Gauravonomics Blog

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The world’s largest democracy, India, goes to election starting April 16, 2009. The month long general elections to the 15th Lok Sabha will be held in five phases on April 16, April 22/ 23, April 30, May 7 and May 13, and the results will be announced on May 16.

As India’s 714 million voters prepare to elect their 543 representatives, they are witness to a range of digital initiatives from political parties, civil society organizations, media houses and even corporates. As a result, some observers are calling it India’s first digital elections.

Leading from the front is 82 year old Lal Krishna Advani, the prime ministerial candidate of the right wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, who has embarked on a Obama style new media campaign. Part of the campaign are a blog, a blogger outreach program, one of the most aggressive online ad campaigns ever seen in India, and an aggressive SMS campaign that will reach 250 million of India’s 400 million mobile subscribers. Rajesh Jain’s Netcore Solutions, which is running the SMS campaign for BJP, has bought an inventory of 1 billion SMSes for the campaign. Rajesh is also a part of the Friends of BJP group, which is running a social network and an opt-in MyToday-based SMS channel to support BJP’s campaign (Indian Express).  Read More

Veteran Indian entrepreneur Rajesh Jain on why mobile will be the key to monetize digital media in India –

Content in the digital space needs to focus on Mobile, Mass and My (M3) and Now, New and Near (N3).

On the Internet, the only revenue stream is advertising. On the mobile, one can create multiple monetization streams – from not just advertisers, but also subscribers, merchants and enterprises.

The first step towards monetization involves creating services that touch people multiple times a day. On the Internet, Search has done this very effectively. On the mobile, I think it will be about SMS and Subscriptions.

Content owners need to think of themselves as “VAS (Value-Added Services) Operators” [complementing the Voice Operators] in the mobile space.

What India needs (and can lead the world in) are VAS Operators. Besides the direct-to-consumer relationship [starting perhaps with SMS subscription services], VAS Operators have three additional characteristics: multiple services, multiple revenue streams, and alternate payment channels. The VAS Operator opportunity in India in the next three years is to reach 50 million subscribers, generating a monthly ARPU (average revenue per user) of Rs 50-100.  Read More

Quick Summary: Read why language (English vs. vernacular), mode of access (Internet vs. mobile) and social dynamics (global vs. Indian) will be the three dimensions of differentiation for Indian social networking sites.

In my previous post, I wrote about why Indian social networking sites need to differentiate themselves –

Most of the Indian social networking sites are basically India-focused Facebook/ MySpace/ Orkut/ LinkedIn clones. Such clones would only be popular amongst a small set of twenty-something Indians in metros who won’t want a clone anyways.

I also presented a typology of Indian social networking sites on a 2X2 matrix with Indian-vs-global social dynamics on the X-axis and Indian-vs-global user appeal on the Y-axis –

– and suggested that –

To really build an identity and a broad Indian user base for themselves, Indian social networking sites need to reflect the unique nature of relationships in the Indian society.

Three Dimensions of Differentiation: Language, Access and Social Dynamics

Based on the discussion in the comments section and on Twitter, Facebook and e-mail, I have realized that there are, in fact, three dimensions of differentiation for Indian social networking sites — language (English vs. vernacular), mode of access (Internet vs. mobile) and social dynamics (global vs. Indian).  Read More

Yours truly was quoted today in a very well-researched Hindustan Times article on micro-blogging in India.

Twitter, a popular microblogging service abroad, recently introduced an India number. Says Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder, “The people of India are very sophisticated when it comes to using SMS to stay connected.”

In Mumbai, Twitter recently inspired a ‘tweetup’, when Gaurav Mishra, a marketing professional and an “early adopter of technology”, wrote out a post saying “Blog meets are so passé. I want a Mumbai Twitter meet.”

The article covers the entire spectrum of the micro-blogging space in India, from Twitter to MyToday MOBS and Webaroo SMSGupShup to the Reliance m-blog and Nokia N-Series m-blog.

The article also has quotes from Ideasmith, Veer, Kiran, Rajesh and Biz Stone.

Here is the full text of the article —

Blogging by SMS, new rage in cool India
Neha Tara Mehta, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, February 17, 2008  Read More