Month: March 2008

  • Sorry Bob

    He loved wedding lunches, and was disappointed when work kept him away from one, especially since all his friends would make it. But that was nothing compared to his bemusement, when a casual enquiry on how it went got this Bob Dylan response from his friend ‘the answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind’


    until next time, fart attack

  • Yeh Moqqa

    haath se nahi jaana chahiye is what a lot of guys seem to be thinking about social networking. During a movie interval, I happened to see an ad which asked me to go to Bangalore’s very own social networking site – moqqa.com. While the communication still lost out to Bipasha Basu (i didn’t leave the movie halfway to have a look) it did make me curious to figure out if they actually made a site only for Bangalore. Nah, it was only a communication gimmick designed perhaps to elicit exactly that kind of reaction.

    I haven’t actually registered because it seems to concentrate on areas in which my interest is minimal. From the cover it looks to me like an ‘activity based’ SNS, because immediately after the (yes we all know that by now) make friends, its ‘what you can do’ covers MotorBiking, Trekking, River Rafting, Jeep Safari, Beach Volleyball, Weekend Football, Skiing, Snowboarding, Shopping, Partying etc. It also plugs sharing of creative ideas eg. Ad Ideas for Products like Colas, Jeans, Mobile Phones etc, 2D-3D-Flash Animation, Bike & Car Designs, Biz Ideas, Fashion Design, Movie Scripts, Song Lyrics etc. While a Facebook or an Orkut does have groups which do all or at least most of the above, an entire SN platform based on adventure sports/creative designing etc is definitely intriguing. Before we go further, other features include a chat platform (Talky), info emails (which would let you know about fashion, cool gadgets, Discounts & Sales etc), a public chat platform called Zap, music, blogs, videos, photo sharing, and a displaying of people who visited your profile. Overall, it seems more like a niche version of Orkut.

    While focusing on specific interests is an intriguing proposition, I am not sure if the mix of adventure sports+ shopping+ creative designing makes sense. Maybe the idea is to broaden the base. In any case, I feel, to make it work will require a lot of activity from the makers of the portal outside the web. These will have to be local efforts which can then be later scaled up. For example, tie ups with holiday service providers who give adventure sports packages, efforts to make this a one stop shop for knowing about discounts (there are enough niche players in this already), corporate tournaments in say, weekend football and so on…

    The creative designing itself spans a lot of territories, each of which require customised efforts – design contests in association with local ad clubs, bike car, fashion designs to be integrated with auto/fashion expos, and bollywood (since they’ve anyway started an SN site, they could adopt the other cliche too – reality shows for movie scripts and movie song lyrics).

    So while I’m still wondering about its physical geographical location, it’ll be interesting to see whether they manage to brand themselves as a unique SNS or will fall by the wayside as yet another wannabe.

    until next time, is there some numerology in the name (qq being a succesful chinese SNS) 😉

  • Zen & the art of SNS monetising

    The thought started from this article, which talked of how Google was losing top execs to Facebook. It apparently isnt just a phase because SNS (social networking sites) are increasingly grappling with the issue of revenue, or rather, the lack of it. These hires apparently fit the bill.

    Remember the initial days of the net? I don’t because i was a pretty late starter myself (2000- a virtual space odyssey, thats what my book would be called 😀 ), but that was still the time when (at least in india) revenue was a puzzle for everybody in dotcom, which partly explained the bust that soon happened. They had a partial solution happening with banner ads, and slowly that became the norm. In most places, it still is 😐 . the problem was that to most users, it became a blindspot.

    Then came Google, and the era of contextual ads, first in searches as sponsored links, and then in any site in the context it  had content in. It still works. But the net has moved on. So, users know exactly when its useful to them. This is of particular relevance in the case of social networking sites.

    At a basic level, I go to SNS to have a conversation with friends –  that could be just plain catching up, bitching about work, life etc or (thanks to facebook) just sharing a common interest over a game of scrabble. Can contextual ads work here? It was a difficult question to answer until one takes a look at the Facebook revenue scene. I personally don’t think it does, for the simple reason that, well, the context is wrong. Unlike search, where my intent is clearly info/purchase, its not so in SNS. This video, while totally out of context, shows what i mean about intent.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4]

    So how does a free site (for users) like Facebook get revenue, and god forbid, if they don’t, will they shut down? No, dont call Mummy yet, this WATBlog article clearly shows the Chinese (damn them) have found a way to monetise their SNS, especially QQ. ( what a name. dont ask me kyun) And its not online ads, thats only 13% of the revenue. The rest is from virtual goods, services and mobile.

    But i personally think there’s more that can be done. And that has a direct connection to brands. We’ll discuss that next week, after i hear from you.

    until next time, remember you need to be social 😀

  • Brand or Ambassador?

    India’s success story and the rapid rise of consumerism has resulted in a feast for anybody who comes close to being a popular person. No, I didn’t mean your favourite office peon, what i had in mind was actors, cricketers etc, and the has-beens in those categories too. I even saw Shatrughan Sinha endorsing some TV the other day. Complete with Khamosh and Big B baiting!! So what’s more important – brand or ambassador?

    I’ve always wondered about endorsements and the value they add to the brand. I think there are some categories where rival brands have been used as some sort of proxy battleground for rival stars. Look at the cola battles – SRK and the B family are in the Pepsi camp, while Coke has Hrithik and Aamir. Wonder where Ash is though. She’s been on both sides. There’s also car manufacturers – Aamir for Toyota, SRK for Santro, and the Big and small B for Maruti Versa. The other interesting arena is handset manufacturers. I don’t know if you’ve noticed,  but there’s a neat battle brewing there now that Aamir has been roped in by Samsung, because with SRK pitching for Nokia, and Hrithik dancing to Sony Ericsson tunes, we’re over company phase and into crowd phase.

    Like I said, I’ve always wondered about endorsements. I can understand the endorsements for sports brands by sports people and even John Abraham (reebok did a decent job in Goal too).  I can understand clothing brands and accessories being endorsed by filmstars. I can even understand the cola wars because everything is about an edge over competition. Besides its a commodity. Similar for Abhi B for Idea and SRK for Airtel. Hey, Hutch ne to kutte ko use kiya, phir bhi bik raha tha. What does that say about those two? 😀 I’m on the borderline for Dhoni and Saif for Kurkure and Lays respectively. I thought ‘Whats the prograaam’ did the trick for me and Juhi did a decent job with ‘Kya family hain’.

    But what i really can’t understand is how Hrithik, Saif or SRK can do the trick for Acer, Lenovo and HP respectively. Isn’t that a product which is bought after much research and analysis on features? Will it sell just because it features a movie star? Don’t logic and rationale play a lot of role in the purchase decision? Is that a quality that the filmstars are famous for? Most importantly, these are also increasingly customised purchases, would you really consider a laptop just because Saif features in it (maybe because it recognizes faces, yes, but that could’ve been anybody’s face in the ad).  And honestly, i dont believe in that ‘getting the attention of the consumer’ jazz. If the product is good, its reviews will say so, and will also say so if its not. Similarly for mobile handsets and even cars, though Toyota did a reasonably good job by matching Aamir’s traits with the car. Whatcha think?

    until next time, mera wala paint or saif’s wall color?

    Update: Todays’s (28/03) Times Business carries an article vindicating the post, at least more or less :)… the timing is not by design 😀

  • An Affair to remember

    Their relationship started during his post graduation days, but like many relationships, it seemed it couldn’t stand the test of time. He felt he hadn’t changed, but she had. These days, she entertained far too many people for him to feel special in the relationship. And that is how his love affair with Goa ended.

    until next time, they’re still friends 🙂