• Raw Talent

    Last year, when I wrote about transmedia, one of the examples I had used was WWE. Perhaps it is because pro wrestling is usually given a pass by mainstream media, except when there are celebrity appearances, that WWE has made significant investments in building a social media presence – Facebook (almost a crore fans) , Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and more recently YouTube.

    Last week, it celebrated 1000 episodes on television, Charlie Sheen was their social media ambassador for the event. During the show, they also interviewed the fan who was their 100 millionth social media follower across networks. They begin and continue storylines on Twitter, and gets stars to make hashtag trends – The Rock being the best example. Stars have also used social media to further the TV time they got – Zack Ryder’s exposure shot up several notches after his YouTube show became a hit.

    And now, as per announcements, they plan to go further. It has added Tout to the list of platforms used, thus allowing video interactions with fans. The app’s sudden popularity owes much to the WWE marketing push. They also plan to increase the duration of the show from 2 to 3 hours, with hashtags and polls allowing viewers to influence the content of the show – practically live. A huge gamble. And there’s no surety of a #win. But that’s probably not the point. The lesson here (and what I admire them for) is how an old school wrestling promotion has consistently adapted to changing media scenarios and platforms – from selling live events, to running TV shows and pay-per-views and now on to social media, without forsaking the earlier endeavours. It continues to live dangerously, and thus thrives. It requires tremendous conviction in their product, their employees and their audience, called the WWE Universe.

    They might not make it to case studies, but that kind of cold shouldering is what they are used to by now. They probably don’t need it anyway. 100 million fans/followers – in essence, they are their own media. That’s not something a lot of brands can boast of.

    until next time, Raw is War #youremember (Barring occasional forced breaks, I’ve been watching since 1994) 🙂

  • The Age of Reasoning…

    Lay in drafts for over 2.5 years, waiting for its time. Saw it, and decided there was a reason to post it now, though I couldn’t see it. 🙂

    An interesting discussion over coffee – of why I couldn’t blow away the Bangalore Metro bridge if I so desired. No, neither smoking, nor alcohol is allowed in that cafe. 🙂 We discussed how much we really wanted things to happen, our priorities, of visualising the end result, whether it happens whether or not we work for it and so on.

    And somewhere in between,  it struck me that I was being pulled in two directions, or rather two ways in which I approach situations –

    Everything happens for a reason.

    Everything happens for a reasoning.

    Ignoring the rationalising, I have always been doing the latter, though I have always been pulled towards the former. But I wonder, are they mutually exclusive? And then I remembered a post from years back –  “Keep Walking“. Can ‘searching’ and ‘finding’ find parallels in reason and reasoning, or in religion and science, or in faith and logic?

    The entire line of thought is perhaps a stepping stone to a more basic question of how much of what happens to me is in my control. All? None? Somewhere in between? 🙂 And while on that, I couldn’t help remember that great line SwB wrote in his new year post sometime back. “When you decide to take charge of your own destiny you better be damn sure you’re up to the job.” The answer, I think, is right there. 🙂

    until next time, …”and I guess that’s why they call him the Blues” 🙂

  • Bear with me, Mother – Memoirs and Stories

    MT Vasudevan Nair

    “Bear with me, mother” is a collection of memoirs and short stories from arguably the finest writer that Kerala has ever produced – MT Vasudevan Nair. The book has 16 memoir pieces and half that number of stories.

    Though its against the flow of the book, it might be a good idea to read the stories before the memoirs. This is because many of the stories have a touch of autobiography/ reality in them, and it might take away a little from the stories of you read them second.

    The memoirs work amazingly well because it takes the reader back in time. Even for a Keralite like me, it seemed like a different culture. Temple festivals replete with folk arts, ten days of Onam celebrations, communities which hadn’t split into religion based factions all point to a Kerala that was markedly different, and this was only a few decades back. The change is visible in geography too, as the author agonises over the fate that befell the Nila river.

    The author walks the journey of his life with us, with anecdotes from his school and college life as well as his early working days. In them, we can see many characters that made it to his fictional works too.

    The stories offer excellent glimpses of the author’s craft, and works like ‘The Soul of Darkness’ will stay with you for a long time. In yet others like ‘Firecrackers’, ‘Karkitakam’, and ‘Elder Sister: Oppol’ we see the world through the eyes of an innocent child. It is amazing how even in the translation, I could imagine what the original Malayalam words must have been and marvel at the wordcraft.

  • Actwitty

    Actwitty.com allows you to integrate your footprints from across the social web and present your complete identity in one place. In conversation with co-founder Alok Srivastava.

    [scribd id=101237290 key=key-12zumrn4jpacpf8usniz mode=list]

  • The price of influence

    Speaking of trust, between a corporation and consumers, one of the earliest controlled version of ‘outsourcing’ it was celebrity endorsements. I use ‘controlled’ because organic WOM is not really in the corporation’s control. Though it is still in vogue, the credibility is possibly dented thanks to abuse by the endorser, the endorsed and a media that creates more ways to make an a$$ of the end consumer. eg. passing off ads as content.

    In the era of social networks and lightweight interactions, the beneficiaries of this decline would be micro celebrities (MC from now) who have created their own circles of influence in specific domains. I remember writing about that – over 3 years back, and following it up later with influence cycles and the tool based influence calculations being used by brands for promotions. The platforms used by these celebrities could be any – twitter, blogs, Pinterest etc and it does allow the brand to customise their interactions basis the medium itself and with help from the MC, use the strengths of the medium to the hilt.

    I was hoping that it would evolve such that brands would identify MCs who would be connected to their own category and therefore would wield their influence among people interested in that category. But judging by the directions the platforms are taking, the equations seem to be becoming closer to the earlier forms of media, and ignoring the social aspect. When Vijay shared this and pinky-swore that he wasn’t playing an April Fool prank, I was even more convinced of the direction. Full circle. Hopefully the lessons will be fast, and the new cycle will begin soon. 🙂

    until next time, influenced?