Year: 2008

  • Martial Acts

    From the lift, he heard the shouting on his floor. If he was greeted the same way he’d been the last few days, he’d complain. He hated confrontations. It didn’t help that he had to confront a 6 year old, who was learning karate and whose straight punch greeting landed at his body’s strategic points.

    until next time, karate kids!!

  • Tata Sky – life after plus

    I did wonder what was cooking when Aamir first appeared in the Tata Sky Plus teasers. But in the end, i felt that with this different service (a personal video revorder, that allows you to pause, record and rewind Live TV), and two brand ambassadors, they could’ve really made a great, extended storyline out of the entire thing. Roughly put, approach the ‘centre’ from both Aamir and Gul’s perspectives, and then show them together to give an ‘Ah’ moment to the viewer. I wonder whether the recent Airtel experience scared them away from using the teaser concept for too long, but with two celebrities, they really needn’t have worried.

    httpv://in.youtube.com/watch?v=g1nTg6bJRPE

    The TVC storyline was quite decent, and brought out the concept well, though we did have an interesting discussion on whether Gul Panag ended up looking like Freddie Mercury (with the moustache) in ‘ I want to break free’. The ‘landing page’ of existing Tata Sky users also has an interesting conversation between Gul and her friends, which again brings out the features of the service quite well.

    Considering that Dish TV now has a 53% market share in the DTH market (via Trak.in) the upgradation strategy is a smart move. The kind of audience that would go in for a DTH service should easily consider upgradation, only, the future of TiVo ( the pioneer of a comparable service in the US market, the biggest difference being ability to forward Live TV – yes, skip ads!! ) is far from rosy, if we go by this report from Wired. Apparently only 3.6 million of the nation’s 36.2 million DVR users go for TiVo, after 11 years of existence. Also, their revenue model is shaky, with advertisers not too interested in the kind of units it offers. But TiVo’s been trying hard, and have ties with Amazon and Netflix, to allow TV users to stream movies and TV shows. Netflix uses postal delivery, online streaming, a set top movie player and HD streaming as methods of didtribution.

    In the light of this tie up, it was interesting to see a local tie up made between NDTV Lumiere and BigFlix, by which some titles from NDTV Lumiere’s extensive acquisition list will be available on the bigflix site on download to rent/own options. It’s an addition to BigFlix’s existing portfolio. With BigTV, this is like TiVo having the resources of NetFlix inhouse. Thats BIG. Comparing the net penetration and DTH penetration in India, perhaps BigFlix would expand faster on the DTH tie up route, than a net downloads route.

    But yes, if the internet penetration in India shoots up drastically, we can see a different kind of tie ups happening, like the one between MSN and Endemol, for an online interactive show. I also read about a service called Clearleap (via Startup Meme), which delivers videos from numerous sources to the television, thereby expanding consumer options.

    With Tata Sky Plus being an upgrade from regular DTH, it will be interesting to see how fast Big counters, and whether it adds a tie up with BigFlix. Tata Sky meanwhile, perhaps needs to scout quickly to figure out a good partner to strengthen its offering.

    until next time, watch it

  • Bom Bahia

    I recently read a book on Bombay by Pinki Virani, and have promptly classified it under my all time favourites list. The book, by sheer virtue of tone and content, appealed to me, but on a personal level, it gave me some answers on my quite recently acquired unfavourable stance on Mumbai. Since this is a subject of my chat ‘wars’ with many Mumbai friends, let me say that this is a very considered personal view, and based on subjective experiences. And like subjective experiences go, it may have led to creation or reinforcing of stereotypes that may have further colored my view of the city. So, don’t mind. 🙂

    I used to love Bombay. Right from the 2.5 days of train journey that took me there. The two months of stay there were enjoyed – Shivaji Park was a common destination across the years, the other location shifted from Anushakti Nagar (BARC Township) to Peddar Road to Malabar Hill. I still remember the second hand comics store in Anushakti nagar – Spiderman, Superman, Batman etc – the entities that captured my imagination in my school days, I have bought quite a few from there; the long walks around Shivaji Park, and the temple which gave away those white sugary balls 🙂 ; the hunt for fancy ‘name slip stickers’, which would adorn my school books and draw envious stares from my classmates in Cochin, who couldn’t get it there; the eagerly awaited trips to Akbarallys; the South indian hotel (Anand/Arya Bhavan) in Matunga whose waiters my sis later scandalised by asking for Maggi noodles, and finally, the ‘oh, its over’ feeling when we started the journey home, from VT.

    Yes, Bombay of those days remains a sweet memory. My last 2 month stay was in 1993, when it was still Bombay. Barring occasional 1-2 day trips, we stopped seeing each other since then, and somewhere down the line i started to cringe when I had to make official trips to the city. I dont know if its Mumbai that spoiled the affectionate awe that I had for Bombay, but maybe that’s just romanticism.

    Cities change, as do people. I am tolerant of pride, whether it be in people or cities, my irritation starts when pride turns to arrogance. Arrogance that brings with it an unhealthy disrespect for anything that’s not associated with the city. Yes, every city is special, but that does not mean it should take away from other cities… they are special in their own way. And that goes for people too.

    When a person like me, whose only associations with the city are from the holidays spent there, can feel a change, i can imagine, how, at least some Bombayites feel about the transformation their city has undergone. The author says a lot with just the title – ‘Once was Bombay’. I agree.

    until next time, just some city zen…. 🙂

  • Dido and Social Media – Rock On !!

    At the very outset, let me state that Dido doesn’t have to do anything spectacular for her to be special to me. She can just keep crooning her stuff, and I’ll keep going back for more. So why am i trippin’ now? Because, for her latest album, ‘Safe Trip Home‘, she’s got a social media angle.

    The album is interesting for the simple reason that it consists of different songs picturised on different cities of the world, among them Mumbai !! The song is “Lets do the things we normally do”, and is directed by Siddarth Sikand. And who does it star? Our very own Rock On girl Debbie – Shahana Goswani, as a taxi driver.

    Having a Facebook page is good, but is almost a given these days, but this one gets very social on the site itself. Once you hear the song, you can choose a mood from a (color) palette. I felt wise :), and was asked to share my reasons. It then takes you to the map, and tells you where other people who felt similar to you have headed to. It’s a wonderful way of manifesting the theme of the album/site – “Create a journey through film and music” (though the Facebook page mentions ‘a journey through fil, music and feeling’)

    According to marktd, “Over the last month, Londoners might have noticed a number of cryptic posters around tube stations. The posters end by asking the viewer to google terms like ‘Lady Landfill’ or ‘Mother lay-by’ – essentially a range of words linked to the songs on ‘Safe Trip Home’, the album.”I thought it was a wonderful way of using ground level promotions to build curiosity and traction for a web property.

    until next time, I’m trippin on this!!

  • Change 2.0

    The world, or at least most of it, has been applauding the success of Obama’s social media strategy, stating it as one of the big pillars of his victory, and rightfully so. A look at his homepage would tell you that he is very well connected to the social media scene – ‘Obama Everywhere’. ‘Organise Locally’ (my.barackobama.com) and “Welcome Hillary supporters. Get involved” are two things that impressed me much, the signs of a man who knows wants to carry people along. StartUp Meme has a post on the Facebook stats of Obama’s activities. Obama has 4 times as many supporters as McCain on Facebook.

    Meanwhile, in the case of blogs, 500 million blog posts for Obama vs 150 million for McCain. The ratio is almost 4:1 again. On MySpace, 844,927  friends for Obama compared to McCain’s 219,404. On Twitter, Obama 118,107, John McCain’s Twitter followers amount to 4942.(all data courtesy RWW, and Trendrr) On an aside, Trendrr seems to be a neat service, will use it more, and post.

    And for those who thought that this brilliant use of social media was a campaign stunt (as many brands tend to), Obama has launched Change.gov. (via Mashable), where he is attempting to have conversations, right from asking people to share their election stories and their vision for America, to outlining his own agenda. The two properties of the social web I find most appealing – transparency, and the wisdom of crowds.

    But social media, after all is a tool. Yes, a tool which can take the brand to great heights, but only if it has a strong product/brand at its foundation. And there lies the brilliance of brand Obama. Adage has a great article by Al Ries on the attributes that made Obama’s campaign a colossal hit – Simplicity (of the keyword – change), Consistency (create and maintain the positioning of ‘change’ agent, so that the word is associated with him more than others), Relevance (forcing the competitors to fight on your comfort ground). I was also very impressed with this article on afaqs by Vijay Sankaran, which gave 10 lessons that marketers could learn from Obama. Excellent lessons all, i especially liked the one about relinquishing control.

    The brand was so strong that several of my friends became fans of Obama on Facebook. On election day, I saw a photo of college kids in bangalore wearing Obama tees, and carrying Obama placards.

    As a person in India, the real benefits that Obama can get me are not much, but in addition to becoming America’s messiah, he might have also become social media’s messiah, and virtually, nothing could make me happier than a web 2.0 champion who happens to be the President of America. Yes, Obama, we can!!!!

    until next time, i hope change is a constant

    PS. For those reading this, make a start, join ‘Connected Indians‘. Hopefully we can change India too.