Tag: In.com

  • Bigg Loss?

    At the beginning of this season of Bigg Boss – Bigg Boss 2, I had wondered how many brands would involve themselves in the reality show. I was hoping that they’d not stick to obvious brand placement and make themselves a part of the story. I noted about eight brand plugs, though there might be more, since my viewing waned towards the end. I had some uncomfortable introspective moments when I caught myself watching four guys in a reality show. Now, its difficult to figure out whether brands got a good value out of these associations, since we don’t know the kind of financials involved. So, I’ll restrict myself to my takeouts as a viewer.

    • Airtel – Airtel gave away tees for the Delhi Half Marathon, a very clear case of ‘Here, wear’, but salvaged a bit by making a task out of it – all the inmates asked to run (combined) a distance of 21 kms without stopping. I think there was a charity link too. 175 comments generated here for the episode, I didn’t see Airtel there. Airtel also had its ringtone as the wake up tune on many days. But the one that worked best for me was the scroller that happened whenever two inmates who were sulking with each other started talking to each other. It read ‘Barriers break when people talk’. Of course, when Sambhavna and Payal were involved, it usually led to more fights, but I wouldn’t take it against Airtel.
    • Fevicryl – I remember Fevicryl only from one episode, but it left a mark. As a task, the inhabitants of the house were asked to make gifts for their fellow inmates, using some basic items and Fevicryl. The interesting part was how the inmates made stories out of the various things they made for each other. A few of them still remain with me like fevicryl decorated diyas being given to “light up someone’s world”, and a very ethnic design made to ‘remind someone about India’ always. The offering of Fevicryl was weaved into the narrative of the show, and it resulted in some good conversations. Impressive stuff, Fevicryl.
    • Dettol – sigh, ‘what can you do with dettol’ was the question asked as part of the task. How imaginative! The task fizzled out even before it started. The ‘babies’ track was boring as it is, using Dettol to wash the nappies was a force fit.
    • Vanish – Hey, someone actually came up with the idea that I’d proposed for Tide, starring Rakhi Sawant. The task was to wash clothes with vanish, and Monica mentioned the dirt removing capacity of Vanish. Actually, they should’ve got Payal and Sambhavna to do this, they washed the maximum dirty linen in public. Not bad, not great.
    • Kinetic Pleasure – With a generous sprinkling of ‘Why should boys have all the fun’, this task had the girls riding the vehicle around inside the house. Impossible to miss, but depends on how much was paid. If visibility was the agenda, consider it achieved.
    • Max New York – I’d already mentioned their good use of the ‘Shandaar Budget’ board. Since everyone ends up wanting more budget, the line ‘Karo zyaada ka iraada’ fits well there. There was also a task, based on the line, in which the inmates had to give a speech on how they were best suited to win, and what they’d do with the prize money. In fact, I noticed that later, when the inmates discussed their plans (after they got outside) they invariably mentoned the line too. One of the better usage in the show. Good work, i thought.
    • Mainland China – A few days before Diwali, they sent dinner for the housemates. It was a pity that one of the inmates (forget who) complained about the food. Ouch!!
    • Chevrolet – Chevrolet gave away an Aveo U-Va car for the ‘Bade Dilwala’ of the house. Turned out to be Rahul Mahajan. Since this was given away only in the end, but was discussed on every eviction day, they did get some good visibility. The product connect (Saif’s Chevrolet ad focuses on the interior space) was decent.

    In this context I have to also commend in.com for the exclusive online tieup. While some of the efforts were decent, there is still a reluctance on the part of brands to refrain from one way communication of their message. Tang (in the first season) was just there, the story and the communication happened organically. I would have liked to see brands weave themselves into the context and have their communication as a result as opposed to the start point.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if all the brands were happy to just ride on the popularity and viewership of Bigg Boss, and just have themselves seen in the show. So, what did you think of the product placements?

    until next time, karo zyaada ka iraada? 😉

    PS. If you can remember any more brand placements, please let me know via the comments section.

  • The In thing

    A few days back, I had written about wanting to see an internet entity’s brand campaign. And within a few days, as if on demand, the in.com TV commercials started appearing. In case, you haven’t chanced upon them yet, take a look here, and here. These two have highlighted two aspects of in.com – music and gaming. The others are news, mail, search and videos. The ads throw up stats of users who have been enjoying these services.

    Though my first brush with them left me highly dissatisfied, I have always liked the vertical properties they have built up over a period of time. I use Money Control and Compare India quite a lot, but that’s only 2 of the entire set that includes IBNLive, Biztech2, Storeguru, IndiWo, Bookmyshow, Yatra, Jobstreet, Cricketnext, Poweryourtrade, commodities control, Tech2, Buzz18 and Josh18. While I sometimes feel that a few of the properties overlap hugely on the service they provide and the target audience, it is quite a formidable line up. And perhaps that is what led to their reach being higher than that of the Times Group’s internet properties and only behind Rediff’s as far as Indian entities go. According to this article, In.com is already #7 in India’s portals list, and is planning to have job search, real estate search and bars and nightclubs search. Here’s an interesting post that throws some new light on those numbers.

    The site is quite different from the other portals, perhaps because of the rich interface, and, at a basic level is a massive meta-aggregator, which collects news from its own services as well as other prominent sites. To this is added a structure that builds in crowd choices, and all this creates great differentiation. The ‘reverse’ strategy of building verticals (sub brands) and then aggregating (flagship brand) is interesting, but unlike what I’ve seen in a few banners, I think “India’s homepage” is still rediff, and it will take some effort from Network 18 to topple it from that place. Its a simple recall factor, I am so used to rediff.

    Meanwhile, they are doing a lot of interesting things by way of association. The Bigg Boss tie up result is a great example, which to me is also a pointer towards some smart integration thoughts – Colors, on which Bigg Boss airs, is after all, a Viacom 18 channel. The other smart integration is MTV’s Youth Icon, MTV being another Viacom 18 venture. If this is done on a continuous basis, with more network channels, and a bit more push is given (in context) on the channels, I think In.com has a great future ahead. Will Roadies 6.0 will get to play a part soon?

    I also wonder what the role of the email service will be, after all, Rediff’s popularity was based a lot on that. It definitely has some very good features. Other than a 10 GB mailbox, linked messages, and the now common friends import from other mail services, it gives a ‘social’ touch to the service by allowing the user to share and promote content,  rate and comment on stories, add feeds and bookmarks, thereby making a customised ‘start’ page for life on the net. It is quite tempting, when compared to many other services. 🙂 But again, the lethargy factor is quite strong here. GMail and GTalk is so ingrained into my virtual life!!

    But in spite of all that, In.com has great potential as a horizontal portal and if they can continue the integration with their mass media properties and provide good service on the net, there’s no reason that they should not replace Rediff as India’s premium internet home brand, and set a benchmark on how the same entity can be a cutting edge player in traditional and new media.

    until next time, I’m in 🙂

  • In the news

    Sometime back, I’d written about the need for newspapers to give the digital medium a bit more consideration in their strategy. While India claims to buck the trend of falling newspaper subscriptions, I wonder how many economies have a thriving newspaper ‘raddi‘ market, the process through which the Indian household gains money by selling old newspapers as scrap.

    A few days back, Google announced its efforts to bring old newspapers onto the internet. The Google News Archive is being expanded and will let you search newspaper archives from decades back. I did a few searches, and for now it only has the already digitized versions of newspapers (in India), its a long and arduous task, but well worthwhile for Google. Over time, they plan to blend these into Google search results also. 

    Meanwhile, the latest group to join the anti Google-Yahoo bandwagon happen to be WAN (World Association of Newspapers) Their concern is that advertisers will increasingly migrate to Google from Yahoo when they see diminishing price advantages on the latter. (via Startup Meme) So the deal will give Google ‘super powers’ and weaken the competition in the search-ad market, since the two players had so far forced each other to give the best possible terms to publishers, like newspapers who offer display and search ads on their websites – a consortium of 200 US newspapers run Yahoo ads. 

    So newspapers are afraid that their revenue from third party ads served by Google/Yahoo would reduce? To me, it looks like if they had developed better ways of selling their own ad space, maybe they wouldn’t be looking like a bunch of whining kids. It adds to my belief that newspapers refuse to treat the online medium with the respect it deserves, and only react when their turf/revenue gets affected. I recently read this post, which explains how, many newspapers and magazines employ their regular ‘interruption advertising model’ even on their websites. 

    However, some top newspapers, are showing exactly why they are where they are. The NYT has an offer of a ‘print ad free with an online ad’. A daring reversal, that is perhaps aimed at switching the relative positions of print and digital, from a revenue perspective? The WSJ, has changed its design recently, and that includes adding a social network, the big deviation from normal procedure being that this one has paid access. While this might be considered not-so-smart in the era of free Facebook and LinkedIn networks, I think Mashable’s argument in favor of WSJ’s move has merit. The Time article also states that this might become available to non paying users as well, and there are plans to integrate it with existing social networks.  I think that if WSJ can back this move with some really good content that is flitered for its elite paying subscribers, this could be a long term winner.

    And while all that’s been happening across the seas, Google’s relationship with local newspapers is different. It has come up with Google News in Malayalam, which indexes news from almost all leading offline and online sources, with Malayala Manorama conspicuous by its absence. Other languages are coming soon. (via Medianama) 

    With digitising newspaers and local language news Google seems to be pushing from different directions. But, as these sites have shown in search, it is possible to best Google. For newspapers, its not just Google, there are different threats. For example, GateHouse Media is starting an online-only daily in Batavia, NY. They see tremendous opportunity for a local news and community site, since the leading local newspaper does not have content on its website. (via Publishing 2.0) This opportunity could exist in any place with good internet penetration and where the local newspaper hasn’t capitalised on that. On a sidenote, here’s a good post on how the traditional syndication means used by newspapers might expect a reversal soon. 

    Newspapers really need to pull up their socks and figure out how the digital media figure in their strategy. Now, though I might get lynched for this, already Web18’s consolidated reach has beaten that of the Times Group (India’s largest media entity), on the internet. And in.com, the portal which I think would be their flagship property on the internet, is still in beta. Why is the Times Group, with the #1 selling English daily, #1 finance daily, several language dailies, TV channels, radio stations etc not India’s #1 website. I think its a mindset issue.  

    I wonder, whether, with rising newsprint costs, and environmental concerns ( trees geting cut for newsprint), it might be a good idea for newspapers to start work on a Kindle like thing to distribute content, especially after I read this recent story on Kindle.

    until next time, print this?

  • Don’t call us, we’ll call you…

    Read a very good post here on how words lured a potential customer in, but actions spoke louder and managed to get him out safely.

    I had a similar experience with an entity i wrote about (like a lot of other people did) a few days back – in.com. Like I’d mentioned, I skipped the mobile invite and was content with an email one. And as they’d promised on the site, it arrived within 5 days (4 days – customer delight?). And it wasn’t just one, i got 5 of them. I started out with the first one, didn’t work. I thought it was just me, and tried the second, that didn’t either. No, I wont bore you with single counts anymore, none of the 5 codes worked.

    Since i love to give the benefit of the doubt to everyone but me, i started googling for similar experiences, and found out there was at least one more guy like me. But the number of positive entries there made me try again, still didn’t work, so I guess the cosmos’ message is pretty clear “Beta, it’s not for you’. Sigh. Fine, i get the message.

    There’s another tangential set of experiences. I have always bemoaned the lack of a good ‘Amazon-like’ site here. So whenever i notice there’s a new player in the field, whether it be rediff’s feeble attempts, or newbies like gobookshopping or the flipkart guys (who i got to know of through a brilliant marketing exercise of giving away bookmarks outside the Strand Book Festival) I immediately sign up. The next thing I do is check out if they have stocks of a book that I’ve not been able to get offline.

    The latest case is that of ‘Dublin’ by Edward Rutherford. I have asked all three entities for it, but have not got a response. Rediff actually billed me for it and then sent a mail a few days later stating they didnt have stocks.  And this is not the first experience of the kind.  However i keep getting ‘push’ messages from them about ‘latest releases’ and ‘mega discounts’. I wish they’d understand how much difference a conversation with the customer makes. Meanwhile, Strand would note it down in their book and give me a buzz as soon as they got the book.

    until next time, action and satisfaction

  • Zoom In

    On one hand, i see the TV media guys, sprucing up their websites to improve engagement with users. On the other hand, I also read about how they are sharing content with pure play internet channels. I guess it will be a while before we see exactly how TV and internet will co-exist and still make money.

    I’m still figuring out Blinkx only slowly, especially since another entity of a similar kind caused me a lot of heartburn when i checked it out. In my first attempt at Hulu, they refused to show me most of the stuff I wanted to see, citing some regional reasons. I was so looking forward to seeing some Simpsons episodes 🙁 In my second attempt, i had to be operating from the US to see anything at all. Blinkx, however, operates on a video search level, though in the future, I wonder how much of a distinction there will be among a youtube, hulu, blinkx etc especially if content – professionally created or uder generated, will be shared everywhere. Will there be someone interested in keeping their content exclusive, or will it be too risky not to share it? Its something I’ve yet to understand. This and this, though old, might throw some light on it.

    Meanwhile, the other big news today is the launch of in.com. WATBlog says Web18 might have spent 2 C for that domain. I thought of taking it for a pin and have been told that it might take a couple of weeks since my mail id is in a queue. In typical Indian fashion, they told me that jumping the queue is possible, if i give my mobile number. But since I’ve been inundated with SMS relating to everything from commodities to movie tickets to holiday packages to jobs and everything in between, I decided to pass. Unfortunately, even WATBlog’s username/password combo doesn’t seem to work anymore. You can also read about it here.

    While its competing in the quite cluttered horizontal portal space, it already has a tangible differentiation with the homepage. I’ve always liked Web18’s moves even though they took the concept of niches to an extreme, and now this one seems likely to set a new benchmark for Rediff & Co. Come to think of it, com.in would also have been a cool name, maybe with a teaser like “Com.in soon”. “In.come soon” also has a nice ring to it. Haha, okay, i shall refrain. 🙂 They also have a presence on TV which is also on expansion mode. That almost makes them a ‘one of a kind’ entity here, except for, of course The Times Group. Incidentally, i saw an ad of Zoom yesterday (below)

    It claims to have 23 applications on Facebook. Now, I consider myself fairly active on Facebook, and have never come across a Facebook application from Zoom. Can someone enlighten me, coz i love Bollywood trivia games. Incidentally, if you consider yourself a Heroes fan try out my quiz here.

    until next time, kisko dekho?