Tag Archive for 'Social-Networks'

The Difference Between Communities, Social Networks and Social Outposts

Over the last year, I have helped a dozen brands change how they think about 360 degree marketing by encouraging them to ask themselves three simple questions –

1. Who are our evangelists and what are their passions?
2. What are the values embedded in our brand?
3. How can we connect our brand values with our evangelists’ passions?

Often, online lifestyle- or cause-based communities hosted by the brand are a good way to transform customers and citizens into evangelist. However, brand managers and even other social media folks are often confused about the difference between social networks and communities.

Basically, social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook represent our existing relationships. Communities like Dell Go Green and Royal Challengers Bangalore represent our passions. Communities can be connected with social networks via APIs, RSS feeds, widgets or social outposts like Facebook Pages or LinkedIn Groups.

In a series of well-written posts, Lithium‘s Michael Wu (@michael8wu) does a great job of outlining the difference between social networks and communities and the role each plays into building weak ties, converting weak ties into strong ties, and maintaining strong ties.

In the first post, he outlines the differences between social networks and communities –

Social Networks are:

1. Held together by pre-established interpersonal relationships between individuals. So you know everyone that is directly connected to you.
2. Each person has one social network. But a person can have different social graphs depending on what relationship we want to focus on.
3. They have a network structure.

Communities are:

1. Held together by some common interests of a large group of people. Although there may be pre-existing interpersonal relationship between members of a community, it is not required.
2. Any one person may be part of many communities.
3. They have overlapping and nested structure.

In the second post, he explains that we form weak ties via shared communities and shared connections in our social networks.

In the third post, he argues that communities around shared passions are the key to converting weak ties into strong ties.

In the fourth post, he argues that social networks are the key to maintaining strong ties.

So, we need both focused communities and broad social networks and we need to connect them together as tightly as possible.

I have been evangelizing this hybrid approach for over a year now and it’s nice to see that others are now beginning to see the value in knitting together communities and social networks.

Published on July 21, 2010 in Tags: , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

How to Design for Strong, Weak and Temporary Ties

Google UX researcher Paul Adams (@padday) says that people’s relationships online reflect their relationships offline and fall into three categories: strong ties, weak ties and temporary ties.

Our strong ties are the handful of people in our inner circle, or our circle of trust, and might include close friends and family members. We have most of our online and offline interactions with our strong ties and we turn to them for emotional support. Most people have less than 10 strong ties.

Our weak ties are the wider circle of people we know, but not as well, and might include acquaintances, classmates, colleagues, and friends of friends. We have on and off interactions with our weak ties and often turn to them for information and advise. Most people have less than 150 weak ties.

Our temporary ties are the large number of people we temporarily interact with for a specific reason — to seek information, to complete a task, or because we share an interest or a physical space with them. Paul makes an interesting point about temporary ties being much more common online than offline, because of online communities and use created content.

I like Paul’s distinction between week ties and temporary ties because it highlights the fleeting nature of many of our online interactions. If I read and comment on your blog, I can’t really turn to you for advice or introductions, in the same way I can turn to my best friend’s brother I sometimes hang out with.

Paul has not only classified our online relationships into strong ties, weak ties and temporary ties, but also come up with a set of design considerations for each –

When designing for strong ties:

- Think about their existing means of communication. Phone calls, text messages, email. Strong ties already have established ways to interact, we should support them, and not try and replace them with our own messaging systems.
- Showing more information about the ten closest people is likely to be much more valuable than showing less information about many more people.
- Avoid generic terms such as “Friends”. This will likely lead to over-populating groups and reducing their relevance.
- Suggest connections to people, but communicate the effects of adding new connections.

When designing for weak ties:

- Consider the trade-off between communication and trust. Weak ties may be more knowledgeable about something we’re interested in, but we may trust them less. It may be important to show our other shared ties, or expose their sources of knowledge, so that we can increase the trust between people.
- Make it easy for people to expose their networks to people they trust with that data. This will open up links between weak ties, without compromising user privacy.
- Enable appropriate communication channels between weak ties. It may be better to go through, or highlight, a shared strong tie.

When designing for temporary ties:

- Prioritize a great system for building reputation. Allow people to give feedback to one another.
- Encourage people to expose content that will increase trust in their identity. This could be their real name, a real photo rather than an avatar, or proof of their qualifications.
- Prioritize a great system for building trust between people. This may be highlighting shared connections, shared groups, or shared interests.
- Don’t incentivize people with money, incentivize them to build their reputation.

Published on April 18, 2010 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

Why Social Networks Need To Monetize Their Non-US User Base

Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) notices that 84%, 78% and 72% of the users for Google, Facebook and Twitter respectively come from outside the US —

The conventional wisdom is that international usage cannot be monetized as well as US traffic and that is certainly true. But with >80% of your potential users outside of the US, I think the web sector needs to start working harder on international monetization.

Even if international traffic could only be monetized 25% as well as US traffic, when your international traffic is 80% of your total traffic, you would make as much money internationally as domestically. So that’s a lot of potential out there to be tapped.

And of course, not every international market is equal when it comes to monetization. Markets like western europe and japan monetize very well today. Emerging markets like the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, China, and India) should be big opportunities for monetization this decade. Other markets may be tough for years to come.

Published on March 28, 2010 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

The Social Network Water Cooler Effect: Three Reasons Why Facebook and Twitter Might Save Television

Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) in NYT on how social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are creating a water cooler effect around big events like like Super Bowl, Oscars, Grammys and Winter Olympics–

Remember when the Internet was supposed to kill off television? That hasn’t been the case lately, judging by the record television ratings for big-ticket events… Many television executives are crediting the Internet, in part, for the revival.

Blogs and social Web sites like Facebook and Twitter enable an online water-cooler conversation, encouraging people to split their time between the computer screen and the big-screen TV… If viewers cannot be in the same room, the next best thing is a chat room.

The effect is obviously not limited to television. Online conversations can also help or hinder opening weekends for movies and the ratings for politicians. Recent studies of online social networks have affirmed what researchers have long recognized: people seek to be around and be influenced by like-minded individuals.

If you are a television channel or a film studio, here are three reasons why you should invest in social programs today –

1. Standalone online communities can focus people’s passion around big events and premiers and social networks like Facebook and Twitter can scale this passion into positive viral loops.

2. Holding onto attention is as important as getting attention. The online community that comes together around big events can stay around even after the event, if you create the right context.

3. Even more importantly, each big event can build upon the success of the previous events, so that the size and strength of the community grows over time.

TV channels and film studios are built around a few big properties and a lot of smaller properties. Online communities can help them attract fans through big properties, hold onto them till the next big property comes along, and even engage them in the smaller properties.

While the social network water cooler effect is biggest in the US, except Indian film studios and TV channels to also tap into it in the Indian context.

This is a classic use case for 2020 Social‘s 3C approach to marketing (Campaigns + Community + CRM) where we run a series of campaigns to recruit members into the community, then use CRM programs to retain them and grow the community through referrals.

Cross-posted at 2020 Social: Because Business is Social.

Published on March 28, 2010 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

TOI Story on Caste-Based Communities on Social Networking Sites in India

I was recently quoted in a TOI story on caste-based communities on social networking sites in India.

I have earlier written that caste-based communities on Orkut and Facebook are a reflection of India’s splintered society and argued that we will see more caste-based communities as internet penetration in India extends to smaller cities.

I have also argued before that, as we use our Facebook, Twitter and Google IDs across the internet, online identities are becoming more real and persistent. On these social platforms, and increasingly on the wider web, our social graphs (identities, relationships and activities) root us in reality, and force us to be as responsible as we are in real life. So, the argument that online anonymity leads to irresponsible behavior is becoming less and less relevant, because online anonymity is becoming increasingly rare.

Here is the full text of the TOI article –

Social networking sites have become caste wide
Mansi Choksi, TOI Crest, Mar 27, 2010

Social networking sites have become a fertile ground for groups based on ethnicity and caste.

When 3,000 members of an online community of scheduled castes were asked recently whether they felt they could match up to their upper-caste counterparts, one user admitted that his caste identity had been a “hurdle in life”. Another user promptly replied with a prescription: “Ignorance is bliss.” The conversation was then interrupted by a user who accused the two of being undeserving “beggars” who had cornered seats in schools, colleges and government offices. Soon, the thread was ablaze with hundreds of responses in a free-for-all mudslinging competition and a crash course in the choicest Hindi expletives.

Social networking sites Orkut and Facebook have become a fertile ground for scores of groups based on ethnicity and caste. Key in the word ‘caste’ into either site, or indeed others, and up pops a cascading list of virtual caste colonies, some of which aim to unite members and some which spew venom. Orkut has thousands of these communities — for instance, ‘Brahmins Culture and Tradition’ , ‘I Hate Intercaste Marriage’ and ‘The Great Maratha’ — which have hundreds of members.

Interestingly, participants of these groups are increasing rather than dying down. A study by Sunil Gangavane and Urvi Shah, researchers at PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research) found that 32 random Orkut communities based on caste showed an increase of nearly 30,000 members in just three months. Gangavane and Shah, who joined these communities to keep tabs on them, primarily wanted to document the involvement of middleclass youth and their understanding of caste identity in these spaces.

Gangavane says that most members of castebased groups are highly educated: “Very few are only graduates — they are mostly engineers, MBAs, post-graduates and doctors.” Another finding is that most are from metropolises like Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore. “Social networking sites have the power to reproduce stifled opinions on taboo topics. People discuss things here that they can’t face-to-face,” he says.

But social media expert Gaurav Mishra, who is the CEO of online marketing firm 2020 Social, argues that it’s not the anonymity that comes with a virtual profile which is breeding online caste communities. “The phenomenon is only a reflection of the fact that caste is an important part of identity for many urban Indians,” he says. “Identity is more persistent and real in the virtual space. You are connected to friends, they can see what you are up to. There is nothing unique about it and it is not more or less pronounced in the virtual space. The dysfunctionality exists in the real world, and that is being reflected.”

While Facebook has fewer caste-based groups, friend requests from people who identify one’s caste through their name is not a rarity. Most groups are updated almost every minute, and some of them spew so much venom that scraps are reported and subsequently deleted. Hearteningly, there are also communities against casteism, but, again, sometimes these too are prey to casteism. In one community called ‘We hate caste feeling’ , for instance, a member posted a discussion asking how many members were from the upper castes.

Another finding of the PUKAR research is that there are many more upper-caste groups, with many more members. Mishra believes that the low number of Dalit communities says something about Indian society. “Higher, more powerful castes like Brahmins, Rajputs and Yadavs tend to have more money and better access to the internet. Old disparities are further accentuated by the net,” he says. “Not that the Dalit community isn’t active on the net — it is. But most of the sites have been started by NRI Dalits.”

The caste polarisation on social networking sites is also being used by several political parties. “Politically influenced communities like RSS, BSP, MNS and Shiv Sena are the most updated ones,” says Gangavane.
According to social scientist Shiv Vishwanathan, who is also a senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, caste is not an old-fashioned system. “It has adapted to politics, diaspora and technology too. Social networking sites are only newer platforms ,” he says. “The fact that people are still discussing their gotra means it’s important to them and they want to discuss it in a group they feel they can trust and in an environment in which they are sure they won’t be laughed at. Social networking sites provide just that.”

JAATI GUPSHUP
In the ‘modern Yadav girls and boys’ Orkut community (7,924 members), members are asked whether they think Yadav girls are ‘masoom’ (innocent), flirtatious, stylish or ‘dramebaaz’ (dramaqueens) and whether Yadav boys have attitude, are handsome or hot. In the ‘Brahmin Culture and Tradition’ community (8,453), members are asked to name great Brahmins in history. Responses include Parshuram (the Brahmin god who cleansed the world thrice), Chanakya (advisor to Chandragupta) and the Marathi Peshwas. In the ‘I hate caste feeling’ community (42,891), members discuss what they have lost because of the caste system. Responses include “love of life”, “frndship” , mental peace and “seat in good college” In ‘Dalits’ (858), members take a poll on what they think of “Mayawati joining hands with Brahmins in UP”.

Published on March 28, 2010 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

Do Indians Love Facebook More Than Americans?

Tunku Varadarajan in The Daily Beast on why India loves Facebook –

But this story—and Facebook’s continued growth in India—is not a prosaic one of devices, apps, and Internet penetration alone. It is about the Indian nature and temperament.

India is a land of the “open crowd”—to use Elias Canetti’s idea from his landmark Crowds and Power—the type of crowd which, as soon as it comes together, “wants to consist of more people.” As if in fulfillment of a social-media dream, “the urge to grow is the first and supreme attribute of [this] crowd… there are no limits whatever to its growth; it does not recognize houses, doors or locks and those who shut themselves in are suspect.”

So should we think of Facebook as yet another canvas on which the Indian etches himself into an entwined crowd? One can see this art of connection on display on many Indian Facebook pages, where seemingly private conversations are conducted in a wide-open space. “I sacked the maid,” an Indian “friend’s” recent status update said. “Anyone know how I can find another fast?” “Should I wax or thread?” another asked, provoking, like the first questioner, a torrent of responses that other cultures might regard as intrusive or presumptuous.

I would like to believe that Indians use Facebook in fundamentally different ways, from let’s say Americans, because we are more “social”, but I haven’t seen any meaningful research so far that supports the hypothesis. In fact, all research seems to show that Indians’ use of social networks, including Facebook, is dominated more by the early adopter bias (less than 5% of Indians have access to the internet) and not by any cultural proclivities.

Published on March 21, 2010 in Tags: , , , , , , , .. View Comments

From SXSW: The 5 Cs of Chinese Innovation

Jim Tobin (@jtobin) posts notes from the SXSW China panel with Jacqui Zhou (@jacquizhou) from Dell, Benjamin Joffee (@benjaminjoffe) from Plus Eight Star and Sam Flemming (@samflemming) from CIC –

The 5 Cs of Chinese Innovation –

1. Copy: We always start with something.
2. Combination: By combining two things (i.e., instant messaging and virtual goods), you can get a great idea.
3. Competition: As soon as there are two strong video sites, for example, they need to compete and differentiate, which leads to innovation.
4. Constraints: Because you can’t do everything, the constraints foster innovation, even new business models (because online advertising isn’t workable, for example).
5. China: It has to work for China, and the unique settings of the country, which might be different than for example a Japanese consumer.

Published on March 15, 2010 in Tags: , , , , , , , .. View Comments

Video: John Batelle and Evan Williams Talk About Twitter’s Business Model

Federated media founder John Batelle interviewd Twitter co-founder Evan Williams at the Conversational Marketing Summit (via J D Lasica) –

 

Here are the top sound bytes from the interview –

- The unique visitors at www.twitter.com are much higher than the 2.2 million reported by Quantcast and the 3 million reported by Compete. Only 50% of the updates are created on www.twitter.com

- Marketers love Twitter because it is unique in combining one-to-many with real-time. Many use it for marketing; Dell sold $500,000 worth of products through Twitter last year. Many, like Comcast, use it for customer service, often through Twitter Search.

- Many think of Twitter as a social network, but the one-way nature of relationship is an important distinction.  

- Twitter will consider charging brands to use additional functionalities, like verification of branded Twitter accounts.

- www.election.twitter.com was the first experiment in Twitter positioning themselves as a media company, by curating conversations around an event or topic.

- Twitter sees its application partners as a growth opportunity as of now, but may consider working with them if their entire business model is based on the Twitterstream.

- Twitter may consider search ads, but would like to focus on revenue streams that are organic to Twitter’s model of opting in to live content, like sponsored tweets enabling discovery of branded Twitter accounts.

- Twitter has not integrated Twitter Search on the homepage because of concerns about infrastructure (remember the fail whale?) So far, traffic from Twitter Search has mostly come from application partners.

- Twitter’s biggest priority right now is to tweak the user interface to enable easier navigation and discovey to increase its reach beyond the early adopters.

- Twitter doesn’t have firm demographic data, but based on anecdotal evidence, the average Twitter user is older than the average Facebook user and less than half the users are in the United States.

- Twitter is working with news organizations to use it as a tool for breaking news, especially in fast developing crisis situations. Twitter trends is one way to highlight such dvelopments. 

- Twitter and Facebook status are technically similar, but the actual use tends to be different, as  Twitter is primarily one-way while Facebook is two-way. 

- Twitter doesn’t like the idea of a freemium model because it restricts its overall value and diverts too many engineering resources from focusing on growth. 

- The biggest challenge for marketers is how to go beyond the campaign mentality and engage in scaled conversational marketing with millions of followers.

Published on December 13, 2008 in Tags: , , , , , , , .. View Comments

Universal McCann: Social Networking for Making New Friends, Blogging for Socializing with Friends

(Cross-posted on my fellowship blog – How International Values Shape Communications Technologies)

In my earlier post on the recently published Universal McCann study, I had written about how we use different communication channels to stay in touch with our contacts.

Perhaps the most important insight in the Universal McCaan study is that we use the internet for expanding our network of contacts but use the mobile phone to maintain our current network.

Here’s another interesting insight from the Universal McCann report: we use social networks for making new friends and personal blogs for socializing with friends –

Universal McCann Social Media Study

In the previous post, we found that Brazilians and the Indians are amongst the most social online whereas the Americans are amongst the least social. The same trend can be seen here.

While differences in culture partly explain this significant difference in online social behavior, self-selection is also part of the explanation. Given the low penetration of the internet in Brazil and India, social media usage in these countries suffers from a serious early adopter bias.

But, let’s return to the idea that we use social networks for making new friends and personal blogs for socializing with friends. The idea presumes that our social network profile is more public than our personal blog, and I think that it’s indeed the case for most of us. I’m sure that many active social network users who have hundreds of friends on Facebook or Orkut have personal blogs that are rarely updated and read only by a few close friends and family members.

However, many of us have built substantial readerships for our blogs and use them as much for broadcasting as for socializing. For us, the opposite is likely to hold true. We meet new readers through the blog, interact with them via the comment section, e-mail or internet messenger, become friends with them, and then add them as a friend on Facebook or Orkut. I think that Twitter and FriendFeed are more similar to blogs than social networks on the broadcasting/ socializing continuum, in the sense that they are also hybrids, used both for broadcasting and socializing.

What’s the directionality for you? Do you make new social network friends via your blog or do your social network friends become readers for your blog? Do share your experiences in the comments section.

Published on October 26, 2008 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

The Three Laws of Networked Technologies

(Cross-posted on my fellowship blog – How International Values Shape Communications Technologies)

While reading through chapter 2 of Howard Rheingold’s ‘Smart Mobs’, I started thinking about how the three laws of networked technologies (Sarnoff’s Law, Metcalfe’s Law and Reed’s Law) relate to social media in BRIC countries –

1. Sarnoff’s Law: The value of a broadcast network is proportional to the number of viewers (n).

2. Metcalfe’s Law: The value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of users of the system (n2).

3. Reed’s Law: The value of a group forming network (or a social network) increases exponentially, proportional to 2 raised to the power the number of users in the network (2n).

In Sarnaff’s network, the only communication possible is one-to-many. In Metcalfe’s network, the only communication possible is one-to-one. In Reed’s network, all types of communication are possible, including one-to-one, many-to-many and some-to-some, so it’s effectively any-to-any.

The value of a network with 100 users would be 100 under Sarnoff’s Law, 4950 under Metcalfe’s Law and 1,267,650,600,228,230,000,000,000,000,000 under Reed’s Law! It’s useful to remember that all three of them are only talking about the possible number of connections between the users in a network and, therefore, the potential value of a network. The real value of a network is contingent upon both the actual number of connections between the users in the network and the quality of these connections.

My first thought is that all the three laws are valid for different social media use cases. Let me explain this in the context of Twitter and Facebook.

If you were to use Twitter exclusively for broadcasting your feed, the value of Twitter to you would be equal to the number of users who follow your tweets (Sarnaff’s Law). This, in fact, is true for any feed, including blog feeds.

If Twitter was to be used exclusively to send and receive direct messages, the value of Twitter would have been equal to the square of the number of users on Twitter (Metcalfe’s Law). This, by the way, is a SMS-on-the-web use case of Twitter.

If Twitter was to allow users to form sub-groups, the value of twitter would increase exponentially (Reed’s Law). We have already seen the popularity of sub-groups in other social networks like Friendfeed and Plurk and Twitter might be missing a significant opportunity here.

Facebook, by the way, allows all three use cases — one-to-many broadcasting via pages (Sarnaff’s Law), one-to-one communication via direct messages (Metcalfe’s Law) and any-to-any communication via groups (Reed’s Law).

My second thought is that there are many layers of communication possible between the one-to-one scenario described in Metcalfe’s Law and any-to-any scenario described in Reed’s Law. For instance, the ability to subscribe to other users’ feeds, use @ replies and hash (#) tags, and access the public timeline allows us to mimic a part, but not all, of the group behavior Reed’s Law talks about. It will be useful to quantify the value of each of these layers. I’m sure some very smart people have already tried to answer these questions, and I’ll be back with more once I have done more research.

My third thought is that, if the value of a “social” network is indeed exponentially higher than the value of a telecommunication or a broadcast network, there is significant leapfrogging potential available to BRIC countries. A social network (like MobiChange) that mimics the any-to-any nature of Reed’s network on SMS can create tremendous value in the BRIC countries. However, the more I read about leapfrogging the digital divide, the more convinced I am that leapfrogging is much easier in theory than in practice.

Do stay tuned for follow-up posts that explore all these three thoughts in detail.

Published on October 7, 2008 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

The Best of Indian Business Blogs: A Weekly Digest by Business Bloggers You Trust (Week Four)

Quick Summary: Check out the fourth edition of ‘The Best of Indian Business Blogs’, a weekly digest by business bloggers you trust.

- X – X – X -

The Best of Indian Business Blogs: A Weekly Digest by Business Bloggers You Trust

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.

Published on April 14, 2008 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

The Best of Indian Business Blogs: A Weekly Digest by Business Bloggers You Trust (Week Three)

Quick Summary: Check out the third edition of ‘The Best of Indian Business Blogs’, a weekly digest by business bloggers you trust.

- X – X – X -

The Best of Indian Business Blogs: A Weekly Digest by Business Bloggers You Trust

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 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.

Published on April 7, 2008 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

Three Dimensions of Differentiation for Indian Social Networking Sites

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.

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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 –

A Typology of Indian Social Networks

– 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).

Three Dimensions of Differentiation for Indian Social Networking Sites

Why is Social Dynamics a Dimension of Differentiation?

I have already illustrated in my previous post how an offering that reflects the unique Indian social dynamics is likely to be well-adopted by Indian users –

Matrimonial sites like BharatMatrimony, JeevanSaathi and Shaadi are the Indian equivalent of international dating sites. A lot of my Indian friends who wouldn’t risk being seen on a dating site, use matrimonial sites basically to meet interesting people they can date (and, just maybe, marry).

In this post, I’ll share some numbers with you to illustrate how language and access are the other two dimensions of differentiation for Indian social networking sites.

Why Vernacular Languages and Mobile Will Drive Web Usage in India

Why is Language a Dimension of Differentiation?

According to various sources, the number of Internet users in India is estimated to be between 20mn and 30 mn. According to NRS 2006, the readership of English language newspaper is only 26 mn, less than 10% of the overall readership of newspapers in India. Given that English is the predominant language on Internet in India, is it any surprise that English language newspaper readership in India and Internet usage in India are in the same ballpark? Also, if you flip the numbers, vernacular language newspaper readership in India is ten times higher than English language readership in India. It’s probably reasonable to project that, if vernacular language Internet was to become popular in India, Internet usage in India will potentially increase tenfold.

Why is Access a Dimension of Differentiation?

According to TRAI, there are 250 mn mobile phones in India compared to only 3 mn broadband connections. It is also estimated that there are 38 mn mobile web users in India (note: I’m still searching for a reliable source). Even if we leave alone mobile web, 250 mn Indians have access to SMS compared to the 20 mn to 30 mn Indians who have access to Internet and the 3 mn Indians who have access to broadband. Not only that, mobile phone access is more widely distributed across both urban and urban Indian than Internet access. It’s quite a no-brainer, therefore, that web usage in India will be driven by the mobile web (with SMS integration) and not the PC web.

Early Signs: Micro-Blogging and Mobile-Blogging in India

While Twitter is still very niche in India, Indian micro-blogging networks like MyToday MOBS and Webaroo SMSGupShup have wide user bases –

‘We expect users in excess of 20 million before the end this year,” says Webaroo vice president Chirag Jain. (HT)

I’m sure that a large percentage of these 20 mn users will be passive users, who only receive messages instead of sending them. However, it’s no laughing matter that one micro-blogging service in India claims to have almost the same number of users as the entire Internet user base in India.

Expect more action in the micro-blogging and mobile-blogging space with Reliance and Nokia entering the space.

The Killer Indian Social Networking Site

So, what will the killer Indian social networking site be like?

I’m sure that the killer Indian social networking site will be differentiated along all the three dimensions of language, access and social dynamics –

- It will offer users a unique value based on Indian social dynamics beyond friending and following people.

- It will offer users deep content in a wide range of vernacular languages and not only English.

- It will offer users multiple access points, including PC web, mobile web, SMS (and maybe voice), so much so that most users won’t even think of it as a “website”.

What will the killer Indian social networking site be like, in your opinion?

Published on March 13, 2008 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

What’s Wrong With Indian Social Networking Sites?

Quick Summary: To 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.

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According to a recent cover story in the Outlook Magazine, there are almost 10 mn users of social networking sites in India. Orkut has 7.1 mn users, Facebook 1.6 mn, BharatStudent 1.7mn, Fropper 1.0 mn, BigAdda 1.4 mn, Minglebox 0.6 mn, adding up to 13.4 mn (tweet). Add smaller social networks, factor in duplication across social networks, and the total user base for social networks in India may be ~10 mn (tweet).

As the number of Internet users in India is estimated at between 20 mn and 30 mn by most sources, at least one third of all Internet users in India now use a social network.

However, according to the IDC Value Web Matrix study, there are only 1.5 mn users for India focused web 2.0 startups, including social networks (you can find a good list of Indian web 2.0 startups at Prabhu’s blog). As the study includes enterprise-focused web 2.0 startups like Zoho, the number of users for social networking websites in India may be closer to 1 mn. I know that BharatStudent in itself claims to have 1.7 mn users, but that number looks overstated to most people I have spoken to. In any case, we can safely peg the number of users for Indian social networking sites between 1 mn and 2 mn.

Therefore, out of 10 mn social networking users in India only 1 mn to 2mn (only 10% to 20%) are on Indian social networking sites. Which begs the question: what’s wrong with Indian social networking sites (tweet)?

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

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 (tweet).

To illustrate my point, let me plot the 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 (tweet) –

A Typology of Indian Social Networks

Quadrant 1 (Global social dynamics and global user appeal): These are original concepts and tweaks with broad international appeal, Indian only because they are started by Indians (tweet). Examples include: Slideshare, Like, and my friend Shweta‘s Criticat. Please note that most of these startups have a mix of Indian and foreign founders.

Quadrant 2 (Indian social dynamics and global user appeal): I couldn’t find an example of such a social network, but a yoga-centered social network based on the guru-shishya tradition would probably fall in this quadrant.

Quadrant 3 (Global social dynamics and Indian user appeal): These are India-focused Facebook/ MySpace/ Orkut/ LinkedIn clones. Most of the well-known Indian social networking sites would fall in this quadrant.

Quadrant 4 (Indian social dynamics and Indian user appeal): These are original concepts & tweaks with niche Indian appeal. So far, I have been able to find only two examples. BabaJob – a Bangalore-based professional social network for household help – taps into the unique Indian dependence on household help (tweet). Sumitr allows you to create a password-protected, closed-wall private network for family members and close friends.

Over time, such social networking sites that reflect the unique nature of relationships in the Indian society are more likely to build an unique identity and a broad Indian user base for themselves. Otherwise, most of the Indian users of social networking sites will continue to flock to Facebook/ MySpace/ Orkut/ LinkedIn and not their Indian clones.

Do you know of any other Indian social networking sites that are built on uniquely Indian needs and sensibilities (tweet)?

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Update: March 12

Ideasmith raises a very important point regarding Indian matrimonial websites in the comments section –

I’ve a suggestion for Quadrant 2 – the matrimonial sites. Or don’t you consider them social networks?

In fact, when I started writing this post, my starting point was that matrimonial websites — like BharatMatrimony, JeevanSaathi and Shaadi — are the Indian equivalent of international dating sites. A lot of my Indian friends who wouldn’t risk being seen on a dating site, use matrimonial sites basically to meet interesting people they can date (and, just maybe, marry). Ideasmith has a valid point. Matrimonial websites are also social networks — you create a profile, you browse or search for other people with similar interests and you connect with them online or offline. Except that I’ll classify matrimonial websites in quadrant 4 (Indian social dynamics and Indian user appeal), which means that my case that Indian social networking sites need to reflect the unique nature of relationships in the Indian society just became stronger.

Published on March 12, 2008 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

Updated: Mumbai Twitter Meetup & Seven Reasons You Should Sign Up For Twitter Today If You Already Haven’t

Quick Summary: In Mumbai? On Twitter? Register for the first Mumbai Twitter Meetup. Not on Twitter? Find seven reasons why you should sign up for Twitter today.

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If You Are in Mumbai & on Twitter, Attend the Mumbai Twitter Meetup

Mumbai Twitter Meetup

Yesterday, when I tweeted about wanting to do a Mumbai Twitter Meetup —

Blog meets are so passe. I want to do a Mumbai Twitter meet. Anyone interested? (Twitter)

– I received half a dozen responses within seconds.

Within the hour, I had set up a @MumbaiTwit Twitter account, a dozen people had started following it, Aalaap Ghag (@aalaap) and Kapil Bhatia (@kapilb) had posted about the event and Aalaap had set up a Mumbai Twitter Meetup event on Facebook. Phew!

So, if you are in Mumbai and on Twitter, let’s meet up for the first Mumbai Twitter Meetup.

When? 5 pm, Saturday, December 29, 2007.

Where? Flat No A/65, Sea Lord, Cuffe Parade, Mumbai.

If you are planning to attend, here are a few things you should do in the run up to the event –

- Register for the event by following @MumbaiTwit on Twitter, joining the Mumbai Twitter Meetup event on Facebook, or leaving a comment below. Better still, do all three!

- Promote the event by tweeting about the event, or posting about it, or displaying the event poster or the event logo on your blog. Do remember to include a link to @MumbaiTwit on Twitter and the Mumbai Twitter Meetup event on Facebook in your post.

- Evangelize Twitter and get five interesting people — and I mean really interesting people — who aren’t yet on Twitter to sign-up for Twitter, then invite them for the event. If you want, use this post to explain to them what Twitter is and why they should sign up for it.

- Tweet your ideas for cool things to do for the event. I’ll collect them and put them up for voting. The best idea will get a surprize. Do remember to include a @MumbaiTwit in your tweets for me to track them.

For the event itself, here are a few thoughts to start you off –

- The venue of the event is my house. If more than 30 people sign up for the event, we’ll put our heads together and tweet up a new public venue. This, however, looks unlikely, as of now.

- The event is totally free. I’ll arrange for snacks, beer and wine and we can order pizza for dinner. You don’t need to pay anything, or bring anything, but I’ll not say no to a nice bottle of wine.

- I only have jazz, classic rock and ghazals on my iPod. If you want to listen to something else, bring your own iPod. If enough people being their iPods, we can take turns at playing music and even do an impromptu contest and give a surprize for the ‘Best iJ’.

- Wear all blue. Twitter is blue and my living room curtains/ cushions/ rugs are also blue. All of us in blue against my blue curtains will make for an interesting group photo op. We can even have a surprize for the person whose blue clothes are closest shade to the Twitter blue.

- If one of you can arrange for a projector, we can tweet during the event from our mobile phones and project the tweet-stream on a wall. Once again, we can have a surprize for the best tweet during the event.

So, what are you waiting for? Go register now.

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If You Aren’t Already on Twitter, Sign Up For Twitter Today

If you aren’t yet on Twitter, you probably don’t know what Twitter is (otherwise, you would have been on Twitter). It’s difficult to explain Twitter to someone who hasn’t used it first hand, but I’ll explain it by drawing analogies with seven other services you might have used. Then, I’ll give you seven reasons to try it out today.

Seven Analogies to Describe What Twitter Is

- #1 Twitter is Like a Blog: The most obvious comparison, of course, is with blogging (in fact, Twitter is basically a micro-blogging platform). Think of Twitter as a blog in which your posts can only be upto 140 letters long. Like blogs (Technorati), Twitter has its own hierarchies, and top 100 lists, (Twitterholic and Tweetboard). What’s more, like blogs (Google Blog Search), Twitter also has its own search engine (TweetScan).

- #2 Twitter is Like a Social Network: If you haven’t ever blogged, you have probably used a social networking site. If you like Orkut — and who in India doesn’t — think of Twitter as your scrapbook, only better, because it not only shows what your friends are saying to you and you to them, it also shows what they are saying to each others and to total strangers. If you like Facebook, think of Twitter as your news feed, only better, because it not only shows what your friends are doing, it also allows you to tag them using @username and have conversations with them.

- #3 Twitter is Like a Chat Room:If you haven’t used either blogs or social networks, you would probably have used a chat room. If you like chatting, Twitter is perfect for you, because Twitter becomes like a chat room when you have a few hundred friends who are also friends with each other.

- #4 Twitter is Like a Feed Reader: If you are obsessive about staying on top of news and read hundreds of feeds on your feed reader, you’ll love Twitter because news and blog posts get shared on Twitter faster than anywhere else.

- #5 Twitter is Like a Forum: If you have a few hundred friends, Twitter becomes a forum for topics related to technology, marketing and social media. If you have a problem, or, if you need some advise, you send our a tweet, and a few dozen people would reply to you immediately.

- #6 Twitter is Like a Search Engine: Because Twitter works so well as a forum for topics like technology, marketing and social media, some people even use it as a people powered search engine. And, trust me, for some terms, Twitter almost works as efficiently as Google.

- #7 Twitter is like a SMS Service: Finally, even if you aren’t the online sort of person, you are probably as much into SMSing as everyone else. Twitter works brilliantly well on mobile phones and you can send and receive updates from your mobile phone, either through WAP or through SMS.

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Seven Reasons You Should Sign Up For Twitter Today If You Already Haven’t

Now that I have explained what Twitter is, here are the seven reasons you should join Twitter today, if you already haven’t –

Reason #1: Twitter is many things in one — it is a blog, a social network, a chat room, a feed reader, a forum, a people-powered search engine and an SMS service all at once. What more can you ask for?

Reason #2: As influential early adopters are spending more time on Twitter, conversations are increasingly shifting to Twitter, especially conversations about web 2.0, technology and marketing.

Reason #3: Twitter is a great place to promote ideas amongst these early adopters. Although I have never actively promoted my blog on Twitter, more than 10% of my traffic comes from Twitter.

Reason #4: Twitter is a great place to make new connections, and not only with people who are on Twitter. Yesterday, a Twitter friend in the US introduced me by e-mail to a blogger-marketer in India who isn’t even on Twitter.

Reason #5: Twitter allows you to decide if you want your updates to be public or private. So, you can use it as a public document or as a private diary.

Reason #6: Twitter works brilliantly as a scrapbook for developing a thought thread. I do it so often that I have started a separate category on my blog for Twitter Threads.

Reason #7: The most important reason for joining Twitter is also the one reason for not joining Twitter — it is very very addictive. But when has that stopped us from doing anything?

So, what are you waiting for? If you aren’t already on Twitter, go sign up Twitter, then start following me @Gauravonomics and register for the Mumbai Twitter Meet by following @MumbaiTwit. Then come to the event, make a bunch of new friends, and get dozens of followers.

End of post/ pitch. I’ll see you on Twitter.

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Update: December 30, 2007

Had fun at @MumbaiTwit last night. Nine people turned up, several more SMSed, called, tweeted, registered but didn’t finally make it. (link)

In order of appearance at @MumbaiTwit: yours truly, @ranjanvarma, @vulturo, @kapilb, @aalaap, @adityamishra, @namithaj, @zynx & @rochit. (link)

We drank wine & talked about social graph portability, Facebook application spam, the right format for barcamps, web2.0/ mobile startups… (link)

was in & out of the kitchen & made a dozen plus dishes. Everything I cooked was finished, so I’m assuming it wasn’t a disaster. :-) (link)

Then @Vulturo & I sat up till 3 am & chalked up the business plan for our “why hasn’t anybody else thought of it yet?” startup. (link)

So, I had a great time at @MumbaiTwit, met some old friends, made some new friends, ate, drank, talked. I hope others had a good time too. (link)

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Update: January 8, 2008

Namitha has written a story about the @MumbaiTwit in LiveMint –

Pocket-sized social networking

Twitter is the latest social media platform to catch the fancy of users worldwide, and allows a person to post real- time updates called “tweets”

Mumbai: India had its first Twitter meet last Saturday, when a bunch of working professionals met up at an apartment in uptown Mumbai to talk about their love for the Web application that lets you tell the world about your life and thoughts in 140 characters.
Twitter is the latest social media platform to catch the fancy of users worldwide, and allows a person to post real- time updates called “tweets”, via mobile and instant messaging on its website, which can then be shared with other users. In turn, a user tracks tweets posted by others.

Gaurav Mishra, who hosted the meet, likes to follow everyone who posts on Twitter. For half an hour every day, on weekdays, Mishra reads all the latest updates on the site.

Twitter, which began as a research project within San Francisco-based start-up Obvious Llc. in late 2006, picked up users rapidly in the months that followed. That Twitter is in its early days in India is evident—only nine people turned up for the meet.

Mishra estimates there are less than 2,000 users in India. Most users have been early adopters of social media platforms in the past. Almost everyone at the meet had paid for their own websites long before blogging became free and mainstream.

Discussions revolved around the Twitter ratio, which is a ratio of the number of profiles you track to the number of people who track you. The more popular you are in Twitter circles, the bigger the following. The group also spoke about the charm of Twitter—it is a tool people either love or hate. Each update in itself is trivial, but regularly tracking topics or profiles gives the bigger picture.

Published on December 20, 2007 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

Now a Social Network for SMS Forwards! Vakow!

vakow

Vakow! front page

vakow1

Vakow! user page

Vakow! is a new Indian web 2.0 startup for people who “luv SMS Forwards”. Basically, Vakao! lets you post SMSes from web or mobile; tag, rate, comment on and share SMSes with your friends; and subscribe to users or tags to receive SMSes.

While I’m not a huge fan of SMS forwards, I know a lot of (mostly) young people who are. Therefore, Vakow! looks like it is ‘lowest common denominator’ enough to appeal to young people in a way that, let’s say, user generated content won’t. Vakow!’s user interface is also quite cool and, therefore, likely to appeal to the young audience it is targeting.

Valow! is the brainchild of two twenty-something youngsters Rahul and Amit who were amongst the earliest employees at Webaroo.

The duo will most probably try to monetize Vakow! through advertising and content syndication. If Vakow! scales up well, content syndication will be easy and I can even see youth oriented marketers wanting to advertise on Vakow!. What’s more, I can totally see Vakow! as a popular app for the Indian community on The Facebook or the OpenSocial platform.

Gauravonomics rating for Vakow!: 3.5/5.

Published on November 4, 2007 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

How to Use Digital Media: Ten Tricks for Brick and Mortar Marketers in India

Photo by dejay181

In an earlier post I talked about why marketers should not approach digital media (online/ mobile/ DTH) with the ‘interruption’ marketing paradigm so prevalent in traditional media (TV/ print/ radio/ outdoors): because digital media is very good at engaging with a million customers one at a time, but very bad at reaching a million customers at one time. This is especially true for India, where mass media still hasn’t peaked in terms of either reach or credibility and digital media is still extremely niche and fragmented.

In another earlier post, I talked about how most marketers and agencies in India are still clueless about the basic principles of digital media. I’m sure that most Indian marketers are present on digital media on the basis of the 5% rule: during a campaign, 5% of the budget should be allocated to digital media. As a result, even when marketers flirt with the digital media, their digital media initiatives are almost always ad hoc, mostly ineffective and often quickly abandoned.

In my new ten-post series on how brick and mortar marketers in India should use digital media, I’ll describe ten small, but smart, tricks that you can rely on to fully leverage the potential of digital media –

- Trick #1: Your website is your most important tool. Before you spend a single rupee on online advertising, make sure that your website works both in terms of user interaction and search optimization.

- Trick #2: You can measure almost anything on digital media. Make sure you are measuring the right things and put in a plan to improve these metrics over time.

- Trick #3: Digital media allows you to flesh out your prospects into real people. Convert your visitors into registered users as early as possible and increase the richness of the user profile over time.

- Trick #4: All visitors are not the same. Build capability to allow your visitors to interact with you at various ‘permission levels’ and escalate them to higher ‘permission levels’ over time.

- Trick #5: Your website is only the first step. Build linkages between your website, your call center, your ERP/ transaction system and your CRM system to track your prospects/ customers on an end-to-end basis.

- Trick #6: A few relevant impressions are better than a lot of irrelevant impressions. Minimize wastage in ad spends by tightly targeting the right visitors using context-sensitive or social banner ads.

- Trick #7: Search keywords are a declaration of people’s intents. Use tightly targeted text-based search ads to allow your visitors to self-select themselves. What’s more, pay on the basis of actual clicks by using the CPC (cost-per-click) model.

- Trick #8: Digital media is great for developing a community and building buzz. Learn from and leverage social networking sites to turn your prospects/ customers into advocates for your brand.

- Trick #9: Mobile and DTH are both very small in India but will scale up quickly. Use the lessons you have learnt online (how to measure the right things, how to track users on an end-to-end basis, how to use tightly targeted ads, how to develop a community and build buzz) to build competencies on mobile and DTH.

- Trick #10: Your prospects/ customers are not limited by the medium. Build linkages between different digital and traditional media and your own internal systems to communicate seamlessly with your prospects/ customers.

In my next post in the series, I’ll focus on the starting point of your digital footprint: your website.

Published on November 1, 2007 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

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

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.

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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.

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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.

Published on October 31, 2007 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments