create its own mind-share. Full Review…
Small Medium Entrepreneur: Business of businesses
‘Franchise India Publication’, the publisher of various other publications like Estate World, The Franchising World, Retailer and many web portals has recently launched a new magazine- Small Medium Entrepreneur. As name suggests itself that it is to target the small & medium sized businesses & entrepreneurs in the country where couple of other magazines already are there to target the same genre. It is quite common of having many magazines from same genre with very similar or resembling titles but at least their treatment should be different if you want to create your own identity. Full Review…
Science for a common man: Popular Science India
I always see ‘Popular Science’ magazine as a periodical that explains the reality of this scientific universe in simple language to a common and a layman where he lives. It covers every aspect science and technology that touches our day-to-day life and may affect our future. It brings science from scientists’ laboratories to the layman’s level understanding of complicated facts & principles and that is why I prefer to call it ‘People Science’ magazine. Full Review…
Filmfare now available in Hindi… Big deal!
In the launch issue of Hindi edition of Filmfare, Editor Jitesh Pillai has signed off his edit note with- ‘I hope that the same affection & bonding you would share with Hindi edition of Filmfare the way you have been doing for the last sixty years with English edition’. After going through the issue I was surprised if two products are not at same level in terms of editorial quality & seriousness, how can you expect the same kind of treatment & bonding from the consumer for them? In fact, for that matter, any magazine which has no editorial vision or has not done complete editorial ground work or is not serious about its standards or does not understand the content needs of its audience that magazine cannot become a great magazine. Full Review…
Imperfect magazine for a Perfect Woman
Publisher of recently launched magazine- ‘Perfect Woman’ claims that it is aiming at the modern, discerning and sharp focused woman of today. Perfect Woman is the new entrant in the genre of magazine for woman in India which is launched by GGC Ltd. as a monthly magazine. Indian market is already flooded with many Indian & foreign titles like Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Femina, New Woman, Woman’s Era, Elle, Good Housekeeping, Verve and many more. Amongst them, few are fighting to be on top and couple of others are struggling even for their survival,. In that kind of competitive scenario, it becomes even more challenging to come up with an extra ordinarily brilliant product to capture a remarkable market share for you. Full Review…