• The Stage of Conversation

    Branded networks, that’s what the new property from Nautanki.tv (read the comments section) YouTopia is going to be. (via agencyfaqs). Update –  This is going to be called spaces, and is still under development.

    The rationale is that since brands, especially in a nascent market like India,  may not want to invest in the infrastructure thats required for social networks, YouTopia would provide the same for individuals and brands to create their own networks with “necessary tools or applications like instant messenger, forum and facility to upload and share videos or photos while configuring their social network”, in return for an annual subscription fee (in the case of brands).

    Reminds me of Ning, though in this case, they have said that the brand can choose an independent url (so is that unlike Ning where it has to be say, nautanki.ning.com). Also, there will be an ad network, which will operate on a revenue sharing basis between Nautanki and the owners.(?) (I don’t know whether Ning has a revenue sharing mechanism) And, does the last but one paragraph in the afaqs article mean an API? Hmm

    Now the question I’d like to ask is, while (apparently) every brand manager wants a Gang of Girls, is creating a social network the way to go about it, or is it more important to maintain a conversation with the consumers? The argument I have is the same as the one i had for the online communities vs groups -on -social networks post. If the conversation is already happening at a social network, isn’t it better to be a part of the conversation there and be a facilitator? Would a brand have enough meat to pull the audience to a place where it will be the only ‘attraction’, and will they be able to maintain the interest for long. A Facebook group/ page, for example, already offers most of the stuff mentioned above, and I’m sure more features will be added. People have a certain comfort level with twitter conversations, would a brand specific network be able to recreate that? Multi Brand Outlet or Exclusive Showroom?

    I understand that its debatable, but meanwhile, there are efforts on to sew the conversations happening on various platforms into one interface. So we have, in addition to Friendfeed, a browser – Flock, an add on to a browser – Minggl, and the last i heard a new entity – Combo (via Startup Meme), which attempts to do this through a web based dashboard and widgets. I hope they send me that invite soon, so i can do some test drives. 🙂

    Meanwhile, have you noticed a comment option in Facebook’s news feeds, quite like Friendfeed, i thought. And here’s something for you to go ogle. That was Aditi Govitrikar, now where’s that I’m feeling lucky button?

    until next time, scatter or gather?

  • Faith

    So, how did it all start off? An understanding that there was a higher power that controlled destinies and the world around beyond any level that a man could aspire or imagine ? A need to connect to this entity and lay out the easiest way to do so? A way of bringing together people and making them work towards a common goal? A physical platform to relate to the belief in a metaphyical entity? Perhaps, and perhaps not.
    Somewhere in between, came the ones who claimed to have gone much closer to the entity than their peers. And they formed the higher power through prisms that were based on their individual realities and expectations, and their peers, who at best, were a confused lot, followed. Faith became religion and from a thought, became a set of practices, and from us, we became us and them.

    And that makes me wonder whether He, any He, feels the need for religion. And brings me to an unintentionally hilarious but profound statement from an old Malayalam movie, where the character states, in all seriousness to a priest, ” In religion, and in sex, I don’t feel the need for middlemen” 🙂

    until next time, profundity or profanity?

  • Opacity

    Read two interesting posts, seemingly not very connected, but actually so. The first one was here, (don’t miss the article it has linked to either) and it talks about brands including an RTI clause in their charter, and anyone from a stakeholder (thats including consumers) to competition being able to demand answers from the company/brand and more importantly, being able to get it. I wonder though, how an RTI clause could co-exist with competitive advantage (brand strategies).

    The second post talks about Friendfeed being a great tool for brands since it aggregates the contents from blogs, microblogging platforms, photo sharing services, social bookmarking sites and most possible social media. The snag though is that a Facebook or an Orkut are not accommodated there, yet, and the crowds frequenting the two kinds of sites are not exactly duplicated.

    But yes, the connection between the two posts is transparency, and i feel that in india, we have a long way to go before we reach that state. That’s because more than a certain set of processes, we are talking about a philosophy here. In the first digital (mini) wave and its aftermath, when blogs became a corporate mantra, how many companies/brands took it seriously and how many have persisted? For a transparent system to get established and flourish, it needs to start with a strategy thats consumer centric, a strong rationale for why x strategy was chosen over y to achieve a certain strategic objective, the wisdom to understand that we are human, and plans can go wrong, inspite of having backup plans running from b to z, and most importantly the maturity to listen to feedback, accept responsibility and take criticism, but learn from it, fix it and get better.

    When i hear people ask for changes in communication strategy based on very subjective likes and dislikes (sorry, its not always purely subjective, i have also heard ‘my wife likes pink’ for a campaign theme color), and when i get this response from them when asked about consumer preferences, and when, on hearing that I blog, I am asked to write good about the brands I work with, irrespective of reality, and when FYI (F*** You Instead – courtesy ‘One Night at the Call centre) responsibility strategies are given more importance than the brand’s performance, and many many more such occurrences, it gives me enough reason to believe that transparency is a long way off.

    On an aside, I read here that apparently the blogosphere was abuzz today with the Vodafone ad for iPhone. Interestingly, I saw three tweets today basically asking why the Vodafone customer service couldn’t be manned by people who knew about iPhone. 🙂

    until next time, mind set

  • The Middle Path

    Lamenting about the state of the internet in india is second and sometimes even first nature for this blog. This was the last major rant. It usually surprises me that even with India’s growth story and the obvious uses of the internet, our internet penetration is languishing in single digits. Yes, we have infrastructural issues, and relatively high broadband costs, but is that the only reason? I had started this thread in the post linked above, and I have a little more now to say on it.

    There are a large set of users who are still happy with the basic uses of the net (mail, a bit of chat, news etc), a subset who use it for jobs and other classifieds. There’s another bunch who are constantly experimenting with blogging, microblogging, and keeping up with a Flock or FF3 browser. There’s a third set that is above the first, but their interests end with orkut and Facebook. I think there is a huge divide between sets 1 and 2. Does that mean that the number of people who are working on the next set of useful products/services for India might be a minority, or worse still, not exist at all? Dangerous!

    So it was refreshing to come across two websites yesterday – the first through a mail inviting me to the premiere of Meri Dhun.  The second one, from here, to a site called Yo Macha. Completely unrelated, because Meri Dhun allows you to personalise songs by changing the lyrics. Their studio will then compose, record it and send it to you in a ringtone/MP3 format. And Yo Macha which claims to be, rather pretentiously, India’s top destination, allows users to rate photos, blogs, and an assortment of things from colleges to social networking sites and anything and everything in between. As an aside, while their revenue model is now restricted to SMS revenue sharing, banner ads and generating traffic for CPC?CPM ads, maybe, when they get enough registered users, they could provide corporate services like dipsticks for brand communication within the desired TG?

    I digress!! While they are completely unrelated, but for one small connection – they are not based out of the uber cool Tier 1 cities. The first is from Indore, the second from Jaipur, and both are based on little everyday things that people do in India. I am not even getting into evaluating business models, scope etc, but a thought crossed my mind. Perhaps there is no big killer application that’ll kickstart the net revolution in India, perhaps there are only these smaller drops which will make a bigger drop and perhaps something even bigger in the large indian media ocean. Maybe thats the way the Internet is going to take off here.

    The in between space in india, bridging the gap between the web 1.0 users and the people who are moving beyond web2.0, by building stuff that interests and/or provides value to the great Indian internet middle class.

    until next time, net gains, thats all that matters

  • Mo Brand Ambassadors

    I just realised that I totally forgot about Abhi B (or Shaky B, depending on your levels of dislike. Oh ok, I’ll stop. Can’t even be a bit nasty on my own blog 😐 ) in this post, where i talked about brand ambassadors for mobile handsets, among other things. But we’re not going to continue on the same lines of discussion here.

    I happened to see the new TVC for MotoRokr E8. The ad is a continuation of the earlier Moto ad (watch the complete one here, I have only seen the edit, this is super cool) Any ad that starts off with a spoof of ‘Rendezvous with Simi’ has to be an attention grabber, and going forward this one doesn’t disappoint. The sudden blaring of ‘Appidi podu’ from the Tamil movie ‘Gilli’ was shocking, the first time, and funny, every time I watched. The film briefing with the ‘heroin’ and ‘desh ka jhanda’, followed by the regular awards ceremony, all are a spoof of life. The icing on the cake is ‘Come on Ab, shake a lil’, followed by the abso Tamil dance steps.

    The other I have been seeing is the Aamir Khan ad for Monaco – Life Namkeen Banaiye, the one where he plays a prank on the serious team coach, by putting a sticker with scratches on a brand new vehicle. The humour wasn’t really good, in the same vein as this one earlier, but more importantly something else was lacking, and that brings us to the point of the post.

    Usage of brand ambassadors. The first one worked for me primarily because the humour was good. More importantly, a lot of it was Abhishek laughing at his own expense, as well as the fraternity he is part of. And because its Abhishek, (and I’m a huge non fan), you end up having a good laugh, because while he’s always trying to be goofy, this time he succeeds. Great usage of a brand ambassador.

    On the other hand, Aamir Khan. There was a time when this ad would have worked, exactly saat saal pehle, when ‘Dil Chahta Hain’ released. Aamir’s character was a riot, complete with exactly the Monaco kind of pranks, actually better. Maybe even later, after the release of RDB. But post the SRK-dog fiasco, and the constant baiting of co-stars including Salman, and the yet to be launched Harman Baweja, let’s just say the Aamir brand of humour (in case it exists) isn’t exactly popular.

    I doubt if stars are taken only for the visibility. Usually there is also a dna fit with the brand or at least a characteristic of the star that the brand would like to exploit. If that is indeed true, then Monaco’s choice is a bit too salty.

    Incidentally, what did you think of the new Reynolds ad, the one where they use Sachin’s one day and test avtaar colors to show the different pen characteristics? A bit labored, but a smart idea nevertheless, i thought.

    until next time, mo rockr, mo na ko