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  • Gaurav Mishra 10:02 pm on October 31, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,   

    Google’s Social Networking Plans: OpenSocial is Not About Facebook 

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    social-networking

    What is OpenSocial?

    TechCrunch revealed today that, instead of launching a new social networking platform, Google will launch OpenSocial, a set of three common APIs that application developers can use to create applications that work on any hosts, social networks, that choose to participate. These APIs give developers access to the data needed to build social applications: access to a user’s profile, their friends, and the ability to let their friends know that activities have taken place. The initial lineup of hosts, or participating social networks, include Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle (update: MySpace, Bebo and SixApart have also joined OpenSocial). The initial lineup of developers include Flixster, iLike, RockYou and Slide.

    You can also see a press release on the subject posted on John Battelle’s Searchblog.

    - X – X – X –

    What is my overall impression of OpenSocial?

    In my opinion, Google gets three on three for not calling it Maka-Maka, for not falling into the Orkut vs. Facebook trap –

    While a lot of bloggers are looking at ‘Maka-Maka’ in a Orkut vs. Facebook context, I think Google will be short-selling itself if it looked at the opportunity in such a limited way.

    – and for creating a path-breaking open-source platform that will genuinely benefit everyone in the web 2.0 value chain – social networks, application developers and end users – and allay fears about the web 2.0 boom being a mere bubble.

    - X – X – X –

    What does OpenSocial mean for each stakeholder in the web 2.0 value chain?

    So, what does OpenSocial mean for each stakeholder – Facebook, other social networks, application developers, end users and Google itself?

    What does OpenSocial mean for Facebook?

    OpenSocial is bad for Facebook because –

    - Facebook will lose its proprietary lock-in on application developers.
    - Over time, Facebook may also lose its lock-in on end users.
    - In future, Facebook may face competition from a social advertising application from Google embedded in OpenSocial.

    OpenSocial is good for Facebook because –

    - It will encourage more developers to start writing social networking applications.
    - It will encourage more users to start using social networks.

    What does OpenSocial mean for other social networks?

    OpenSocial is especially good for new social networks because –

    - It will enable social networks to offer the same user experience as Facebook via common applications.
    - It will help social networks to scale up user registrations quickly by lowering the entry barrier for users via shared profile, friend and activity data.
    - It will allow social networks to position themselves in increasingly focussed niches.

    What does OpenSocial mean for application developers?

    OpenSocial is brilliant news for application developers because –

    - It is based on HTML and JavaScript, languages most application developers already know.
    - It allows developers to “learn once, write anywhere”, or write front-ends for different social networks using the same API and the same back-end.
    - It is both easy to implement for simple applications and easy to customize for complex applications.
    - Application developers don’t have to choose between the Facebook platform and the OpenSocial platform.

    What does OpenSocial mean for the end users?

    Most importantly, OpenSocial will benefit end users because –

    - It will allow end users to use the same applications across social networks.
    - Over time, it will allow end users to share and synchronize profile, friend and activity data across social networks.
    - Over time, by allowing more niche social networks to evolve, it will increase the social networking options available to end users.

    What does OpenSocial mean for Google?

    OpenSocial is a strategic breakthrough for Google because -

    - It will help Google to break Facebook’s stronghold on social networking.
    - It will allow Google to launch its own social advertising service to rival the one about to be launched by Facebook.
    - It may allow Google to enter into the social search engine space on the lines of Facebook.
    - It may also allow Google to develop a marketplace for bringing together application developers and social networks.
    - It will allow Google to build public consensus on sharing of personal data before it builds interconnectedness between it’s own applications.
    - It will help Google to increase its ad revenues because of overall increase in Internet usage.

    - X – X – X –

    What are other bloggers saying about OpenSocial?

    While the whole blogosphere is buzzing with OpenSocial related posts (see Techmeme and Technorati), most of them are just focusing on the very superficial Facebook aspect. A small minority of bloggers, on the other hand, do seem to get the bigger story.

    In an absolutely brilliant post, Marc Andreessen writes why OpenSocial is the next big leap forward for web 2.0 –

    Open Social basically standardizes the concept of a plug-in API in such a way that neither host social networking environments nor external applications will ever have to invent another plug-in API, or have to choose between multiple competing proprietary plug-in APIs. Many standards die an early death because they are too complicated and hard to implement. Open Social is what you want in a standard — it’s expansive enough to do useful things, but limited enough to be very easy to implement.

    The New York Times story on Open Social focuses on the Facebook aspect but also says that Google’s bigger game-plan might be to develop a model where it gives away free open-source software to developers, not only to improve Google’s own applications, but also to improve other applications, so that overall Internet usage increases and it could benefit indirectly by selling more advertising.

    I bumped onto LiveJournal creator Brad Fitzpatrick’s manifesto called Thoughts on the Social Graph through Google Blogoscoped. Brad said in August that the goal of his project at Google (presumably OpenSocial) is to ultimately make the social graph a community asset, dependent on data from various social networks, but independent of any company or organization as “the” central graph owner –

    (The goal is to) establish a non-profit and open source software (with copyrights held by the non-profit) which collects, merges, and redistributes the graphs from all other social network sites into one global aggregated graph. This is then made available to other sites (or users) via both public APIs (for small/casual users) and downloadable data dumps, with an update stream / APIs, to get iterative updates to the graph (for larger users). While the non-profit’s servers and databases will initially be centralized, (the goal is to) ensure that the design is such that others can run their own instances, sharing data with each other.

    Do note that Brad doesn’t seem to be overly focused on undermining Facebook.

    ClaimID creator Fred Stutzman says that Google is using OpenSocial to build public confidence before it breaks the walls between its own properties and interconnects our personal data residing across properties –

    So what is Google really trying to do? By placing “opensocial” in the open, Google is demystifying how it will interconnect its properties. This is as important strategic move; Google contains so much personal information about all of us that openness will benefit the company when Google decides to interconnect.

    ZDNet blogger Dan Farber thinks that Google will use OpenSource to enter the social advertising space –

    OpenSocial is part of Google’s quest to increase usage of the Web. More applications can mean more searches and ad searches. You could also expect some new advertising services based on tapping into the OpenSocial APIs that work across all compliant social networks. In addition, Google will weave OpenSocial across its services beyond Orkut, such as iGoogle, and eventually embed the social graph in the Internet fabric for its users.

    I totally love how Richard McManus describes OpenSocial as the ‘third place’ of social networks –

    Simply put, Google has created a distributed social network framework that will end up competing with Facebook and MySpace. It is kind of a ‘third place’ of social networks – and it is a huge boost to the less populous or more specialized social networks.

    Finally, according to ZDNet blogger Caroline McCarthy, in spite of all its brilliance, Google may run into various roadblocks with OpenSocial –

    As the OpenSocial overseer, working through partnerships rather than its usual strategy of acquisitions, Google might not have quite as much power as it’s used to… The individual social-networking sites are responsible for getting their own arms of the project up and running, and exactly when that will happen is by no means clear… Additionally, some of the OpenSocial participants have not abandoned their existing in-house platform strategies… Then there’s the Curse of the Zombie (or Vampire, or Pirate). By opting into OpenSocial, a social-networking site may find itself at odds with users who find embeddable applications to be distracting at best and spam-worthy at worst.

     

    • Liz 12:30 am on November 1, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Yeah read about this on TechCrunch earlier today. Nov 5th :) Sounds good!

  • Gaurav Mishra 8:45 pm on October 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Marc-Andereessen, , Steve-Rubel, , , Venture-Capitalists, , , Web-2.0-Bubble, Web-Bubble-2.0   

    Web 2.0: Is the Bubble About to Burst? 

    Steve Rubel started talking about it yesterday and, within a day, everyone is talking about the web 2.0 bubble –

    The bubble really began in earnest when Google bought YouTube. That’s when every person with an entrepreneurial itch woke up and smelled the hype and money. Prior to then, startups were more focused on the entrance, not the exit.

    John Heilemann at the New York Magazine argues both sides of the case but fails to make up his mind –

    There’s the glut in venture capital: $3.4 billion invested in fledgling Internet firms in 2007, the most torrid pace since the height of the Web 1.0 mêlée. There are those lunatic valuations… There’s the frothy run-up in the NASDAQ… And then there’s the flood of derivative, dum-dum start-ups inducing a severe case of dot-com déjà vu.

    Despite some tremors, online advertising is now a juggernaut that promises to only become more powerful as companies like Facebook start creating sophisticated networks where fine-grained behavioral targeting is possible. More than 1.3 billion consumers around the world now use the Internet, and the global growth curve is steep. Meanwhile, the main source of unbridled mania in the nineties, IPOs, are a non-factor this time around. Instead, the boom is being driven by giants with riverine profit flows and vast reservoirs of cash.

    Don Dodge thinks that we have entered stage two of the web 2.0 bubble –

    Bubbles go through predictable cycles. Bubbles emerge from the ashes of despair. It takes a while to gain momentum but eventually greed overtakes fear and we are off on another bubble adventure. The first stage of a bubble is when most smart money declares we are NOT in a bubble…it is different this time. The second stage is more dangerous. Many people agree that we are in a bubble, but it will last another year or two, and there is still money to be made. The third stage is when the bubble has burst but most people are in denial and think it is a temporary set back. The fourth stage is when everyone agrees the bubble has burst and life will never be the same. My guess is that we are now entering Stage Two of the bubble cycle.


    Alexander van Elsas     feels that the web 2.0 bubble is being fed by a small group of investors and tech bloggers –

    I think it is not only the startups going after the quick bucks, it is also the investors trying to gain value on the very short term. And don’t forget the “traditional” media companies losing their own territories and now moving into the on-line world trying to play the same old game there. This whole eco system is being fed by a bunch of tech bloggers that really are way too far off the real world to know what the needs are of real users. I checked with my friends who are not so tech as I am, and they live their lives normally without being distracted from another “social life saving” service.

    Marc Andreessen tells John Heilemann that there’s no bubble to begin with –

    If you’re going to call a bubble on the basis of lots of bad start-ups getting funded and failing, then you have to conclude that the industry is in a perpetual bubble, and has been for 40 years.

    – then writes a satirical post on his own blog –

    OK. You’re right. It’s a bubble. A huge, massive, inflating bubble. We’re all doomed. Doomed, I say! DOOMED! It can’t last. It won’t last. It can’t won’t not last… The sooner we all get back to 2003, when the few surviving companies had huge giant markets all to themselves, with no competition anywhere in sight, because everyone knew the world had come to an end, the better.

    And, if you thought Marc was funny, Geek and Poke, like always, managed to do better -

    web-20-bubble

    While I’m no expert myself on such grave matters (no puns intended), it seems to me that the sky-high valuations of web 2.0 startups in itself isn’t reason enough to write off web 2.0. Yes, there are too many me-too photo-sharing/ video-sharing/ social networking sites, but the most visible ones are based on solid revenue streams and are backed by established companies with deep pockets. Yes, a shakeout seems overdue, but doomsday? I don’t think so.

     

  • Gaurav Mishra 5:43 am on October 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    You Must Be Mad To Do This! 

    the-line

    The line between “you must be mad to do this” and “you must be mad not to do this” is a very thin one… and you know what… it shifts.

     

  • Gaurav Mishra 3:52 am on October 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , micro-blogs, micro-media, , photostreams, podcasts, , , , vodcasts, ,   

    How Do You Feed MediaSnackers? 

    Snack

    Photo by Edtya

    If you read marketing blogs, you couldn’t have missed the recent buzz on MediaSnackers.

    MediaSnackers are (mostly young) people who snack on media, or consume it in small chunks. The 90 sec video on the MediaSnackers website serves as a good introduction to the idea. While the idea itself is not a new one, the packaging – and the catchphrase – is great, and has been rewarded with a meme dedicated to it.

    The “Do you respect MediaSnackers?” meme started by Jeremiah Owyang asks bloggers how they are dealing with the low attention spans of their audiences. The meme has spread wide with the participation of many marketing and PR bloggers.

    Here are my three quick thoughts on MediaSnackers:

    - First, MediaSnacking is about attitude, not about age.

    We snack for various reasons: because we don’t have time for a full meal, because snacks are easier to digest, because we simply like snacking. While MediaSnacking may come more naturally to the young, older people who are starved for time and weighed down with information are as likely to turn to it.

    - Second, MediaSnackers want it served their way.

    MediaSnackers want their fill when they want it, where they want it, in whichever way they want it. If you want them to consume your content, you need to serve it to them their way: as podcasts, vodcasts, photostreams, micro-blogs, or regular old-fashioned blogs.

    - Third, even MediaSnackers sometimes want something more substantial.

    I’m a MediaSnacker myself, but, after a few nibbles on Twitter/ Facebook/ YouTube/ Google Reader, I always find myself longing for something substantial and curl up with an old-fashioned book. I believe that the same is true for even the most voracious MediaSnackers. My approach on my own blog, therefore, is to write many snack-size posts as asides, but intersperse them regularly with substantial meal-size full posts.

    Here is a list of blogs that have participated in the MediaSnackers meme – Deborah Shultz, Chris Brogan, Steve Hodson, Connie Bensen, Geoff Livingston, David Yeo, Kyle Flaherty, Lee Hopkins, Todd Defren, Connie Reece, Valeria Maltoni, John Johnston, Clay Newton, Cathleen Ritt, Drew McLellan, Andrea Vascellari, Gavin Heaton, Kevin Dugan, Mark Cahill, Kami Huyse, Jane Quigley, Sarah Wurrey, Beth Kanter, Ike Piggott, Jason Falls, Rob La Gesse, Doug Meacham, Chris Wilson, Meg Tsiamis, Elizabeth Dunn, Colin McKay, Tamar Weinberg, Martin Koser, Mark Goren, Angela Penny, Heather Yaxley, Sherri Lynne, Luis Suarez and Patrix.

    Kami Huyse has also done a detailed analysis of the meme using the Radian 6 social network monitoring tool and posted a cloud of terms that are being used most often in the meme –

    mediasnackers-cloud

    And now for the yummy part: the tags. Daniel, Patrix, Amit, Ajay and Michael: how do you feed MediaSnackers on your own blogs?

     

    • Jeremiah Owyang 4:48 am on October 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I think this is correct and resonates very well:

      “- First, MediaSnacking is about attitude, not about age.”

    • Andrew Young 5:19 am on October 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Does anyone know any other training courses on social media like the ones found on xTrain.com?

    • Lee Hopkins 5:20 am on October 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Yep, being nearly 49 I’d agree with you and Jeremiah on that point!

    • Valeria Maltoni 5:50 am on October 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Funny coincidence that I would write about attitude and sliding doors (split paths after choices) in my snack culture post. You’ve split your online blogging into thinking and feeling. Great about page, one of the most inventive I’ve read in a long time!

    • DK 3:17 pm on October 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Thanks for joining the meme and for highlighting MediaSnackers (our org).

      I have added your name to the growing list where you will find our response as well:

      http://tinyurl.com/39ohf5

      Peace

      DK
      MediaSnackers Founder

    • Andrea Vascellari 11:13 pm on October 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I link back to what commented by Jeremiah and Lee about the ‘attitude’…

      Really nice post!

      Andrea

    • Cathleen Rittereiser 10:04 am on November 1, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Thanks for citing my post. Hope to continue the conversation

    • Jason Falls 5:35 pm on November 3, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Hey Gaurav,

      Excellent addition to the conversation. Point No. 1 is absolutely true, and of most labels we like to apply to groups of people. Nice work.

    • Beth Dunn 6:00 am on November 5, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Nicely laid out. I agree that media snackers can be any age, and that it’s a mindset more than a birthright.

    • Gaurav 9:40 pm on November 8, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      @Valeria: Many thanks. Splitting blogs (and personalities) is often painful, but what has to be done has to be done…

      @Connie: Thanks for tagging me. I totally love memes. I’ll try to answer the question of social media measurement from a brand manager’s perspective.

  • Gaurav Mishra 10:43 pm on October 29, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , Japanese, , , Manga, , , Role-Playing-Game, RPG, ,   

    Google All Set to Maka-Maka! 

    maka-maka

    Ever since TechCrunch reported on Google’s social networking plans, codenamed ‘Maka-Maka’, the entire blogosphere is going gaga over it.

    While a lot of bloggers are looking at ‘Maka-Maka’ in a Orkut vs. Facebook context, I think Google will be short-selling itself if it looked at the opportunity in such a limited way:

    The bigger vision is to combine all of Google’s apps and services through Maka-Maka. Google already has so much data on you, depending on how many Google apps you already use. It just needs to bring everything together… in different ways, along with data about you from other social services across the Web, and give developers access to the social layer tying all of these apps together underneath. The real killer app for Google is not to turn Orkut into a Facebook clone. It is to turn every Google app into a social application without you even noticing that you’ve joined yet another social network. (TechCrunch)

    By the way, if you are wondering what ‘Maka-Maka’ means, it may refer to a Hawaiian song about friendship, a shop for women’s dresses, a Japanese RPG (role playing game), or a modern, all-color adult manga about two girls who appear to be “friends with benefits” (via Andy Beal).

     

    • Liz 9:15 am on October 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Cool post! This is one of the reasons I love your blog, informative enough for geeks (like you?) but witty & cool enough for me :)

      On another, very scary note, don’t you think the two girls in the pic above look like me and you know who?

  • Gaurav Mishra 3:23 pm on October 28, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 1337, Bert-is-Evil, Bonzai-Kitten, , , Dancing-Baby, , , First-Post, , , Landing-Pages, MC-Hawking, , Micro-Culture, Niche-Culture, Star-Wars-Kid, Subservient-Chicken, , , Tourist-Guy, ,   

    Most Marketers in India Haven’t Heard of the Subservient Chicken 

    the-long-tail

    People like us who understand social media, or pretend to, often spend all our time with other people like us. Which means that we often forget that we are part of a very niche sub-culture and most other people are not like us, and don’t understand the references we often take for granted.

    I was reminded of this reality when I was reading chapter 11 of Chris Anderson’s brilliant book ‘The Long Tail‘. To prove the point that snippets of culture that are ubiquitous to us are often obscure to everyone else, Chris lists down 10 famous Internet viral memes and wonders how many people have heard of them. I had heard of 4 out of 10, but could be sure about only 2.

    - Ellen Feiss
    - The Star Wars Kid (original video)
    - Dancing Baby
    - Bert is Evil
    - Bonzai Kitten
    - Tourist Guy
    - MC Hawking (website)
    - 1337
    - Subservient Chicken (website)
    - First Post

    Do leave a comment and let me know how many you have heard of. I suspect that most of you would have heard of less than 5, and it won’t be the same 5 either.

    Chris says that in The Long Tail world, we will be mistaken to assume that other people understand our cultural references –

    What does this show? It shows that my tribe is not always your tribe, even if we work together, play together, and otherwise live in the same world.

    When mass culture breaks apart, it doesn’t re-form into a different mass. Instead, it turns into millions of micro-cultures.

    – including the meaning of The Long Tail itself, if I may add. :-)

    The point is that most marketers in India haven’t heard of the Subservient Chicken. They also haven’t heard of landing pages, or context sensitive ads, or (gasp!) even user generated content. What’s more, most agencies who are asking marketers to move to digital media, haven’t either – not in any meaningful way, at least.

    In my last post, I wrote about what marketers in India should not do on digital media. When I start my series on what marketers in India should do on digital media, I’ll start from the assumption that they don’t know what I’m talking about.

    Which reminds me of a Hugh McLeod post I read the other day:

    None of this stuff is rocket science. And sadly for folks working in the social software industry, “The people who get it, don’t need us. And the people who need us, don’t get it.” Which is why being a “blog consultant” or whatever is a lot less lucrative and rewarding than people often think.

     

    • blr bytes 7:26 pm on October 28, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Here ya go.. All of them. In one video.

      http://www.break.com/index/we-didnt-start-the-viral.html

    • Liz 9:05 am on October 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Got only one of them – the dancing baby – and that too only because of Ms. Ally McBeal :)

      But then again, I’m not one of you lot. I’m one of my lot, who your lot think it’s necessary to condescendingly explain Long Tails by starting out “Do you know what an X and Y axis is?”

  • Gaurav Mishra 4:12 am on October 28, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Buzz-MAchine, , , , , , IdeaStorm, , , , , ,   

    Dell Blogs Its Way Out of Bad Buzz Hell 

    Two years back, Dell faced serious negative word of mouth from bloggers, but responded by solving their problems, starting its own Direct2Dell blog, asking for customer feedback at Dell IdeaStorm, seriously realigning its customer service processes and metrics, and finding new ways of engaging customers in a collaborative relationship (Jeff Jarvis in BusinessWeek via Rajesh) .

    The Dell example is the exception rather than the rule – most companies still haven’t understood the concept of leveraging social media and engaging the customer in two-way conversations – but it serves as a powerful case study of what is possible if they did.

    Also see: Mack Collier and Paul van Veenendaal.

     

  • Gaurav Mishra 2:41 am on October 28, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , Wipro   

    Wipro Gets Second Life 

    Wipro Technologies has become possibly the first Indian company to join the virtual web community Second Life by opening a Offshore Development Centre model campus called Innovation Isle (via agencyfaqs!). While Second Life is surely a marginal force in the Indian context, Wipro’s move might encourage other IT companies to flirt with it. Watch out this space for more.

     

  • Gaurav Mishra 12:30 am on October 28, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , CSS, , , Music-Is-My-Hot-Hot-Sex, Nick-Haley, , TBWA, , , , ,   

    The Ultimate User Generated Content Wet Dream Come True 

    When 18 year old English student Nick Haley created a commercial for the iPhone using video clips taken from Apple’s website set to a song titled “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex” by a Brazilian band CSS, he didn’t know he had struck user generated content gold. Marketing executives at Apple saw the commercial on YouTube and, in the typically Apple ‘Think Different’ way, asked their agency TBWA/Chiat/Day to invite Nick to work with them on a broadcast-ready version of his spot. The commercial is now ready for worldwide release and Nick is a mini-celebrity (New York Times via Epicenter).

    Apple and TBWA, of course, are milking the maximum possible PR value of the episode with Lee Clow, chairman and chief creative officer at TBWA Worldwide, making Steve Jobsesque statements like:

    People’s relationship with a brand is becoming a dialogue, not a monologue.

     

  • Gaurav Mishra 11:32 pm on October 27, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , Top-100-Blogs, Top-Blogs   

    Another Top 100 Blogs List 

    This one is for people like me who have 500+ feeds on our feed readers.

    A recent award winning Carnegie Mellon study used mathematical analysis to find the top 100 blogs to read if you want to be informed about what the entire blogosphere is talking about (via Bloggers Blog). Instapundit is predictably at #1 and Indian Writing is the only Indian blog at #68 (although the study links to Uma’s old blog).

    By the way, I read only 13 out of the top 100 blogs. So much for my super-conceited “I know everything that’s happening in the blogosphere” self image!

    Update: A quick look at the blogs on the list redeems my self-image! The researchers’ definition of the blogosphere seems to be limited to blogs about American politics and Uma’s blog is not the only dead blog on the list. Yippee!

     

  • Gaurav Mishra 11:07 pm on October 27, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , Blogging-Heroes, BoingBoing, , , David-Rothman, , , Mark-Frauenfelder, Michel-Banks, , Steve-Garfield, TeleBlog, , , , , Wiley   

    Blogging Heroes Give Away Their Interviews for Free 

    blogging-heroes.jpg

    Michael Banks is a brilliant man! He interviews thirty top bloggers, packages the interviews into a book called Blogging Heroes with a few paragraphs of his own, then offers the bloggers the opportunity to give away the chapter they’re in as a free pdfs on their site! So far, Chris Anderson at The Long Tail, Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing, David Rothman at TeleBlog and Steve Garfield have bitten the bait, but I’m sure more bloggers will follow suit.

    By the way, I had the same idea as Michael when I started my Desi Blogging Cafe series (and yes, the series will be back soon with the dozens of interviews I haven’t published yet).

     

  • Gaurav Mishra 10:43 pm on October 27, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , ,   

    Stop Calling Me a Consumer! 

    As marketers, we often forget that consumers are people too.

    Adam Crowe’s Facebook group called Stop Calling Me a Consumer! might serve as a timely reminder (via Get Shouty).

     

  • Gaurav Mishra 9:55 pm on October 27, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Cute, , , , , , ,   

    Save An Alien 

    If you are looking out for the next potential Internet phenomenon, head to Save An Alien.

    The Israeli Facebook-only startup asks you to adopt an alien before a meteor strikes an alien planet in six months and kills the entire population of 10 million unique aliens (via TechCrunch).

    I have already saved my alien (Dugkat is green, wears a black tie and has a really ugly family he wants me to help save); have you saved yours yet? :-)

    dugkat.png

     

  • Gaurav Mishra 5:13 pm on October 20, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , Proof-of-Concept, , Spray-and-Pray, , ,   

    Digital Media, Permission Marketing and Proof of Concept 

    Quick Summary: Read about how marketers in India are under-utilizing the power of digital media by relying on interruption marketing rather than permission marketing.

    - X – X – X -

    permission-marketing

    In the last few weeks, I have had some interesting debates with friends who work in the digital media space (online/ mobile/ DTH). While the specifics of the discussions have varied, the underlying theme has been the same.

    My friend X wants me to include online/ mobile/ DTH in my regular media plan. X makes a pretty 100 page presentation to me on the different types of ads I can show on online/ mobile/ DTH. X points out that online/ mobile/ DTH is more measurable than TV/ press/ radio/ outdoors on which I spend a few crores without even thinking about it. X then very tentatively presents the budget slide and suggests that since I’m anyway spending a few crores on TV/ press/ radio/ outdoors, I shouldn’t hesitate in spending a few lakhs on online/ mobile/ DTH. At this point, I totally shock X by telling her that my budget for online/ mobile/ DTH is unlimited, but I’m not interested in doing any of the activities she has suggested to me.

    I’m not a big fan of traditional media, because it is based on the “spray and pray” or “interruption” model of marketing. You basically spend as much as you can and hope that you’ll cut through the clutter of a million other brands doing exactly the same, interrupt your customer in the middle of whatever she is doing and tempt her to whip out her cheque-book and walk into your showroom. You don’t know how well it has worked, you don’t even know whether it has worked at all, but you still do it month after month because you know no better.

    Digital media works best when you abandon the “interruption” model of marketing and move to a “permission” model of marketing. In the “permission” model of marketing, you still interrupt the customer, but you do not ask her to buy your product. Instead, you ask her to give you permission to engage with her, then escalate the level of the engagement over time, so that she eventually wants to buy your product herself. Permission marketing is not about trying to reach a million customers at one time, it’s about engaging with a million customers one at a time. Digital media is not about trying to reach a million customers at one time, it’s about engaging with a million customers one at a time.

    So, I’m not interested in knowing whether the total number of internet users in India is 15 million or 50 million. I’m not interested in knowing whether the number of impressions on site A is one-tenth more than the number of impressions on site B. I’m not even interested in knowing whether the CTR (click-through ratio) of one particular type of banner ad is 0.05% higher than the CTRs of the other one thousand and one types of banners.

    I’m interested in knowing if digital media allows me to engage with my customers in a fundamentally different manner than traditional media. I’m interested in knowing if it allows me to do it at a significantly lower cost than traditional media. Most importantly, I’m interested in knowing if it allows me to measure both the nature of the engagement and the cost of enabling it with significantly higher precision that traditional media.

    But let’s go back to my friend X who works in the digital media space. I want to tell X that my budget for online/ mobile/ DTH is indeed unlimited, as long as it pays for itself. I also want to tell X that I’m not interested in doing any of the activities she has suggested to me because all of them are based on the “interruption” model of marketing and using digital media for “interruption” marketing would only prove that it doesn’t work, whereas I want to prove that it does work.

    And, finally, in response to X’s parting repartee on how marketers expect too much from digital media and too little from traditional media, I want to tell her that only marketers who expect too much from digital media would help establish proof of concept for digital media, and, yes, I agree, it is an unfair world.

    But, enough about what marketers should not do on digital media. Coming up next, some ideas on what marketers should do on digital media.

     

    • Ranjan 8:55 pm on October 20, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Permission marketing need a lot of patience and care. I rarely see marketers having that, especially in India.

      Looking fwd to ideas on the metrics for permission mktg. in India

    • Karthick 4:54 pm on October 26, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I love Seth Godin. And i was directed here by Melody. And so far you have an interesting blog (interests being Marketing, Blogging and Personal Development :D )

    • Rajesh 10:16 pm on November 27, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Interesting.

      From views to engagement to purchase is a journey that marketers in India have so far been able to avoid given that the primary vehicles of media consumption are still print/ television.

      Brands that do indeed see the opportunity to begin early and ‘engage’ over ‘views’ would be rewarded, but the approach is different and very few brand managers even understand this – like someone said the other day “No one loses her/ his job because of it yet, so it doesn’t matter.”

      R

    • Gaurav 10:26 am on November 28, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      @Rajesh: Totally true.

      What makes it even worse is that the people who are supposed to understand it — digital content owners, digital marketers and digital agencies — are still stuck in the reach/ frequency paradigm, probably because the numbers (in terms of billings/ commission) simply do not add up for targeted, engagement-centric campaigns.

      Every time I try to do a targeted engagement-centric online/ mobile campaign, I first have to say “no” to an avalanche of “but what about reach?” silliness.

      This happens so often that, sometimes, I end up wondering if I’m totally deluded in thinking that digital media must be about more than reach/ frequency. :D

    • Rajesh 11:24 am on November 28, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Not alleging anything but engagement is hard-work and not the easy 15% or whatever % commission on YOUR spend. You spend I earn. Why change that model? :)

      That’s where fundamentally I like public relations over advertising/ offshoots thereof.

      Cheers.

      Rajesh

    • Gaurav 12:46 pm on December 6, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      @Rajesh: I’m not yet asking myself the “advertising or public relations?” question, but I am searching for a less intrusive, more people-centric model of marketing.

    • Sumant Srivathsan 7:22 pm on March 24, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I think there’s a bigger issue at hand here. Your friend X seems to be presenting an advertising budget, rather than a marketing plan. While this has more to do with her role in the machine, it also blinds her to non-commercial engagement or branding opportunity. A common tendency is to dismiss these opportunities as PR initiatives, and focus on what makes money for the agency.

      The concept of 360-degree marketing hasn’t covered the internet as a medium in India, and for most brands, it’s purely because of reach (engagement is all about mindspace, and currently, TV gets you more of it than any other medium available). The critical mass that is necessary in order to do online brand-engagement exercises simply does not exist yet. So when HUL wants to spend money on brand-building, they’ll do roadshows in Indore rather than build and promote a skincare website. This will change, but not today or tomorrow.

    • Gaurav 11:57 am on April 2, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      @Sumant: I’m sure you have a first-hand insider’s perspective on the issue because of your work-experience. ;-)

      Yes, I agree with you, Indian marketers and agencies keep doing wrong things on the internet, because the numbers don’t yet add up for the right things.

    • Maninder 2:32 am on November 8, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I think am little late in reading this article. But its a good read. I dont agree with with the thought the digital media is not about Reach. Mobile today can reach more than 250 million people. This defies your statement about REACH because digtial entails Mobile, OOH n Online advertising.

      Second Comment on CTR: CTR's are always important. You should be interested in knowing if site A has more CTR than site B. Engagement can be there in the banners or on the page where your banners are leading me to. I agree, CTR is not the only evaluation metric. http://brandstreet.wordpress.com/2007/02/26/vie... read this if it helps explaining my POV on CTR.

      I agree to the fact the digital medium allows for greater engagement. But it does not mean it should only me used for engagement purposes only. For example, in a B2B scenario there may be a very little scope for the same. So, I think ite better to stick to brand objectives rather than touting engagement everytime someone talka about digital medium.

      As a marketer, being a fan of one medium or the other does not help. Best is to remain media agnostic and see how your brand objectives can be achieved more efficiently.

      Hope am making sense

    • Maninder 7:32 am on November 8, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I think am little late in reading this article. But its a good read. I dont agree with with the thought the digital media is not about Reach. Mobile today can reach more than 250 million people. This defies your statement about REACH because digtial entails Mobile, OOH n Online advertising.

      Second Comment on CTR: CTR's are always important. You should be interested in knowing if site A has more CTR than site B. Engagement can be there in the banners or on the page where your banners are leading me to. I agree, CTR is not the only evaluation metric. http://brandstreet.wordpress.com/2007/02/26/vie... read this if it helps explaining my POV on CTR.

      I agree to the fact the digital medium allows for greater engagement. But it does not mean it should only me used for engagement purposes only. For example, in a B2B scenario there may be a very little scope for the same. So, I think ite better to stick to brand objectives rather than touting engagement everytime someone talka about digital medium.

      As a marketer, being a fan of one medium or the other does not help. Best is to remain media agnostic and see how your brand objectives can be achieved more efficiently.

      Hope am making sense

  • Gaurav Mishra 3:48 am on October 3, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Camellia, , , , Infinitea, Mocha, Oxford-Cha-Bar, Santosh-Desai, Tea, Tea4Health, ,   

    Tea, Coffee or Me? 

    Tea Cocktails

    Photo by Anush Wij

    I was a coffee addict when I was younger, but if you open my kitchen cabinet now, you’ll find several packs of Tetley tea bags (standard, masala, ginger, lemon, Earl Gray and green tea), a jar of Dabur honey, several packs of Equal sachets and a lonesome jar of Nescafe Classic coffee.

    My usual breakfast routine is to put in two tea bags and three mugs of water in a carafe, put it in the microwave, set the timer for three minutes, add some cut fruits to a large bowl of Good Earth museli, take out the carafe from the microwave, add a sachet of Equal to it, find the book I was reading when I fell asleep and sit down on my dining table for a half an hour date with myself.

    At office, the canteen boy has express instructions to bring me a cup of black tea every hour, and I’m not even counting the many cups a day I end up having with my visitors.

    Even at coffee chains, I almost never order coffee anymore. I once loved the coffee at Barista, but my usual order now is a cup of Earl Gray tea. The only coffee I could ever drink at Cafe Coffee Day was the Vegan Shake (cold black coffee shaken with cream and ice), which I now order without cream or sugar, on the rare occasion when I find myself in one of their outlets. I visit Mocha more for food and wine than coffee, but I have to say that their Cafe Zabaglione (warm black coffee shaken with with egg-white, wine and cinnamon) is truly outstanding.

    I still make coffee sometimes – cold black coffee poured over ice cubes in a long glass on a hot Sunday afternoon, or a coffee martini in a chilled martini glass on a Saturday night – but my days of sipping hot steaming coffee from a brown coffee mug are clearly over.

    Our routines describe – and often define – who we are and the absence of coffee from my daily routine probably says a thing or two about me.

    If I were to believe Santosh Desai – who gave a fascinating talk on tea versus coffee drinking behavior (amongst other things) at a recent marketing seminar for Tata managers – the shift from coffee to tea should tell me that I’m growing old(er).

    Indeed, while coffee conjures up images of young couples sipping steaming coffee from cool-looking mugs at a hip cafe, tea brings to mind images of old ladies fussing over dainty tea cups in their living rooms. Coffee brands have capitalized on this imagery and claimed the “young” positioning for themselves, while tea brands have been more or less satisfied with their “family” positioning.

    I’ll be foolish to predict that this will change anytime soon, but let me point out some trends that are worth watching out for.

    I see an increasingly strong trend of young people consuming tea in ways that are dramatically different from how their parents consumed it. Black tea, green tea and iced tea are all part of this trend and the tea cocktails that I sometimes serve at my parties are pretty popular amongst my guests.

    One reason why tea has the potential to become popular with young people is the perception that tea, unlike coffee, is good for health. I think that there exists a huge uptapped opportunity to position tea as a health drink. Tea as a health drink is not a new idea, but so far trade associations, and not tea brands, have been the ones to promote it.

    tea4health.JPG

    It is time, I think, for a tea brand targeted at the young, on the health drink positioning.

    Even more, it is time, I think, for a national level tea bar chain. All the coffee chains now have full-fledged tea menus and Oxford Char Bar, Camellia (via Yahoo) and Infinitea (via Rediff) have already piloted the tea bar concept.

    Coffee might have some serious competition from tea very soon.

     

    • bluespriite 1:31 pm on October 3, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      hmmm another joins the hallowed club of tea drinkers..but u seem to have escaped the ‘i love tapri chai’ …

    • bluespriite 1:32 pm on October 3, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      That was ‘i love tapri chai’ phase…

    • Lizzie 10:13 am on October 5, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I used to be a coffee lover and tea hater – but once on a trip to Kerela by train (yup, those were the days I couldn’t afford air-fare!) I kept drinking tea the whole way – fascinated by how not only the flavours kept changing as we moved further South by also the pronunciation of the word (chai, chaya, choi, cha).

      Now the health thingie’s caught up with me too, mostly only drink tea. Do keep the coffee around for once-in-a-while “ahhhh!!”s though :)

      Incidentally, you only spoke about the Coffee & Tea. What about the Me option?

    • Jennifer 10:38 pm on October 5, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I hate coffee. I can’t stand the smell. Blah…

      I am a tea drinker all the way always have been since I was a little girl. It just tastes better, come on people get with the program. LOL…

    • Sharanya 4:48 pm on October 7, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      You’re back! Wonderful! Was just going to mail and ask if I could de-link you in my next blogroll trim, but since you’re back… :)

    • deepanjali 4:25 pm on October 8, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I really liked ur post, thanx for sharing. Keep writing. I discovered a good site for bloggers check out this http://www.blogadda.com, you can submit your blog there, you can get more auidence.

    • Vi 10:06 pm on October 13, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I’m not a coffee fan, but I do enjoy the occasional cup of milky Kaapi – the southern, tamil version of coffee made from an old drip filter.

      I mostly drink chai, though, or just plain doodh. :)

    • blr bytes 3:34 pm on October 18, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Hmmm. Green tea for me. And a Lavazza espresso in the evening.

    • tusharika 7:46 pm on October 23, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      i’m a tea-o-holic and i’m pretty young…..i wonder what that says about me ??? ^.^

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