Gauravonomics Blog

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Most companies see social media as a part of communications, sales and marketing. Some, with a little help from us, realize that social technologies have implications for diverse business functions beyond these functions: from market research and product innovation to customer support and process redesign and even to partner relations and organizationsal development.

However, social technologies are a part of the core product for few companies, apart from the tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, standalone social networking firms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and social tool vendors like Jive, Lithium and Salesforce.

I believe that social technologies are becoming a part of the core product for news, media and entertainment companies, because an increasing amount of the content available online is now consumer generated content. As the boundary between content companies and technology companies blur even more, all news, media and entertainment companies will need to become technology companies.

In the US, the ubiquity of the internet has forced news, media and entertainment companies to become early adopters of social technologies and experiment with all the five underlying drivers of consumer generated content (CNN iReport), conversations (NPR Community), collaboration (Al Jazeera War on Gaja), community (NYT Times People) and collective intelligence (CNN News Pulse).  Read More

I was quoted today in Indian daily Mail Today in a story on the increasing popularity of Twitter in India.

The story talks about how an engaged Twitter community has emerged in India since I organized India’s first tweetup two years back. A case in point in the tweetup with writer, UN diplomat, and member of parliament Shashi Tharoor organized by Twilight Fairy.

The article also chronicles the use of Twitter by Indian celebrities like Shashi Tharoor, Rahul Gandhi, Gul Panang and Mallika Sherawat.

Here’s the ful text of the story –

If you don’t tweet you haven’t arrived

By Neha Tara Mehta in New Delhi

Not only the geeks but glitterati too are hooked to the micro- blogging networking site

IT TOOK just 140 characters to change the way our celebrities talk to us. You no longer need Page 3 to know who Mallika Sherawat is flirting with, when Shashi Tharoor gets a haircut, and the kind of music that helps Rahul Gandhi unwind.

All you need is to follow their ‘ tweets’ — 140- character- long updates on what they think of life, the universe and everything.  Read More

Sarah Lacy on personal branding –

One of the advantages of the Internet– the relatively low barrier to click on something– is an advantage for building brands and gaining distribution online, but it’s also a disadvantage. People flock to you as a side-show, but don’t actually want to invest real dollars to support whatever you are doing.

I’ve got an inkling that this multi-year trend towards brand-this and brand-that in the business world may be in for a rude awakening.

I’m not saying brand doesn’t matter. I’m just saying it doesn’t matter the way it seems like it should on paper. In the last year, a lot of college kids or journalists young in their careers have asked my advice on becoming a brand, and I’ve told them there’s no quick and easy hack to get there. It takes time, long hours, and consistent work of merit in your field. Brand that hits people fast, usually doesn’t last… The other thing I’ve told them is to know what they’re getting into chasing the brand dream. No one tells you how hard it is to maintain it and to stomach all that comes with it, once you establish it.  Read More