Tagged: WSJ RSS

  • Gaurav Mishra 6:49 pm on January 13, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , WSJ   

    WSJ Story on SMS-Based Social Networking Platform SMSGupShup 

    Welcome back to Gauravonomics Blog! Subscribe to my feed now and you'll never miss a single post!

    I was quoted recently in a WSJ article on SMS-based social networking platform SMSGupShup. The article delved into the business model for SMS based social networking platforms in India and focused on the need to limit usage to control outgoing SMS costs –

    Analysts say restricting the number of user exchanges is the only option SMS GupShup has to hold down costs. “If 1,000 people in a group can keep sending messages to everyone else, that cost quickly becomes unmanageable,” said Gaurav Mishra, CEO of 2020 Social, a social-networking media consultancy based in New Delhi.

    SMSGupShup is often compared to Twitter, especially in US media, but the comparison is problematic because SMSGupShup is essentially a group SMS service. It doesn’t have a searchable public timeline, a robust API and application ecosystem, or the highly engaged user behavior we see on Twitter that is driven by public one-to-one conversations.

    Most importantly, the default user behavior on Twitter is to “create” a status update, but the default user behavior on SMSGupShup is to “consume” updates created by others. I’ll not be surprised if less than 5% of SMSGupShup’s 26 million users have ever created an update, or created a profile.

    SMSGupShup is hesitant to change the user behavior from “consume” to “create” because sending text messages on behalf of users costs serious money. So, it has limited the number of messages group creators can send daily and restricted many-to-many messaging to small groups. It’s focusing on creating new revenue streams by creating custom channels for brands, opening up its API to application developers and creating an online marketplace for subscription plans, premium groups, and merchandise.

    However, SMSGupShup will find it difficult to become an attractive platform for brands to engage with consumers, unless the default user behavior on the platform changes from “consume” to “create”. Brands use Twitter for market research, lead generation, viral marketing and customer support: use cases that are made possible by users talking to each other and to the brands themselves.

    Given the compulsion to control outgoing SMS costs, it won’t be an easy change. Perhaps, the solution is to segment the users into those who have access to the mobile web and those don’t. For users with web access, SMSGupShup can become a “social platform” driven by compulsively updated status messages. For users without web access, SMSGupShup can remain an “alerts platform” where they subscribe to groups and receive SMS updates. The two sets of users will have an overlap, though, and the success of this web-SMS hybrid model will depend on how SMSGupShup manages this overlap.

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

     

  • Gaurav Mishra 7:36 pm on December 24, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Company Blog, , , Ghostwriting, , , , WSJ   

    Should You Outsource Your Company Blog? 

    I came across a WSJ article today in which Kelly Spors profiles search marketing and blogging services company MoreVisibility and asks if companies should outsource their blogs –

    Some technology consultants are pitching “blog management” services to companies they say want the benefits of blogging but are too busy to manage a blog themselves. They do everything from writing pithy, thought-provoking posts about a company or industry to managing comments and getting a blog better play on search engines.

    The company brainstorms “hot topics” to blog about with its clients and then its search-marketing-experts-slash-copywriters write “keyword rich” posts on those topics, says Danielle Leitch, executive vice president. The ghostwriter also embeds relevant links in the posts and lets clients review the posts before they’re published.

    MoreVisibility charges clients about $500 a month for one weekly post to about $2,000 a month for daily posts. It also charges a one-time fee starting at $2,000 for setting up the blog. The company manages blogs for about 20 businesses, Ms. Leitch adds.

    The main reason companies outsource their blog, she says, is lack of time. But also many companies like the idea of having someone handle it who understands search-engine optimization and has the technical know-how to best write and market a blog.

    Lewis Green believes that the answer is: it depends.

    Mary Fischer believes that the answer is “yes”, if the client stays actively involved.

    Given that I evangelize social media outsourcing all the time, it might surprise you that I don’t believe that company blogs should be outsourced.

    I believe that it’s possible to outsource customer support on social media in a transparent way. For instance, in response to an irate customer’s blog post, it’s possible to say –

    I’m Gaurav from Agency X responding to you on behalf of Brand Y. I’m empowered to take decisions related to your problem and I’ll work with you to find a solution that works for you.

    However, it’s tricky to outsource an entire corporate blog in a transparent manner and I’m not a huge fan of ghostwriting.

    The solution for time-strapped companies who would like to have a blog (why?) would be to structure it as a group blog and have the agency employees write under their own names. As long as there is a good enough mix of posts by company employees and agency employees, and all affiliations are transparently declared on profile pages, such an arrangement should be acceptable to all. As for the quality of the content itself, I can’t seen how an agency can create consistently good quality content for a company, unless company employees are involved in the blog.

    So, my answer is “no”, a company should not outsource its blog unless it has the confidence to do it in a transparent manner.

     

    • Douglas Karr 8:18 pm on December 24, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      In my young, hippy blogger days, I would have screamed BLASPHEMY! However – since then I’ve watched several businesses I’ve worked with hire and work with ghost bloggers and it’s working well. In fact, since some of the firms that are ghostblogging are also managing PR and events, the consistency and quality of the outsourced work may even be superior.

    • Hans Suter 4:01 am on December 25, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      these are news from the happy English language island. How do you handle a European company blog where your have never less than 5 or 6 languages, often more ?

    • Gaurav Mishra 10:07 pm on January 4, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      @Douglas: I’m glad that many social media thinkers and practitioners are moving beyond a narrow purist approach to social media and thinking about how to scale it while retaining its essence.

      @Hans: True. That’s the same problem we face in India, with 22 official languages. But, perhaps, a diversity of languages is even more of a reason to use the help of an agency, which may have better access to people who are savvy in social media engagement and proficient in the required languages.

  • Gaurav Mishra 10:26 am on December 15, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: barrack Obama, Christopher Rhoads, , , Edge Caching, Eric Schimdt, FCC, , Lawrence Lessing, , Net Neutrality, Open Edge, Richard Whitt, Vishsh Kumar, WSJ,   

    Do No Evil + Net Neutrality = Et Tu Google 

    Vishsh Kumar and Christopher Rhoads at WSJ report that Google wants its own fast track on the web –

    The celebrated openness of the Internet — network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic — is quietly losing powerful defenders.

    Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers.

    Separately, Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. have withdrawn quietly from a coalition formed two years ago to protect network neutrality. Each company has forged partnerships with the phone and cable companies. In addition, prominent Internet scholars (like Lawrence Lessig), some of whom have advised President-elect Barack Obama on technology issues, have softened their views on the subject.

    The contentious issue has wide ramifications for the Internet as a platform for new businesses. If companies like Google succeed in negotiating preferential treatment, the Internet could become a place where wealthy companies get faster and easier access to the Web than less affluent ones… (and) choke off competition.

    For computer users, it could mean that Web sites by companies not able to strike fast-lane deals will respond more slowly than those by companies able to pay. In the worst-case scenario, the Internet could become a medium where large companies, such as Comcast Corp. in cable television, would control both distribution and content — and much of what users can access.

    During his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama spoke frequently about the Internet, which was a critical tool in his grass-roots effort to reach new voters, and the importance of network neutrality.

    Google’s proposed arrangement with network providers, internally called OpenEdge, would place Google servers directly within the network of the service providers. The setup would accelerate Google’s service for users. Google has asked the providers it has approached not to talk about the idea, according to people familiar with the plans.

    Asked about OpenEdge, Google said only that other companies such as Yahoo and Microsoft could strike similar deals if they desired. But Google’s move, if successful, would give it an advantage available to very few.

    Richard Whitt, Google’s head of public affairs, denies the company’s proposal would violate network neutrality. Nevertheless, he says he’s unsure how committed President-elect Obama will remain to the principle.

    Google’s Richard Whitt insists on the Google Policy Blog that edge caching does not violate its definition of net neutrality, and many bloggers have supported that view, but it seems to me that any arrangement between content providers and carriers that makes some content load faster that others is indeed against the principle of net neutrality, if not against its technical definition.

    It also seems to me that, with the new ambivalence of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo on net neutrality, the debate on net neutrality is being reframed from “carriers vs. content providers” to “big content providers vs. small content providers”.

    Finally, it seems to me that the sceptics who feared that Google has become too big to stay true to its “do no evil” motto were right. I’m too invested into Google’s many services to stop using them, but I’ll start migrating away from them slowly. I hope others will see the writing on the wall and also take similar steps.

    In the end, all I can say is: et tu Google!

    Also see: Om Malik, Lawrence Lessig, Doc Searls, Broadband Politics, TechDirt, Save the Internet, Beyond Search, Gizmodo, Broadstuff, Read Write Web, GoogleWatch, Sidecut Reports, Steve Schultze, Computer World IT Blogwatch, CNet, Broadband DSL Reports, TeleCompetitor, Portfolio, Network World, ZDNet Between the Lines, PaidContent, Isen Blog, Ed Felten.

     

    • Shripriya 9:44 pm on December 15, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Just catching up on the day’s happenings and read Google’s blog and Lessig’s response. Amazing. Weak. So much for the champions of network neutrality (as I said in my po’d tweet too).

      “If iFilm can pay what Google can”? (paraphrasing). Unbelievable. The issue is they can’t. The issue is that any startup will be disadvantaged. So much for that…

    • Gaurav Mishra 1:11 am on January 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      @Shripriya: We have come to depend so much on Google that it’s not surprising that we expect them to adhere to very high standards. I’m sure that Google thinks it hasn’t compromised network neutrality, and it seems that it hasn’t, technically, but these actions are surely inconsistent with its “do no evil” motto.

  • Gaurav Mishra 2:33 pm on March 22, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Aditya Mishra, , , , Duncan Riley, , , , , Michael Ryan, , , , , , , , , Wall Street Journal, , WSJ   

    Check It Out: My First Podcast on Why Startups Need Workaholics and Why Mobile Will Drive Web 2.0 Usage in India 

    Quick Summary: Check out my first podcast on Indicast where Aditya Mhatre, Aditya Mishra, VeerChand Bothra and I discuss why startups need workaholics and why mobile will drive web 2.0 usage in India.

    My First Podcast on Indicast

    I had a great time last Sunday recording my first podcast with Aditya Mhatre, Aditya Mishra, VeerChand Bothra (tweet) on why startups need workaholics and why mobile will drive web 2.0 usage in India (tweet).

    All three of them have extremely rich backgrounds, resulting in an extremely vibrant discussion —

    - Aditya Mhatre is India’s leading podcaster at Indicast (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

    - VeerChand Bothra is at the center of India’s mobile boom, as MobilePundit, as organizer of Mumbai Mobile Mondays and as VP at NetCore Solutions (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

    - Aditya Mishra is deeply involved in the startup ecosystem in India through his work (he has the fancy title of Entrepreneur-in-Residence at TCS) and his role as the organizer of BarCamp and Kickstart (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

    It was really good fun, like Leo Laporte’s TWiT for India, and Aditya (Mhatre) had a tough time keeping Aditya (Mishra), Veer and me within time (tweet). Aditya has done some brilliant editing on the podcast and it’s now out in a crisp avatar on Indicast —

    Part 1: Why Startups Need Workaholics

    We first discussed how the Jason Calacanis startups need workaholics controversy plays out in the Indian context. Since both Aditya (Mishra) (his post on the topic) and Veer are deeply involved in the startup ecosystem in India, I got some interesting insights on the topic. In the end, we agreed that startups do need people who are totally passionate about the business and people who work for large organizations are indeed in for a culture shock if they move over to a startup. The big insight has that entrepreneurs should set an example for their teams by being passionate about the business and practicing frugality themselves.

    Background links: Jason Calacanis, Duncan Riley, Micheal Arrington, Robert Scoble, Michael Ryan, Techmeme, Aditya Mishra, Ashish Sinha, Pranav Dharma, Venturewoods.

    Part 2: Why Mobile Will Drive Web 2.0 Usage in India

    We then moved on to why mobile will drive web 2.0 usage in India and why mobile advertising will become really big in India. We agreed that mobile — along with local content, vernacular languages and local social dynamics — will drive web 2.0 usage in India. We also discussed why an Indian web 2.0 model will have the entire cycle — registration, friending, content creation and content consumption — on SMS. Finally, we discussed that new mobile advertising formats based on permission marketing will evolve to tap into this opportunity.

    Background Links: Gaurav Mishra, Hindustan Times, Wall Street Journal, Agencyfaqs.

    Watch Out For Our Next Podcast

    In the next podcast, we will cover how the ‘economics of free’ is hitting the music industry and how the web is getting widgetized (tweet). So, share any interesting links on either topic on del.icio.us using the tag TKM2 and, if we use them, we’ll credit you with a hat-tip (tweet).

     

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