Category: Digital

  • Talk of the Town

    A while back I’d read about Burrp, which started out as a great restaurant reviews site, expanding into lifestyle events – Art, Dance, Fashion, Film, Fairs & Festivals, Theater, and so on. Check out the entire bunch here. They’d also added TV listings. While it’s quite a diversification, I thought it was quite in sync with what they were doing so far, but it also means that it broadens their competition. 

    Among the bunch in the link mentioned, I thought Yulop was a great package, with their services spread across web and mobile. Meanwhile, I’ve been coming across a lot of websites appearing in the restaurant based services space – Grubhogs , which has reviews, and already shows the beginning of an event calendar, and A Place to Dine, which, in addition to listings, also allows for online orders and table reservations, and services for restaurant owners from website setting up and hosting to loyalty programs. It even has mobile versions. A very interesting path.

    I guess these new services ‘justify’ Burrp’s move into the events space, an expansion of the value proposition. I found some interesting associations here. Burrp has tie ups with Mirror (The Times Group) websites- Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata. I also read today that Buzzintown has tied up with MyToday SMS services, to provide its users events related information on the mobile, in three cities. 

    There are some very cool happening in the events space. Buzzd , a service in the US allows the user to find and share local events on the mobile. They have recently tied up with Virgin to provide data to the operator’s subscribers. I’m not sure on how the numbers are for city based searches on mobile, but I wonder if Yulop, with all their services and info, could benefit by tying up with an Airtel/ Vodafone. While on local events, Placecast, which describes itself as  “the world’s largest place-based interactive media company” has tied up with Eventful to produce some interesting location based advertising options. (via Mashable) 

    With the increasing usage of social networks, even events are finding their own long tails. So there are services which offer event planning for smaller groups. And while there are several event planning services available (including an Indian one called Funpiper), Doodle scores by having a facebook application that lets users collaborate on events. It also sends emails to non-Facebook users. Another service that stands out is Zipiko, which offers event planning on mobile.(via Center Networks)

    But before we get there, I think there’s a lot of scope for city based social networks, especially the mobile version. I came across an interesting net based service – Fwix, which, in addition to the usual stuff, and integration with Twitter, Yelp, Flickr etc, shows you “the most relevant and trendy information and media in your local area. It aggregates about 500,000 news stories per day, and delivers roughly 2,000 relevant news stories of those 500,000.” (via Startup Meme). But i guess, that will take us back to this earlier post of mine.

    until next time, text and the city

  • Twitter Updates

    While the last post covered some ground in terms of social media, an entity which was conspicuous by its absence was Twitter, perhaps the social media tool that I use the most, these days. From sharing my anguish at Raikkonen ruining the Ferrari party in the penultimate lap of last weekend’s race, to checking out exciting sites/services that others have found, Twitter plays multiple roles in my communication.

    There have been several Twitter based services that have been launched since my last twitter post. We’ll start with Twittad. (via Mashable) If you have a not-so-bad twitter following, you can just sign up on the site, give your number of followers, and auction your twitter page to an interested advertiser. Check out the left side of this profile, he got $15 for a month’s display of that ad. Now, the background in Twitter is not clickable, so its just like say, a virtual non-interactive billboard. My bigger concern is that this is visible only to those who use the web interface. If you use say, Twitterfox, a browser plugin, or a desktop client, you may not even see this ad.

    That’s not the only advertising model available on Twitter. Another option I came across is Twitterise. This seems a more robust tool, and allows marketeers to use twitter as a platform. With a twitter account, you can schedule communication to go out to consumers, and more importantly track it in terms of response. Read more about it here. Its a nifty lil tool, and once users can get more detailing in terms of the clicks (who, when etc) generated, its a do-it-yourself kit for any brand manager to test out twitter. I’m going to give it a spin very soon, for my brand. 🙂  But the real story is Cherp, which is an entire agency that’s “dedicated to finding brilliant ways to leverage the Twitter platform and network”. I’m lost for words, even 140 characters!! On a sidenote, I read an interesting suggestion for Twitter to get some revenue.

    There are some interesting stuff for regular users too. For those who are also active on Digg, there’s a new tool Twiggit, which allows you to let your followers know everytime you Digg an article. Two great services, and one awesome mashup, i think!! The other tool I came across is Lazy Tweet, which works on crowd sourcing your answers. While I already use Twitter to get lots of answers, the next time I want a question answered, all I’ve to do is start the tweet with lazytweet (or a few other options), and I’ll get access to a bigger crowd than just my followers. Read more about it here. If you’re the video kind, Viddler has launched a new service called 15s, which lets you share your 15 secs or lesser video with your twitter friends (via Center Networks). There’s already a player in this market – 12seconds. And lastly, if you’re the textual kind, check out this post on literary experiments on twitter.

    I read a post on how a tweet does not make a brand. I agree, one does not, but the idea is of conversation, of engaging with consumers in real time. The objective is to involve the consumer in the idea of the brand and thus make the brand more than a soulless entity that caters to one specific need in their life. Many brands are making an attempt at this conversation, take a look at the stories here. And of all the efforts, I’d rate CNN as the best. In spite of the Olympics argument, it still experiments with the medium. I read a few days back that it was promoting Twitter heavily on air, now that’s what I call great integration. And it’s not just one anchor, the engagement on Twitter is being taken to different levels, including a Twitter show. Really awesome stuff. I hope we get to see more more activity, and from more organisations.

    until next time, go tweet

    PS. If you use twitter on your blog, and are okay with handling code, you could check out TweetRemote, which allows some level of customisation.

  • Blurring Social Networking lines

    ET had a story sometime back on how sites like Facebook, LinkedIn etc are helping SMEs and entrepreneurs gain business. It adds on to my belief that when the target is niche market segments, the net is the best medium to try out.The more encouraging part for me is that since these media are working for them, they even plan You Tube ads. So, they grow the medium, and the medium grows them!!

    Yes, social networking is not exactly the most known thing in the world, as this article would argue, but as far as online behaviour goes, the Indian stats are a bit encouraging on some parameters. And, with efforts like these, our internet penetration figures might start looking up sonner rather than later.

    So what have the social networks been upto? Lets start with business networking, where I’ve been reading about a lot of new launches. A new business network called ZaaBiz has been launched in India. More details on its activities can be found here.

    Konnects hopes to bridge the gap between Facebook and LinkedIn. According to them, Facebook has not been designed for business purposes, while LinkedIn is too restrictive. So, Konnects has come out with a few features, that will even enable even fresh graduates, who don’t have many years of work experience or projects to show, to share the projects they’re working on. Konnects, based on your profile, will reccomend groups and discussions that you should be part of, and plans to introduce IM and VoIP integration in the future. (via Mashable) I think all these together make it a very differentiated value proposition.

    The third interesting new site I came across is Publictivity. It aims to use social networking to boost productivity, by allowing users (in organisatons)to create work groups, and share information, files and it even has a video viewing mechanism. What I loved the site for, and it has nothing to do with the service, is that they have used Dunder Mifflin (of The Office fame) and an option to chat with Dwight!! Awesome example!!

    The last one I came across is 2Vouch, an Australian social recruiting website which offers referral rewards, with an option to donate to charity also. Companies don’t have to pay to advertise, they only need to pay if they hire a candidate. (via Mashable) The concept is interesting but I wonder about possible loopholes. Is it, for example, possible for a company to get the contact details of a candidate and then route it through other means?

    So, what has LinkedIn been upto meanwhile? For one, it’s been adding small features, like highlighting the sections of a profile that have changed, since you last saw it. (via Digital Inspiration) It has added enhanced group features, that includes a centralised group hub page. (via Tech Crunch). It has also tied up with CNBC to air content generated by its users on CNBC. (via PluggdIn) I share the view that most of these are quite basic features, and LinkedIn not only needs to be adding such things much faster, but introducing innovations too.

    This is of more significance, when we consider that the competition is not only new business networking sites, which are coming out with some neat innovations and targeting specific requirements, its also generic social networking sites like Facebook, if we go by certain studies, which raises the possibility of  business networking on Facebook superceding that on LinkedIn.

    Speaking of social networks, the interesting part is that inspite of the demise of entities like Yahoo Mash, new social networks still seem to be popping up. I read a post on Fwix, which, in addition to a great GUI, also shows the user, the most trendy information going on in his locality, by aggegating about 500000 stories per day. It also allows add on services, the list includes YouTube, MeetUp, Eventful Delicious, Twitter, Flickr and just about any you can think up. BBC has also launched its radio social networking site Radio PoP. And the omnipresent Google, in addition to its own social network Orkut, has opened up another front by adding a twitter-like ‘following feature’ to its blogging service – Blogger, so that users can now become ‘fans’ of other blogs. They have integrated it with Google Reader, and also plan to integrate Google Friend Connect into this, which brings it closer to creating blog based communities. (via The Inquisitr)

    There are new tools that are emerging in the social media space. How Sociable, which allows you to track your brand in the social media space; Lotame, an online advertising agency that is looking at changing the way advertising happens in social media,  Edopter, a way to discover and share trends in fashion, lifestyle, music and so on. New models are on the horizon, like contextual search in social media. The tools are there, its now for individuals and brands to make sure that they are used to their full potential. Like this article correctly states, business can no longer afford to ignore social media, and what GM has done – launching an anti-misinformation site, is perhaps a great start.

    until next time, socialise

  • Chrome and the quest for ubiquity

    I honestly wanted to write something else, but there was so much excitement generated by two tools this week, across the web, and in me, that I felt that I had to share it. I am still exploring both of these, so it’d be great if you also read the links i share in the post, in case you want to know more.

    Lets start with Chrome. That made up 80% of the conversation in Twitter on Tuesday and Wednesday. And made up about 10% of my offline conversations, in which I was spreading the word about it being Google’s new browser, and arguing with convinced individuals that Google did not own Firefox. Which made me wonder, just like the guys at Center Networks, whether all this is important only to some part of a long tail of browser users. I can relate to that. When I redesigned my personal blog a couple of years back, someone told me that it looked weird in Firefox. I asked him what that was!!!! Mozilla became my preferred browser less than a year back. And though I’ve downloaded Opera and Pogo, I’m yet to try them out, while the Flock browser, an excellent tool for social media enthusiasts, is used once in a while. So i guess I can be excused for being shocked  when I read of folk who talk of it being a Windows killer!! The people who should be really afraid are the Firefox guys, this is a good read on that topic.

    Meanwhile, all this shouldn’t take away anything from the massive buzz that Google managed to generate, and part of the credit should go to the very unique way of launch – through a comic, which explains the whys and the whats. If we go by this article, Google has been at it for a couple of years now. A couple of good posts to give you a complete picture.

    For those who are wondering, Chrome will not give you any more web ecstasy than the stuff that is already out there. But it is fast, with no clutter (even the right click throws up an uncluttered menu), and thus ends up making the screen look bigger. There are some things I miss from my first few days of tinkering. Inspite of the Omnibox, I’d still like a Google search toolbar. I miss my Twitter and del.icio.us plugins. Its eerie though, how my FF crashed right in the middle of the post, and i completed it in Chrome!! It raises some interesting questions on the future of browsing, but for now, Google can pat itself on its back because we hear only good things, though I get scared by such observations. (the last link courtesy @rajivdingra)

    The second tool that I got really kicked about was Ubiquity, from Mozilla Labs, an experiment to make common web tasks easier and quicker. You can read about what can be done with this tool here. I tested out mail and twitter with this and it was quite interesting, and easy. But its most definitely work in progress and will take some doing before it can lay claim to ubiquity.

    Meanwhile, Microsoft‘s launch of  IE 8 Beta 2 seems to have got lost in all this frenzy. Is that an indication? On another front, GMDesk, an application that lets you run multiple Google apps without opening up several windows/tabs, seems like something interesting. Google, hmmm.. Google likes Wikipedia, but will still have its own Knol, it likes Firefox, but will still have Chrome. And that leaves me me wondering about Google, about not being evil, and the quest for ubiquity, that it unrelentingly chases, but rarely admits.

    until next time, keep browsing

    Update 09/08/08: Now, this I will love Chrome for. Allowing users to have 2 GMail accounts open at the same time. 🙂

  • The times, they gotta be changin…

    The last few days saw a frenzy of activity in the Indiatimes space. But before we go there, I read a few interesting things that I thought would make good starters. One site I chanced upon was Local Signal, which allows you to choose a city (its a limited list, for now) and once you have, gives you news, events, Q&A, and even blogs from that area. A pretty neat utility site, from what I saw. And now for some news. Hi5, which is really irritating me with invites from people I really haven’t even heard of, has gone mobile. And lastly, AlooTechie tells me that MIH (of the Ibibo ‘fame’) has invested in ‘Singapore-based BuzzCity, which owns a mobile social network myGamma that has more than six lakh members from India’.

    But the action has been happening very much at home!! Indiatimes has been rolling out services, like there’s no tomorrow. I first read about Indiatimes’ tie up with Onyomo, for a local search service. With Sulekha having announced some major plans just a few days back, this space has become very interesting indeed. Then it was the launch of AdRingles, an Ad Ringback Tone service (the link explains it well) and MocoLife, a group SMS service which also offers content on subscription. I remember reading that OnMobile, a VAS company had launched its ARBT a couple of months earlier. Since we are mentioning Indiatimes, I just read that they have also launched QnA.

    All this made me wonder (as I always do) on what exactly Indiatimes (both web and mobile) is upto. There’s clearly nothing profoundly innovative happening since all the services mentioned above are things that have been done by others, even Mocolife. Incidentally, Medianama has a good analysis of the last one.

    Now, I don’t see any decrease in the dominance of the Google, MSN, Yahoo, Rediff in the Indian webspace, unless Indiatimes manages to pull some rabbit out of their hat. With their track record, I wouldn’t bet on that. Which means, they would have to use the mobile platform to gain a foothold in the digital space. One way to do it is to launch cloned services and use their offline media might to build traction. But that wouldn’t be a great strategy since users would slowly shift to better services, once they get comfortable with the medium. I’d still say that the best bet for them is to create synergy with offline products right from a product level (right now its just using them as a communication tool).

    For example, look at the multiple editions that TOI has. How difficult would it be to use the TOI backend to provide news/business/events and even the listings (local search) part (Times Classifieds would have tonnes of data), build in the newly launched Flubber, sorry QnA into it, and make city specific sites that would add on to Indiatimes. Now, how difficult would it be to experiment with the iTimes platform of theirs, which anyways is idle (i don’t have stats, but i don’t know anyone who uses it, maybe I’m just not social enough) to build communities around this structure, make a mobile version, and then top it up with services like MocoLife? Digital communities which have a one stop shop for all requirements in their cities – local search, QnA, events……  and even have a group sms service to communicate all this!! Maybe its worth an effort..

    Indiatimes better move fast, since Big Adda is pushing the mobile version very hard, judging by the TVCs, and knowing Reliance, they won’t be satisfied by anything less than the premium position in any vertical they operate in. It perhaps is a calculated strategy from them, after seeing the dizzying pace of mobile growth in India. After all, even the great Google sometimes chases mobile more than they do the internet.

    until next time, the changing times