Net worth

Would you like to meet Shah Rukh Khan, you know, face-to-face, hold a court with the King himself? C8217;mon now, stop blushing and wondering how.

Written by Jaskirankapoor

December 17, 2008 12:00 AM IST

4 min read

Now that every second film has a virtual presence, its website does all the talking, and more

Would you like to meet Shah Rukh Khan, you know, face-to-face, hold a court with the King himself? C8217;mon now, stop blushing and wondering how. 8220;Just log on to yashrajfilms.com, answer questions about Surinder Sahni and if you8217;re lucky, you will get to meet Mr Khan,8221; clicks General Manager, Internet and New Media, Yashraj, Anand Gurnani. If you8217;re on youtube.com, then check out the 8216;dance pe chance8217; contest, punch in bollywoodhungama.com, and there8217;s an open invitation to all the 8216;jodis8217; in India to share their love story, zip to ibibo.com and test your talent, at in.com you can tell these guys about your favourite jodi picture 8211; at the end, all windows open to Shah Rukh Khan. 8220;Online presence of a film is a great marketing tool,8221; Gurnani jumps to the next level where the surf8217;s up. 8220;It8217;s not that there weren8217;t any film-specific websites earlier. They were there, but in a brochure format. Ever since we8217;ve got Web 2.2, a whole new dimension has been added which has gone beyond the film,8221; Gurnani refers to widgets, interactions, contests, games, downloads, chats, tags with social networking sites et al. But then, it8217;s directly proportional to the box office fate of the film. 8220;If the buzz of the film is high, the search for it online will be higher,8221; says Anand. After Roadside Romeo, his team8217;s maximizing the buzz around Rab Ne entire December.

Log on to Dasvidanya8217;s home page, and Amar Kaul invites you to jot down things to do. Surf on rememberghajini.com, and the film8217;s website sets an exciting pace with its wall of suspects and a countdown clock 8211; Nine days to go. Oye Lucky has the cast blogging their experiences while Rock On encouraged the surfer to make his own music. Although the shelf life is maximum a year, these websites, according to Shikha Kapur, UTV Motion Pictures, VP Marketing, make for interesting forums of expression. 8220;It8217;s a place where I am the critic, the press and the audience. You get to interact with the cast and crew, get your dope on the making of the film, behind the scenes, chance to meet, blog, have a fan club8230;.it has become quite a captivating tool. Now that the Internet penetration is quite high, more and more youth are logging on and in turn, these domains are in demand,8221; she says.

Taking it a step further is Ketan Mehta with his Rang Rasiya. The makers of the film have conceived a reality TV show, which will have a talent hunt for an artist. While the programme will go on air early next year, the preliminary round will commence within a fortnight on the website of Rang Rasiya 8211; rangrasiya.com. Contestants can post a sample of their work in any of the five genres-painting, photography, short film, graphic designing and performance art.

8220;It8217;s interactive, from HTML we have flash, there are videos8230;the trend is catching on, and it will grow only when you start selling merchandise through the website,8221; feels Sahil Gupta of BC Webwise who are designing websites for PNC, Red Chillies et al. 8220;The first one we did was Pyaar Ke Side Effects where Rahul and Mallika blogged about love, it was quite a hit,8221; he adds.

Talk to city8217;s filmmaker Dr Gaurav Chhabra, and he has already registered the domain with the title of his future dream project. Guess the net is worth something!

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