- Millenials do use social media to express themselves creatively, but their overarching objective is to form new connections and communities –

Millennials are changing information technology. Instant messaging, chat rooms, texting and, above all, social networking. It’s a return to community, but in virtual space. It’s surprising how they are recreating community within the context of a new technology.

It’s easy for millennials to express themselves today, but it’s done within the context of a generation that enjoys being with each other and enjoys customization as a novel way of forming friendships and forming groups. The social-networking phenomenon is taking place within the context of this incredibly vast and intense and unremitting social immersion experience. This is the most connected generation in world history.

The overwhelming, dominant purpose of social network sites is to further intensify the close social networks millennials have with their own lives in school, work or wherever they are. It’s important to keep that in mind, because when Xers think about the amount of time millennials spend online, they think of it in Xer ways—how they’re doing strange new things and going outside the box. That clearly is not what millennials are doing. Even what they’re doing with music is in a social context; they’re customizing music to share with others.

- The millenials’s active use of social networking is rooted in their broader commitment to the idea of community —

Millenials (have) a desire to not disappoint their parents or their friends. We find a huge increase in team teaching, team grading, community service, service learning—a whole range of activities in which they are acting in team-like ways.

The idea of teamwork is not just [to be] with your friends; it’s the whole community. That’s why you engage in community service; that is why you vote and that’s why you want the company you work for to serve the larger community.

– The millenials’ need for shared experiences may lead to the revival of big brands –

I think that millennials are capable of regenerating the whole notion of the big brand. The idea of the big brand went into decline with the Gen Xers and certainly during the late boomer period. Gen X was a generation that didn’t even want to be thought of as a generation, and it had a lot of little niches. There was never a Top 40 group of songs everyone listened to, and the generation is spread out in terms of wealth. They were cynical toward anything that was big, and this gave rise to niche and viral marketing. The whole concept of the Long Tail is perfectly designed for Gen X.

With millennials you’re returning to the fatter portion of the bell curve. This is a generation that wants to feel that they do have a center of gravity. So you’ll see the emergence of huge brands with this generation. Look at [what happened with] Harry Potter. Think of the idea of the big brand as being a dimension of the return to community.

Neil Howe is right that the need for shared experiences is at the core of both social networking and big brands. However, big brands can only act as intermediaries for passive shared experiences, whereas the shared experiences enabled by social networking are active, and the community itself creates the experiences. It’s possible for brands to enable communities to create powerful shared experiences, but only when the brands concede the center stage to the community.

So, I don’t really get the connection, or the causality, between the social media type of community and the big brand type of community. But, maybe, I’m not supposed to get it. I’m a Generation Xer, after all.

Posted on Gauravonomics Blog

Subscribe to my book-as-a-blog ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ by Email

ShareThis

I was quoted recently in a Deccan Chronicle story on online advertising in India, along with advertising legends Alyque Padamsee and Piyush Pandey and fellow blogger Chandrachoodan.

Basically, we all agreed that online advertising will become the core of the Indian marketers’ marketing budget in the next few years. I also pointed out that the internet works best when marketers use it to reach one person at a time. So, search advertising for generating leads and social media initiatives for building community engagement are both great, but not plain-vanilla banner ads.

Here is the complete text of the story –

Consumer Caught in the Net
Online or web advertising is the next big thing in the sphere of advertising
Ashlin Mathew
Sunday, June 15, 2008

The Online pie is getting bigger and better. Of course with almost every youngster choosing to buy tickets or shop online or even home in on the optimum brand through the Internet, even conservatives are willing to put their thumb into it.

Until a few years ago most companies were unwilling to consider advertising on the Internet. But with most of the population in India getting tech savvy, companies are ready to invest 10-15 % of their spends to advertise on the web, say experts in this field.

According to a study by MSN, the target for companies going online is the 40 million Internet users in India. Moreover, the online segment is likely to cross the $100 million mark by 2010, states the same study. However, online advertising comprises just about five per cent of the pie. On a global level, India is nowhere in terms of online advertisements yet, said ad guru Alyque Padamsee, who is the chairman of London Institute of Corporate Training. “In 10 years when computers will become as affordable as telephones, we will see a revolution in online advertising,” he added
.
“Online advertising does have its share of viewers but it is yet to reach its peak in India,” says Chandrachoodan Gopalkrishnan, creative supervisor with Publicis Ambience, a global advertising agency. But, advertising online has definitely come a long way from those banner ads, he adds.
Earlier, most agencies would just put up banner ads on major sites. This could be skipped as it would come in the way of most users. But now websites such as Google, Yahoo and MSN fall back on text-based advertising. When users search for material on the net, related text-ads are placed on the same page. This is most effective for financial and automobile services, says Gaurav Mishra, who heads the sales and marketing division of an automobile brand.

Interactive ads and the viral concept of advertising are the latest concepts in online advertising. The former creates interesting content for the user to interact with. According to Chandrachoodan, this concept has been followed by www.sunsilkgangofgirls.com and www.hondamentalism.com.

The television ads of both these end with the website addresses prompting users to check it out. In the viral concept, the creators put an ad on a prominent website and from there it should usually spread through word of mouth. Chandrachoodan says this is a brilliant and effective concept if it gets accepted.

Internet is also being ventured into by organisations, as it is cost effective too. “The medium as such costs you nothing and it is much cheaper that television,” Padamsee states emphatically. “Internet has the power to reach out to one person at a time unlike television and radio ads and can engage consumers with a brand. We can also target customers based on their intention to purchase a product,” says Gaurav Mishra. When customers get engaged with a brand, then brand loyalty is just a step away, he adds.

Most admen agree that it is the next big thing in another five years.

“It will grow very fast and will see its boom in five years, so ad filmmakers have to be ready for it. But, it is not going to ring the death knell for television ads either as brands will need all media vehicles,” said Piyush Pandey, executive chairman, Ogilvy and Mather, India.

Posted on Gauravonomics Blog

Subscribe to my book-as-a-blog ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ by Email

ShareThis

In my previous post, I had compared the social technographics profiles for USA/ Europe with Japan/ Metro China to kick off my series on why the social web is not flat.

The Forrester Research Social Technographics Ladder classifies consumers into six overlapping levels based on their of participation in social media –

Basically, Creators create the user generated content, Critics and Collectors help disseminate it and Spectators consume it. Joiners are a special species, specific to social networking sites, who play all the other four roles in that context.

I ended the post by wishing that this data was also available for India, or at least Metro India –

However, given the low penetration of internet, even in Metro India, I suspect that the Creators will be in low single digits, Critics/ Collectors in high single digits, and Joiners/ Spectators in low double digits.

Well, I have spent a few hours in mashing together data from various sources to estimate the social technographics profile for Metro India and here’s how it looks –

- Metro India: I have defined Metro India as the top eight cities in India in terms of population (Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Pune). The total population of Metro India is 52mn (as per World Gazette estimates).

- Active Internet Users in Metro India: IAMAI’s I-Cube 2007 report there are 46mn Internet users in India (with 70% or 32mn active users), out of which 38% or 17.5mn are in Metro India. Assuming a higher active internet user percentage of 80%, the number of active internet users in Metro India can be estimated at 14mn (80% of 17.5mn).

- Creators in Metro India: The number of blogs in India has been estimated between 0.5mn and 1.2mn (see JuxtConsult India Online 2006, Ankit Maheshwari of Instablogs in The Hindu, Amit Ranjan of Webyantra, Debashish Chakrabarty of Indibloggies in Asian Age), even though most sources agree that the number of active blogs in India is much less than 50000. Starting with this baseline, and factoring in users uploading self-created content on photo-sharing and video sharing sites, we can estimate the number of Creators in Metro India at a maximum of 0.5mn.

- Critics in Metro India: India’s largest product review site Mouthshut claims to have 2.3mn registered users out of which 50% or 1.2mn are in Metro India (link). Starting with this baseline, we can estimate the number of Critics in Metro India at a maximum of 5mn.

- Collecters in Metro India: India’s largest social voting site site IndianPad has less than 50000 users. Starting with this baseline, we can estimate the number of Collectors in Metro India at a maximum of 0.5mn.

- Joiners in Metro India: As per JuxtConsult’s India Online 2008 report, 50% of all internet users in India use social networking sites, putting the size of the user base for social networking sites in India at 16mn (I had recently estimated it at 10mn). Assuming a higher social networking usage percentage of 60%, the number of Joiners in Metro India can be estimated at 8.4mn (60% of 14mn).

- Spectators in Metro India: As per JuxtConsult’s India Online 2006 survey, 85% of all Indian internet users regularly read blogs. Assuming that 85% of all Internet users in Metro India engage with social media in some form, the number of Spectators in Metro India can be estimated at 11.9mn. This is also intuitive because at least some internet users who are not on social networking sites must still engage with social media in some form.

- Inactives in Metro India: Once we have estimated that out of 14mn people in Metro India, 11.9mn are Spectators, the number of Inactives in Metro India can be safely estimated at 2.1mn.

To provide a context on how small these numbers are, here’s the social technographics profile for Metro China from my previous post –

It is evident even from a cursory look at the two charts that social media usage in Metro India and Metro China is driven by very different consumer behavior. In Metro China, Creators, Critics and Joiners all play an important role, whereas in India, Joiners are the predominant drivers of social media usage.

In my upcoming posts in the series, I’ll try to understand the reasons for such a difference between social media usage in India and China. Stay tuned.

Posted on Gauravonomics Blog

Subscribe to my book-as-a-blog ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ by Email

ShareThis

Forrester Research analysts Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff have played an important role in increasing our understanding of the social media space over the last year, both through their book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies (website) and their Social Technographics Study.

The Forrester Research Social Technographics Study classifies consumers into a ladder with six overlapping levels based on their of participation in social media. The six levels in the Social Technographics Ladder are –

1. Creators, who publish blogs, maintain websites, or upload self-created photos, podcasts or videos on social sites (like Flickr or YouTube).

2. Critics, who post ratings and reviews of products and services on user review sites (like Amazon), comment on someone else’s blogs or contribute to online forums or wikis (like Wikipedia).

3. Collectors, who create metadata that’s shared with the entire community, by aggregating RSS feeds in a feed reader (like Bloglines), by saving or tagging URLs on a social bookmarking service (like del.cio.us), or by voting for websites on a social voting site (like Digg).

4. Joiners, who visit and maintain profiles on social networking sites (like MySpace or Facebook).

5. Spectators, who read blogs, online forums and customer ratings/ reviews, listen to podcasts and watch peer-generated video.

6. Inactives, who do not participate at all in social media activities.

Basically, Creators create the user generated content, Critics and Collectors help disseminate it and Spectators consume it. Joiners are a special species, specific to social networking sites, who play all the other four roles in that context.

The core idea is that, instead of starting from a list of social media tools, companies should start with their target audience, and develop their social media strategy based on the social technographics profile of their audience.

Now Forrester has made their finding available in a nifty free Social Technographics Profile Tool. The data is based on Forrester Research Technographics surveys conducted with more than 40,000 respondents in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific in Q1/ Q2 2007. It’s a useful tool that allows you to split the data by age, gender and geography, and I’m sure that I’ll return to it frequently over the next few months.

In this post, however, I will focus on the geographical split and compare the social technographics profiles for USA/ Europe with Japan/ Metro China to kick off my series on how the social web is not flat.

First, only one fourth of the consumers in Japan/ Metro China are Inactives, compared to more than half the consumers in USA/ Europe. If Forrester’s claim that about three-fourth of all consumers in Japan/ Metro China engage with social media in some form or the other is indeed true, then the social media opportunity in Asia Pacific is much bigger than I expected it to be.

Second, and even more importantly, more than one third of the consumers in Metro China are Creators, compared to about one fifth of the consumers in Japan and USA and one tenth of the consumers in Europe. If you add to it the high percentage of Critics and Collectors in Metro China, it’s obvious that the social media scene in Metro China is much more vibrant than Japan or USA, and especially Europe.

Third, even in the specific context of social networking sites, almost one third of the consumers in Metro China are Joiners, compared to almost one fourth in Japan and USA and one eighth in Europe, pointing to a huge potential for social networking sites in the Asia Pacific.

I must point out here that the data has some limitations. The sample sizes for Japan and Metro China are limited, so that splits by age and gender are not possible, but they should be realistic at overall levels. Then, to compare Metro China to Europe isn’t really fair, as we are comparing a few cities to a continent. Finally, the six levels are overlapping and it will be interesting to look at the overlaps between the different levels in each geography to see, for instance, how many consumers in Metro China are either Creators or Critics or Collectors. Still, given China’s huge population, even Metro China must add up to a sizable segment.

Finally, I wish that this data was also available for India, or at least Metro India. However, given the low penetration of internet, even in Metro India, I suspect that the Creators will be in low single digits, Critics/ Collectors in high single digits, and Joiners/ Spectators in low double digits. What do you think?

Posted on Gauravonomics Blog

Subscribe to my book-as-a-blog ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ by Email

ShareThis

It has been fashionable for a while now to describe the world as ‘globalized’. Ever since Thomas Friedman’s ode to globalization, ‘The World is Flat’, became a runaway bestseller in 2005, it has also become fashionable to describe the world as ‘flat’. Indians, in particular, have a special fondness for Friedman’s book because Friedman is enamored with the Indian IT industry and the title was derived from a statement by Nandan Nilekani, the former CEO of Infosys.

While the ‘world is flat’ metaphor has been much abused over the last three years, even Friedman’s original argument (that historical, regional and geographical divisions have become irrelevant in a global marketplace where all companies and countries have a level playing field) is quite exaggerated.

In a series of posts written over the next few weeks, I’ll establish that the world is not truly globalized, but ’semi-globalized’ (as Pankaj Ghemawat describes it in ‘Redefining Global Strategy’) or ‘rough-correlated’ (a term used by Eric Beinhocker in ‘The Origin of Wealth’).

In fact, not only will I establish that the world is not flat, I’ll also prove that the internet in general and the social web in particular is not flat either. This is an important argument because Friedman’s ‘the world is flat’ theses is based on the premise that information technology in general and the internet in particular has flattened the world.

Finally, I’ll establish that it’s a good thing that the social web (and the world) is not entirely flat, because it allows entrepreneurs to exploit opportunities, for instance, to create a uniquely Indian social network or build a social media outsourcing business.

Watch out for more posts in this series under a new category called ‘Flat or Not’.

Posted on Gauravonomics Blog

Subscribe to my book-as-a-blog ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ by Email

ShareThis

The Idea

The basic idea is simple: we form a network of five to ten influential Indian business bloggers to promote link-worthy posts from other Indian business bloggers in the form of a weekly digest published on our respective blogs.

The People

The present members in our network are (in alphabetical order):-

- Gaurav Mishra, that is, yours truly, is a marketer and a social media enthusiast (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Gautam Ghosh is an HR professional and a veteran business blogger (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Kiruba Shankar is India’s original A-list blogger and podcaster and a regular speaker at technology conferences (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Palin Ningthoujam is a public relations professional and the founder of India PR Blog (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Rajesh Lalwani is the founder of social media agency Blogworks (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Ranjan Varma is the writer of personal finance online weekly Personal Finance 2.01 (e-Book, Blog, Facebook and Twitter).

- VeerChand Bothra is the organizer of Mumbai Mobile Mondays and head of business development at MyToday (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

The Process

Over the week, we share posts between each other, and select a set of 3-5 posts to highlight. The posts can include all business-related topics including marketing, advertising, public relations, human resource management, finance, and entrepreneurship. The idea is to not link to each others’ posts, unless one of us has written a real gem.

Every Monday, all of us link to the same set of posts, with our own unique perspectives on them. By linking to the same posts together, we maximize the benefit we pass on to the linked blogs, both in terms of traffic and Google juice. By providing our multiple unique perspective on the posts, we hope to kick off conversations around these posts in the Indian business blogging community.

The Best of Indian Business Blogs: Weekly Digest 4

- Sanjay Anandram and Vijay Anand explain why startups should choose their investors/ board members carefully.

My top-of-the-mind views: Most entrepreneurs spend a lot of time getting their product and their team right, but few spend as much time getting their investors and board members right. When I set up my own startup, I’ll do well to follow Sanjay’s and Vijay’s advice and look for investors who’ll not only invest in the business but also help me build it.

- Vijay Anand and Snigdha Sengupta point out that all is not well with the Indian version of BarCamps.

My top-of-the-mind views: Most of my friends who attended BarCamp Mumbai 3 were disappointed by it. Vijay and Snigdha wonder if we have interpreted the concept of unconference wrongly and appeal for a more conversational, startup-focused BarCamp. Well, I personally like the idea of Startup Weekends. If you are in Mumbai, you may get an invite to one soon.

- Jinal Shah wants to make sense of the chaos of the social web.

My top-of-the-mind views: Many practitioners are beginning to see social media conversations as a valuable, but under-utilized, opportunity for ‘free’ qualitative research to provide insights that can be used to develop both products and messages. The tools aren’t quite in place yet, but with natural language and machine learning algorithms becoming increasingly intelligent, this may become a big business opportunity soon. I personally see another model evolving simultaneously — the wisdom of the crowds aggregated via social media outsourcing.

- The Sans Serif blog looks forward to the upcoming Hindu vs ToI battle in Chennai

My top-of-the-mind views: The Jains have proven time and again that nobody else gets the newspaper business like they do. With the launch of The Times of India in Chennai, The Hindu will learn that it has already lost the battle it is preparing to fight.

- Harish B analyzes the launch of Tata Sumo Grande

My top-of-the-mind views: Harish writes an interesting, if partial, analysis of the evolution of Tata Sumo as a brand and the launch of the new Sumo Grande. I’m privy to the inside story on the brand, and look forward to an interesting conversation on the topic with Harish if and when we meet up.

Your Turn Now

We have done our part by starting the conversation. Now, it’s your turn to carry on the conversation by commenting on these posts, linking to these posts in your own blogs, giving us feedback on our idea and execution, or suggesting more posts for our next week’s digest.

Also see: Gaurav Mishra Week 1, Rajesh Lalwani Week 1, Ranjan Varma Week 1, Gaurav Mishra Week 2, Palin Ningthoujam Week 2, Ranjan Varma Week 2, Gaurav Mishra Week 3, Rajesh Lalwani Week 3, Ranjan Varma Week 3, Gautam Ghosh Week 3, Gautam Ghosh Week 4, Rajesh Lalwani Week 4.

Posted on Gauravonomics Blog

Subscribe to my book-as-a-blog ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ by Email

ShareThis

The Idea

The basic idea is simple: we form a network of five to ten influential Indian business bloggers to promote link-worthy posts from other Indian business bloggers in the form of a weekly digest published on our respective blogs.

The People

The present members in our network are (in alphabetical order):-

- Gaurav Mishra, that is, yours truly, is a marketer and a social media enthusiast (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Gautam Ghosh is an HR professional and a veteran business blogger (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Kiruba Shankar is India’s original A-list blogger and podcaster and a regular speaker at technology conferences (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Palin Ningthoujam is a public relations professional and the founder of India PR Blog (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Rajesh Lalwani is the founder of social media agency Blogworks (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Ranjan Varma is the writer of personal finance online weekly Personal Finance 2.01 (e-Book, Blog, Facebook and Twitter).

- VeerChand Bothra is the organizer of Mumbai Mobile Mondays and head of business development at MyToday (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

The Process

Over the week, we share posts between each other, and select a set of 3-5 posts to highlight. The posts can include all business-related topics including marketing, advertising, public relations, human resource management, finance, and entrepreneurship. The idea is to not link to each others’ posts, unless one of us has written a real gem.

Every Monday, all of us link to the same set of posts, with our own unique perspectives on them. By linking to the same posts together, we maximize the benefit we pass on to the linked blogs, both in terms of traffic and Google juice. By providing our multiple unique perspective on the posts, we hope to kick off conversations around these posts in the Indian business blogging community.

The Best of Indian Business Blogs: Weekly Digest 3

- Rajesh Lalwani believes that companies offering pro-biotic products in India are under-utilizing Internet in general, and social media in particular

My top-of-the-mind views: The health and wellness category is perhaps the one in which Internet in general, and social media in particular, can play a make-or-break role. The category has unique characteristics that make it a perfect fit for social media: it is an extremely high involvement category, patronized by an upwardly mobile (Internet)-savvy consumer base, and marked by frequent purchases of low ticket size products. Rajesh does a great job of identifying the gaps in how companies offering pro-biotic products are approaching the Indian market, and I see some of these gaps being filled very quickly.

- Sudhakar Ram, Founder and CMD of Mastek Ltd, looks forward to Mastek Ltd, looks forward to the third wave of Indian outsourcing

My top-of-the-mind views: Most industry insiders agree that it will be difficult to sustain the growth rates of 40-50% in the IT/ ITES sector if it stays rooted in the labor arbitrage mode. Sudhakar urges Indian IT companies to start making substantial investments in building intellectual property and creating solutions that have strategic impact and top management visibility within client organizations. Many Indian IT companies have adopted this approach of late, but with limited success. It will be interesting to see how many Indian IT/ ITES companies are able to move beyond labor arbitrage and transition to the ‘third wave’.

- Vijay Anand, founder of Proto.in, says that Indian entrepreneurs need to be more aware of their environment.

My top-of-the-mind views: Vijay gives a lot of invaluable advice in his post, including making your offering environment-proof, factoring in the negative use cases, thinking change-the-world big, and remembering that the world is a balance of chaos and equilibrium.

- Kamla Bhatt believes that a pure-play corporate blogging approach may not be successful in India

My top-of-the-mind views: Kamla believes that Indian corporates are more likely to embrace social networks than corporate blogs. I think that corporate blogs and corporate presence on social networks serve objectives that sometimes overlap but often don’t. Therefore, corporates in India will do well to use both, based on the context, the community and the nature of the conversation. Expect a longer post on this topic sometime soon.

- Atanu Dey dissects the food-versus-fuel dot-corn debate

My top-of-the-mind views: The mandated increase in the use of corn-derived ethanol as fuel in the US has led to much chest-thumping, with both camps strongly supporting their stands. Atanu Dey separates out the various issues involved in the debate in his trademark erudite style.

Your Turn Now

We have done our part by starting the conversation. Now, it’s your turn to carry on the conversation by commenting on these posts, linking to these posts in your own blogs, giving us feedback on our idea and execution, or suggesting more posts for our next week’s digest.

Also see: Gaurav Mishra Week 1, Rajesh Lalwani Week 1, Ranjan Varma Week 1, Gaurav Mishra Week 2, Palin Ningthoujam Week 2, Ranjan Varma Week 2, Rajesh Lalwani Week 3, Ranjan Varma Week 3.

Posted on Gauravonomics Blog

Subscribe to my book-as-a-blog ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ by Email

ShareThis

The Idea

The basic idea is simple: we form a network of five to ten influential Indian business bloggers to promote link-worthy posts from other Indian business bloggers in the form of a weekly digest published on our respective blogs.

The People

The present members in our network are (in alphabetical order):-

- Gaurav Mishra, that is, yours truly, is a marketer and a social media enthusiast (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Gautam Ghosh is an HR professional and a veteran business blogger (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Kiruba Shankar is India’s original A-list blogger and podcaster and a regular speaker at technology conferences (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Palin Ningthoujam is a public relations professional and the founder of India PR Blog (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Rajesh Lalwani is the founder of social media agency Blogworks (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Ranjan Varma is the writer of personal finance online weekly Personal Finance 2.01 (e-Book, Blog, Facebook and Twitter).

- VeerChand Bothra is the organizer of Mumbai Mobile Mondays and head of business development at MyToday (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

The Process

Over the week, we share posts between each other, and select a set of 3-5 posts to highlight. The posts can include all business-related topics including marketing, advertising, public relations, human resource management, finance, and entrepreneurship. The idea is to not link to each others’ posts, unless one of us has written a real gem.

Every Monday, all of us link to the same set of posts, with our own unique perspectives on them. By linking to the same posts together, we maximize the benefit we pass on to the linked blogs, both in terms of traffic and Google juice. By providing our multiple unique perspective on the posts, we hope to kick off conversations around these posts in the Indian business blogging community.

The Best of Indian Business Blogs: Weekly Digest 2

- Kamla Bhatt interviews ITwoFS’s Karthik Srinivasan on plagiarism in Indian film music

My top-of-the-mind views: While the Indian music industry is very vocal about piracy, it’s especially silent on the issue of plagiarism. ITwoFs (for IIFS, or Inspired Indian Film Songs), whose tag line is ‘Chronicles of Plagiarism in Indian Film Music’, is a website by communications professional Karthik Srinivasan devoted to exposing over 500+ instances of such ‘inspirations’ by Indian film musicians. Kamla does a great interview to bring out Karthik’s range of knowledge about music. Karthik, by the way, also writes a fascinating 100 word review blog at MilliBlog.

- Maninder points out that the Idea Rocks India’s MSN microsite is a wrong idea

My top-of-the-mind views: Idea Cellular is promoting ‘Idea Rocks India’ as India’s ‘first online singing contest’, but instead of creating their own website, they have hosted the contets on an MSN microsite. Maninder points out several reasons why the brand, and the property, are being shortchanged in this execution. To, me, this is another example of how agencies and brand managers do not benefit from the digital medium in spite of spending money on it, because they approach it from a mass media paradigm.

- Kartik Varma, co-founder of iTrust.in, writes a three part series on startup financing in India at Pluggd.in: part 1, part 2, part 3.

My top-of-the-mind views: Kartik uses his experience in raising funding for iTrust.in to give some valuable insights on how much capital to raise in the first round, how to calculate the valuation of your startup, and how to read through the various clauses on a term sheet. I have been tracking the Indian startup scene for a while now because I want to start one of my own, and Kartik ’s series tells me that there is still much about running a startup that I don’t quite understand.

- Mayank Bidawatka, Head of Marketing at RedBus.in writes a guest post on Pluggd.in to demystify SEO and SEM concepts for startups.

My top-of-the-mind views: Mayank’s post will serve as a great starting point for a startup trying to build online presence. I totally agree with Mayank that SEM is more important to kick start your web presence initially, while SEO is more important over the long term. Therefore, even as I fine-tune the SEO for my new project ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’, I have started a Google AdWords campaign to give it the initial push.

- Sudipto Majumdar, CTO of Zapak, outlines the rise of gaming cafes in India and Sashi Reddi, founder of FXLabs Studios, predicts that 2008 will be the breakout year for the Indian gaming business.

My top-of-the-mind views: I haven’t really tracked the Indian gaming industry so far, except pushing for a brand-centric business model for mobile advergaming, but Sudipto’s and Sashi’s posts have triggered enough interest in me to start a separate gaming category on this blog.

Your Turn Now

We have done our part by starting the conversation. Now, it’s your turn to carry on the conversation by commenting on these posts, linking to these posts in your own blogs, giving us feedback on our idea and execution, or suggesting more posts for our next week’s digest.

Also see: Gaurav Mishra Week 1, Rajesh Lalwani Week 1, Ranjan Varma Week 1, Palin Ningthoujam Week 2, Ranjan Varma Week 2.

ShareThis

‘The Age of Conversation’ Collaborative Book

‘The Age of Conversation’ is a one-of-a-kind collaborative book conceived by Drew Mclellan and Gavin Heaton -

- 100 authors. We’re a few but need more.
- The overriding topic is “The Age of Conversation” — where you take it is up to you.
- The items are short - one 8.5″ x 11″ page — it can be words, diagrams, photos (again up to you) If it is words - about 400, give or take a couple.
- We write it quickly and get it out there. We publish electronically.
- We make it available online for a small fee and we donate 100% of the proceeds to Variety — the children’s charity.

Over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators responded to their call, resulting in a unique one-of-a-kind project, which first became an e-book, then a self-published book on Lulu, and now a potential best-seller on Amazon.

I was fortunate to be a part of the project and I’ll always look back at ‘The Age of Conversation’ as my first book.

Three Reasons You Should Buy ‘The Age of Conversation’ on Amazon Today

Now, all of us are trying to push ‘The Age of Conversation’ to the top of the Amazon best-sellers lists through another path-breaking collaborative project — The Age of Conversation Bum Rush –

With the infinite amount of social sites and connections on the web… the idea is to generate as many touch points around the web as possible so that it will be hard not to spot the Age of Conversation activity.

Before I tell you how you can help, here are three reasons you should buy ‘The Age of Conversation’ on Amazon today –

1. You’ll be the proud owner of a one-of-its-kind collaborative book with insights from over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators.

2. You’ll help a good cause because all proceeds from the book will go to Variety, the children’s charity.

3. The book, and the bum rush to promote it, is a live case study on social media collaboration. By participating in the project, you’ll become a part of the social media history.

Now that you have made up your mind to buy your copy of ‘The Age of Conversation’ on Amazon, here are three other ways in which you can help us –

1. Ask your friends to buy ‘The Age of Conversation’ on Amazon today itself.

2. Blog about ‘The Age of Conversation’ and ‘The Age of Conversation Bum Rush’.

3. Share the Amazon link for ‘The Age of Conversation’ on social media sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, Facebook and Twitter.

All the authors and well-wishers of ‘The Age of Conversation’ will be grateful for your help.

‘The Age of Conversation’ Author List

Here’s a complete alphabetical list of the contributors with links to their blogs -

- AJ James

- Amy Jussel from ‘Shaping Youth: Media and Marketing’s Influence on Kids’.

- Andy Nulman from ‘Pow! Right Between the Eyes!: Andy Nulman’s Blog About Surprise’.

- Ann Handley from ‘Marketing Profs: Daily Fix’.

- Anna Farmery from ‘The Engaging Brand Blog’.

- Arun Rajagopal from ‘Arjun Rajagopal’.

- Becky Carroll from ‘Customers Rock!: A blog about how businesses make their customer experiences rock!’.

- Bob Glaza from ‘One Reader at a Time: Why not bite off more than you can chew?’.

- Bob Hruzek from ‘Middle Zone Musings’.

- Brian Reich from ‘Thinking About Media’.

- Cam Beck from ‘ChaosScenario: Providing information, insight and commentary on marketing in a new age.’

- Carolyn Manning from ‘Thoughts & Philosophies: Business thoughts, business philosophies’.

- C. B. Whittemore from ‘Flooring the Consumer’.

- Cedric Giorgi from ‘Carnet Web de Cedric Giorgi: Don’t Be Famous, Be Useful!’.

- Chris Corrigan from ‘Parking Lot: Cultivating an open space worldview in everyday practice’.

- Chris Newlan from ‘Talking Point: Sharing ideas and encouraging debate on media and public relations trends’.

- CK from ‘CK’s Blog’.

- Colin McKay from ‘Canuckflack: It’s about public relations, marketing, retail quirks, government communications and oddities’.

- Connie Reece from ‘Every Dot Connetcs: Connection through conversation’.

- Cord Silverstein from ‘Marketing Hipster: Understanding the Relationship between the Marketers and the Market’.

- Craig Wilson from ‘Sticky Advertising: Make your advertising sticky’.

- David Armano from ‘Logic+Emotion: Creativity, insights, ideas’.

- David Berkowitz from ‘Inside the Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz’s Marketing Blog’.

- David Brazeal from ‘JournaMarketing: Doing great journalism to sell your ideas, your organization and even yourself’.

- David Koopmans from ‘Business of Marketing and Branding: Making sense of Marketing and Branding in the Information Age’.

- David Pollinchock form The Experience Economist: Brand Experience Lab’.

- David Reich from ‘My 2 Cents: Musings on marketing, media, public relations and life’.

- Dr. Graham Hill from ‘Customer Think’.

- Drew McLellan from ‘Drew’s Marketing Minute: Where Strategy and Passion Collide’.

- Dustin Jacobsen from ‘Shake Gently: A Technologist’s View on the World of Advertising’.

- Ed Cotton from ‘Influx Insights’.

- Emily Clasper from Library Revolution.

- Emily Reed from Conformists Unite: Celebrating the unique and personal in business’.

- Faris Yakob from ‘Talent Imitates, Genius Steals: Some naked thoughts on brands, media, communication and technology’.

- Gareth Kay from Brand New: Thoughts on brands and communication’.

- Gary Schoeniger from ‘Innovation & Entrepreneurship: Insights, Ideas & Inspiration’.

- Gaurav Mishra from ‘Gauravonomics Blog: Gaurav Mishra’s Weblog on Marketing, Technology and Social Media ‘.

- Gavin Heaton from ‘Servant of Chaos’.

- Geert Desager from ‘Brandopia: Musings on marketing, communication and technology’.

- Gia Facchini from ‘Biz and Buzz’.

- Greg Verdino from ‘Greg Verdino’.

- Jamey Shiels from ‘Walk On: Interactive branding, new marketing and social media in the new world’.

- Janet Green from ‘Marketing Ideas Blog: Small Business Marketing Ideas’.

- Jessica Hagy from ‘Indexed’.

- Jim Kukral from ‘Marketing Ideas Online’.

- Joe Raasch from ‘The Happy Burro: Intelligent Facts. Brilliant Ideas.’.

- John La Grou from ‘Millenia Music & Media Systems’.

- Jordan Behan from ‘Tell Ten Friends: Marketing the will Start a Conversation’.

- Julie Fleischer from ‘Innovation Ecosystem’.

- Karl Long from ‘Experience Curve: The Experience Is The Marketing’.

- Katie Chatfield from ‘Get Shouty’.

- Kim Klaver from ‘New School of Network Marketing’.

- Kimberly Dawn Wells from Kimberly Dawn Wells

- Kofl Annan from ‘Annansi Chronicles: African Style Worldwide’.

- Kris Hoet from