Author: manu prasad

  • afday

    afday aims to make functional as well as decorative Indian art and craft accessible to consumers. In conversation with founder Rashmi Daga

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  • Enterprise, Consumer, Interface

    Facebook’s new Groups at [university] feature, which allows users to create groups that are only visible to those with the relevant and authenticated .edu address, is probably the social network’s hat tip to its roots and a way to show that it can still play at targeted sharing too. However, what it reminded me of was enterprise tools like Yammer which also use authenticated addresses to create closed networks. Add to that Facebook’s other new feature being tested – private messaging between users and Pages, and I wondered if the authenticated domain feature couldn’t be used for creating enterprise networks within Facebook, which could then interface with consumers using Pages. In fact, that would even go quite a way in solving a user’s work/life identities by allowing him/her to have separate (but connected publicly/privately) logins.

    With Google+ launching for brands and thanks to circles, allowing a relatively easy (and measurable) flow of information within and outside the enterprise (I’ve begun experimenting with this @ Myntra), linking employees, consumers, partners etc through not just sharing but also through live video interaction, Facebook does need to go beyond its current offering for brands and organisations.

    Though I’ve not seen it in action, Twitters new proposition for brands, with better profiles, a new twist to promoted tweets, self serving ads etc do sound interesting and should probably lead to more interesting brand activities on the platform.

    The first generation of social media tools have focused on monitoring, engagement and some measuring. They will obviously have to evolve with the platforms’ own feature set advancements. (not to mention new platforms) Meanwhile, I’ve seen at least two forms of this evolution. Salesforce, which has, with the acquisition of Rypple, entered the talent management sphere, continues its march towards being a one stop shop (Chatter for enterprise collaboration, Radian 6 for social media monitoring, engagement and others). On another front, Percolate is aiming to solve an interesting problem area that I can identify with – sustained communication with consumers across platforms that balances interesting content with business objectives.

    New platforms, new tools, decreasing attention spans, new hardware and technologies and a relentless pace of advancement – 2012 promises to be exciting.

    until next time, horizon tally

  • Weekly Top 5

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  • Mid Season Update

    It’s been just under 3 months in the not-so-new job, and I thought this would be a good time to write a progress report. The social media portion of the job – which includes prioritising objectives, evolving a strategy and roadmap for how various tools and aspects of the social web can be introduced and used in various functions, creating and streamlining processes on a regular basis, setting up measurement parameters and doing some fun experiments – would be several posts unto itself, and the learning curve of setting up a social agenda across the organisation is practically at 90 degrees! But there’s another project I started that has now reached a ‘shipped’ status. :))

    One of the trends that many people seem to agree on is the role of brands as content creators and curators. As the posts on this blog would show, I have believed in branded content for quite a while now. But that again requires an understanding of the landscape, objectives, strategy, creating and executing a content calendar, finding ways to market the content, and most importantly, over a period of time, creating and maintaining a sense of trust with the community and understanding and meeting their expectations.

    After going through rigorous processes – from choosing platforms to content planning processes to back end infrastructure to team structure and all the other steps outlined earlier and more, we finally have a fashion blog for Myntra. Though I don’t plan to contribute further to the blog in terms of actual writing, (yes, the fashion world lives to fight another day 😉 ) I did write the introductory post for the blog. Do check that out here.

    The blog has been active for just a fortnight now. I’ll be glad if you could take a look and give me your feedback, either here or Myntra’s Twitter account or on the blog itself. It’s a first step of a long journey, and it promises to be a fun ride. 🙂

    until next time, in fashion 🙂

  • Amagi

    Amagi provides a technology that gives advertisers the opportunity to target specific geographies on national television channels. In conversation with co-founder Srinivasan KA.

     

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