Top 10 Predictions on Social Networking

In my last post on Indian Social Networking Trends, I drew analogy between one of Dina's post and beta launch of Yahoo's SpotM. So this time around, I took the liberty to go much beyond trending and give much more concrete and holistic view of how Social Networking space will shape up for the future.

Though I wrote about it here, here & here, so this time around I will try to provide some more juice on social networks. Here are some of my top 10 social networking prediction are:

1. Mobile Networking will catch up mainstream: Interaction in social networks happens most often through messages which is the most common feature. Some call it wall posts, other as scraps etc. It is most frequent among younger generation who wants to be connected 24*7. Mobile devices will become a savior since its the only device which is ubiquitous and its reach is wide. But certain hindrances are still to be overcome like the browser based networks don’t leverage the power of the mobile device, and client based applications are blocked by service providers and handset limitations. So once someone utilizes this potential to create an application that has enough traction to catch the attention and remove the tech limitations of browser apps compatibility with mobile devices and stuff like service providers blockades, then connectivity isn't a issue.

2. "Content is King" will be the buzzword: Yes, the content is the buzzword. Some may find it difficult to fathom it but it's true. The content of the network, we all will be in is going to be the single most factor which could win over the Social Networks battle.

3. The "longish" long tail will prevail: Over the past year, its unimaginable to find that there are scores of social networks on the fringes - social networks for babies, mothers, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Questioning and many more unique yet prevalent social networks. So power of the longish long tail will prevail in Social Networking.

4. Interactive Apps will augment social networks: Sandeep has an interesting take on this one - The new interactive mechanisms for many social sites may be backed by artificial intelligence. This will bring spice to the entire model. For instance, your social network or online group will show itself to be angry, happy, sad, etc., all on its own, as a result of its members' input. These small and unique interactive developments will engage the users to a great extent.

5. Content Creation & Consumption will happen at the source: Social networks won't just be a platform to feed & share your personal life with friends & family. It will become our megaphone to voice about anything & everything around us. Though first round initiatives have been taken - Thanks to Google.

6. Changes in "Content Delivery" of Social Networks: Content delivery via social networks will change over time. Social networks will act also as an entertainment cum information window for users in world wide web viz. ChillX.

7. Monetization of actionable content in Social Networks: Monetization has been a problem for social networks (read here, here & here too). But once social networks are able to position themselves as branded content providers like MySpace have done then monetization won't be pain. But for this enough critical mass is needed for which social networks have to duly rely on other distributive mediums like progressive mobile networks etc to spread their content.

8. Medium will become the message in Social Networks: Since we are talking about social networks which provides vast information pool at free cost for end users, so medium itself is easy to spread and theme based social networks will definitely plug in more users who will in turn out to be evangelists to spread the message. One of the networks which I know is working towards it is ChillX which wants to attract Indian Gen X & Y to form a community of users who share & spread.

9. The power of community will prevail: Social networks are typically measured in terms of registered users, unique users and engagement (in terms of time spent, page views per unique user etc. This will be on the rise once social networks are able to draw users into community. This will be on the rise in the near future.

10. Geographically & Culturally focused Social Networks: The popularity of social networks varies by region. In the U.S., Myspace and Facebook are most popular; in India and Brazil, Orkut rules; China has QQ; Europe has Hi5. So we will see more & more of geographically & culturally focused social networks like Viacom's Flux which will stress on “Personal community”. (Read more on this here).

So these are Top 10 Social Networking predictions that will prevail in the near future. I'll do a series of such posts in the future too as on when it happens.

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• 2008 social network site data
• Top 5 Emerging Social Networks Revisited
• The Birth of the OpenSocial Foundation
• Who's got the biggest social network? [The Chart]

Indian Social Networking Trends

I've to say upfront that I'm a keen observer of Social Media, which by now must be quite evident if you're a regular to this blog. If not then I may have something interesting for you. So keeping with the blog post, I keep a track about what's hot & what's not in Social Media and much so in Social Networking especially in India.

The genesis of this blog post is Dina Mehta's blog post on "Future of Social Networking" and more so a recent development from Yahoo! Indian Arm which came up with a new Social Networking site dubbed as SpotM for the age bracket 16-24 to capture the growing Indian market (Read my post here).

So on this recent Yahoo! development, I also commented my opinions as to what would fancy Indian users so as the capture their imagination & in turn take advantage of growing Indian market. Below are my comments from my previous post:

....within a span of 2-3 years there have been plethora of Social Networking Sites (SNS) developed by Indians and International giants like Google, Facebook, MySpace etc. So for SpotM, it better be good, different, fast, high on usability and wide reaching otherwise another failed investment.....

On the hindsight, I recently came across another site called ChillX which has tried to position itself as a site where Indian youth can hang out dubbed as "Hamara Desh". Now a quick usability check gave me a very good impression about its various features its blogs, videos, news and my favorite- the chat applet. Though this may be nothing new to most of us, but surely this site has unique Indian community feeling which I saw lacking in most western counter parts as of now. Also if I'm not wrong then this site's positioning is more "Community Based" i.e. it wants to build a community of Indian Youths.

So taking cues from Dina's statement on Social Networking's future

“Networks based on & layered around location, access, presence & context. Those that enhance real-world interactions. Enabling choice, privacy and control”

it seems evidential that without these key ingredients i.e. layered network effects across location, access, presence & most importantly context which enhances real world interactions with different users will define the future of Indian Social Networking Space.

So what do you think will click in Indian Social Networking Space?

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• Yahoo outlines plans for world social network domination
• Portals vs. social networks? The new operating system!
• Yahoo Flirts With Social Networking
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Yahoo Launches SpotM in India

From TechCrunch: "......Yahoo India announced that it has launched yet another social network for the 16-24 age bracket in an attempt to capture the growing market in India. And although scant details are available, it sounds interesting.

Target Market:

Dubbed SpotM, the new social network will bring college-aged and those close to going to college together in one space.

Marketing/Targetting Dilemma:

There’s no word on how Yahoo will be able to ensure everyone using the service is really as old as they claim, but Yahoo believes it can manage that problem.

Points of Differentiation:

SpotM attempts to differentiate itself by offering two features:-

1. The idea of a secret friend.

2. SMS integration with anonymous chat.

According to Yahoo, SpotM will allow users to make friends with other users and if they choose, make those friends private so other users don’t know about the relationship. SMS integration with anonymous chat will let users correspond via SMS without revealing their phone number.

Scepticism:

It’s nice to see Yahoo try something new, but whether or not its privacy initiatives will really work in its favor remains in doubt. As social networks become more popular, it’s transparency that parenting groups are looking for, not privacy. And once those issues arise, every social network buckles under the pressure. Will Yahoo be any different?

SpotM is currently in private beta.

My Comments:

I’m not too sure about this new initiative by Yahoo since already within a span of 2-3 years there have been plethora of Social Networking Sites (SNS) developed by Indians and Intl giants like Google etc. So for SpotM, it better be good, different, fast, high on usability and wide reaching otherwise another failed investment I suppose to nudge Indian expectations from Yahoo.

Twitter Changes to 'New Twitter' with New Design

Today Twitter changed its old design to new and much loved new design which is being appreciated a lot. Take a look at the hundreds of responses from Twitterverse.


Also take a look at freezed Search.Twitter (Formerly Summize) screenshot for all the responses via tweets which is no less than WoW, Whoa....

It s needless to say that hundreds of responses are being fed per minute about the new design also being dubbed as "New Twitter".

Also check out the trending topics of Search. Twitter which has "New Twitter" as most talked about news (Marked in Red in above picture).

Check out the official Blog of Twitter here to read from the horses mouth about the new changes.

IAMAI Digital Marketing Conference (Bangalore,2008): Key Insights on the Intersection of Man, Technology & Culture

This post talks about 3rd IAMAI Digital Marketing Conference held at Bangalore. I'll post about the broad implications later in the subsequent post of course but for now enjoy the ride through a list of tweets (Courtesy WatBlog). In between, you will find certain discussions marked green. These are the pointers which I feel makes this blog post's title apt: Key Insights on the Intersection of Man, Technology & Culture. And as usual if you feel like you've anything to say, please comment in the section below to have a discussion.



(I)“ANALOG VS DIGITAL: WHERE TO SPEND MARKETING BUDGETS NOW AND WHY”

Discussions in this section revolved around: Sellers of traditional media tout that media such as broadcast TV allows advertisers unrivaled impact and reach, attributes that become even more valuable as media fragments. Sellers of digital media counter that pinpoint targeting and ever-improving analytics make spending more in digital the right choice. Below is the crux of the discussions:

1. LIVE from #IAMAI: Goggle Ads click-through-rate (CTR) is 16% in India – Mahesh Murty, Managing Director, Pinstorm Technologies (Tweet)

2. LIVE from #IAMAI: Consumer is the new muse for our brand, that should be the approach - Chetan Marwah , Partner & Chief Executive Officer, ISHIR Digital (Tweet)

3. LIVE from #IAMAI: Move from cost per click (CPC) to cost per impact (CPI) to get better deals (Tweet)

4. LIVE from #IAMAI: Jet airways spend 50% of their digital budget in international markets whereas only 10% in India (Tweet)

5. LIVE from #IAMAI: Prediction -TV is going to be primarily digital & we are goin to see the marketer going to ask why was his ad not seen there - Mahesh Murty, Managing Director, Pinstorm Technologies (Tweet)

(II) NEW MEDIA TOOLS

Discussions in this section revolved around: The Internet was just the beginning; these days media planners are faced with a plethora of new digitally-derived media forms from podcasts to blogs, social networking to SMS, all of which need to be evaluated to see if they might meet clients needs. But how to go about it? Our panelists will help you figure that out. Below is the crux of the discussions:

6. LIVE from #IAMAI: In India, YouTube is the 6th most trafficked as per Alexa - Naren Nachiappan, MD, Jivox (Tweet)

7. LIVE from #IAMAI : Video impressions going to surpass search in Q1, 2009 in North America – ComScore (Tweet)

8. LIVE from #IAMAI : Bandwidth barrier in india is surpassed by users by downloading in office and background buffering – Naren Nachiappan, MD, Jivox (Tweet)

9. LIVE from #IAMAI: In 2005 blogs as a search category overtook magazines - Parminder Singh, Business Head - Technology & Media, Google (Tweet)

10. LIVE from #IAMAI : Customer doesn’t click on online ads as they dont want to move away from page. Try using gadgets to initiate conversation – Parminder Singh, Business Head - Technology & Media, Google (Tweet)

11. LIVE #IAMAI : Social Networks should be used to create brand evangelists and not primarily ads placement – Parminder Singh, Business Head - Technology & Media, Google. (Tweet)

12. LIVE from #IAMAI : In India, Leads from Mobile Search Ads is 3 times better & purer than desktop search leads – Parminder Singh, Business Head - Technology & Media, Google, (Tweet)

13. LIVE from #IAMAI: 71% of those who consume mobile internet ads say there perception of brand and recall has increased – Parminder Singh, Business Head - Technology & Media, Google, (Tweet)

14. LIVE from #IAMAI : For Google, mobile search queries in India is 10% of desktop queries (Tweet)

15. LIVE from #IAMAI : In US iPhone alone generates 2x the search queries of all other smart phones put together (Tweet)

16. LIVE from #IAMAI : Mobile UI is key to growth of it evolving as a medium – Parminder Singh, Business Head - Technology & Media, Google, (Tweet)

17. LIVE from #IAMAI : Rohini (Citation reqd.) - Intel Online India - Traditionally online treated as bleeding edge and therefore Marketers are wary (Tweet)

18. LIVE from #IAMAI : Rohini (Citation reqd.) - Intel Online India - Our Facebook game statistics: 16000 played, 500 per day talking about it online (Tweet)

(III)“HOW TO FIGHT WEB-WARINESS AND EMERGE AS A WINNER”

Discussions in this section revolved around: Convincing a company to spend more money in digital media is one challenge; to get it to use new media forms to break creative ground is an even bigger one. But there are those who have done it, and on this panel, we’ll hear from them-three gutsy clients who innovated not just in the media they’ve used, but in the work they’ve produced for them. Below is the crux of the discussions:

19. LIVE from #IAMAI : Big TV (Reliance DTH service) generates 50,000 leads online in two days - Tushar Vyas, Chief Marketing Officer, Sure Waves (Tweet)

20. LIVE from #IAMAI : Namrata Sehgal, Senior Manager, Trilogy - Most ads with high decibel on web have less than 1% click through rate (CTR)! We say "No wonder twitter has no ads" (Tweet)

21. LIVE from #IAMAI : Gaurav Gupta, Regional Manager Asia Pacific- Retail Operations, General Motors asks how many brick & mortar are here? Just couples of hands show up in audience! Web Wary are we? (Tweet)
22. LIVE from #IAMAI : General Motors’ 2.5% of all sales in India is through digital channel without any other channel involved for GM. Gaurav Gupta, Regional Manager Asia Pacific- Retail Operations, General Motors - (Tweet)

(IV) THE BLENDED SEARCH REVOLUTION

Discussions in this section revolved around: The first generation of search engines ranked pages based on the content of those pages alone -- the words on the page. The second generation increased relevancy by analyzing links. The third generation, Search 3.0, is upon us now in full force. Today’s search engines automatically blending in results from specialized or "vertical" search engines such as video search or local search. This session looks at the revolutionary change happening with blended search and how search marketers can ride the wave to success. Below is the crux of the discussions:

23. LIVE from #IAMAI : 31% images, 17% videos, 36% news - Clicking percentage on search results in a blended search - Milind Mody, CEO eBrandz (Tweet)

24. LIVE from #IAMAI : Search engines are valued high because they are content finders in context across mediums - Vivek Bhargava, Managing Director, Communicate2 (Tweet)

25. LIVE from #IAMAI : Search has not yet evolved - Narasimha Jayakumar, Business Head – Travel & Local, Google India (Tweet)

(V) TRAFFIC TO WEBSITE AND CONVERSIONS

Discussions in this section revolved around: In the beginning driving traffic was necessary and sufficient, now the dynamics of business has changed driving traffic is important but not sufficient, in the competitive environment with increasing cost per acquisition as marketers there is need for better understanding of website visitors and advertisers look for conversions. This session would look at the importance of digital marketing and maximum potential realization of digital marketing with relevant examples.

26. LIVE from #IAMAI - 'Use of good tracking & analytics software should be a core of ROI. Don’t just use freeware' - Anurag Gupta, Managing Director, DGM India Internet Marketing.

Tweet Courtesy: http://twitter.com/watblog

How should we use Twitter: Classification & their Impact on us

Today an interesting conversation (here, here & here too) with Asfaq led me to brood over one simple question. How should Twitter be used? Now simple it is but its implications are manifold. To pen down some of my thoughts on “How we Tweet?” led me to another sort of thinking, i.e. does our tweeting ways or techniques of posting those short, succinct, terse messages (tweets) impact the way we think/perceive ideas/notions or stuff like that? I believe they do. I’ll take this post into two ways. First, will try to understand broadly how all those zillion of tweets posted per day around the world can be classified into and then how are they can impact the way we think/perceive about various things around us.

Firstly, those terse messages which we all have coined as Tweets can be broadly classified as:

1. Question/Enquiry Tweet: This category of tweets fall majorly into What, Where, When, How and all the other statements which ends with a question mark. These kinds of tweets generally take advantage of the collaborative framework of Twitter.

2. Share Tweet: This type of tweets are classified as sharing information in the form of links (mostly short & terse url), events & news or anything & everything which a person feels can be shared. This is the bread & butter for those ever-hungry bloggers looking for some extra bit of attention into their blog through some visitors.

3. Me Tweets: This category of tweets, I feel is the most significant yet abhorred ones for many since it creates clutter or noise in Twitter. This type of Tweet talks only about specific ones like I’m sleeping, I’m drinking coffee/beer, my girlfriend/boyfriend left me blah blah blah. Come one, not too many people want to listen to you. For this, I remember one very apt line: “…If you want to be boring, talk yourself; if you want to be interesting, talk everything other than yourself…” But as I said, this type helped Twitter survive because they have given us space where we can voice our opinions & life par se. So lastly no complaints there at least.

Lastly, how can those terse messages impact our thinking/perception:

A small incident happened today in the morning while I was on twitter. Moksh Juneja posted a small tweet on Airtel = Vodafone goof up which caught Twitter’s attention big time and people started forming their own opinion about Airtel & Vodafone.

I’m not saying that it’s wrong but the point I want to make is that all the money spent by companies on the brand building and portraying images about themselves get slapped every now and then since consumers are no fool nowadays. Information and connectivity is dirt cheap if not free. So holding back is not the solution anymore. You (companies) can’t hold back conversations anymore and consumers will make an impression about you and in turn influence others too. So the questions remains what are you doing about it? Get into the new system or die watching it out!

P.S. I always take business examples since it’s an easy fix to keep score.

Read More Twitter Post:

• Video: Twitter Simplified
• Fail Whale
• Revenue Models for Twitter
• Swainism #2: Random Thoughts on Twitter, Networking & Life
• My first Twitter Meetup at Mumbai

Swainism #2: Random thoughts on Twitter, Networking & Life

No particular topic in my mind but will try to pen down my thoughts (in random order). In the process will try to build some logic and some direction to my thoughts.

1. Observed a pattern in my internet usage (mostly from the way I open daily websites). This pattern is from my morning chore of opening my computer and logging into internet.

Come to my office by 8:40 am >> Sit down in my comfy chair >> Turn on the fan though AC is on >> Turn on the computer >> Open my office mail >> Then Gmail >> Google Reader >> Twitter Search (Summize) >> Twitter >> Tinyurl & so on and so forth.

2. Been on a networking spree via web as my focal point especially through LinkedIn, Twitter (Less on FrienFeed), Facebook (much less through Orkut), My Blog, My Mobile and through many more social networking tools available online.

3. Started using Flickr a lot nowadays. One of the reasons is that I started drawing a lot of models to make my blog posts more interesting (See my Flickr a/c). Also that makes me feel I’m intelligent…Psst!

4. Met Saurabh Garg (one Twitter Friend) last week. We had a great, insightful conversation on internet. Start-ups, business models etc. Key takeaway was: Internet usage can be broadly defined in 3 ways: Personal (like emails), Entertainment (like Perez Hilton) & Information. Now that is easy but thinking internet only from this model makes things easier and isn’t successful business more about making things easier (for you & your customers). E.g. Google for Search, Apple for innovation and Microsoft for “Blue Monster”.

5. Finally, last week was interesting. Another “Google Killer” got launched called CUIL but didn’t meet expectations. Found this site: http://www.trueknowledge.com/ (Read my tweet). Also this one via GapingVoid on business/brands using twitter to get the word out. You’ll be surprised to find some.

So at the end of my musings, one thing comes out to be very prominent. Twitter, Twitter & Twitter…The things I did last week to my daily winding up is mostly around twitter. So henceforth I proclaim that “Sampad Swain is a Twitter-Addict”. Ahem!

Any comments/thoughts/criticism on my self proclaimed addiction…

Mobile Social Networking in India: A Futuristic Analysis

Words are out- one speculative and the other one recent Industry news. Read this from InformationWeek and this too from Agency Faqs. Some of the crucial points these two different disjointed reports have covered which show more or less similar trends are:

1. InformationWeek has projected a significant transformation in Media, Technology & Telecommunications over the next 10 years because of Wireless Social Networking Revolution and AgencyFaqs reports that DOT (Department of Telecommunications) in India is thinking to allow 9 players in 3G or Third Generation services in place of earlier 5 players.


2. Secondly, by 2020, about 7 billion accounts will co-exist (with many having multiple accounts) and if I'm right then opening up of Indian 3G platform will enable Indians to participate in the Mobile Social Networking ball-game with its huge population size.


3. Reports say that Technology, Media & Telecom represents about 5% of global GDP, so with India going to be No.1 in terms of population in few years (though nothing to be proud off), Indians have a better chance of capitalizing on this developing trends since cheap labor and expertise and recent capital deployment abilities can nurture this sector a lot in the near future.


4. Lastly, the latest development of Symbian Foundation by conglomerate of Mobile devices & software companies like Nokia vis-a-vis Google's Android poised to keep the competition abreast. In middle of these, two Indian majors have forged alliance with Symbian i.e. Sasken & Wipro which again will keep us upto date with the recent developments happening in the Wireless Telephony market which will drive the Wireless Social Networking Revolution further ahead.

These are the 4 broad reasons I feel wireless industry as a whole is heading. Now lets discuss on the same to have a higher understanding of the matter. Feel free to criticize, comment too!

Social Media Experiment: How online behavior can reduce Twitter noise

This week I thought I will use my blog not only to post marketing or technology related info but use it for some real-time data analysis. One of the primary reasons I took the opportunity of using my blog is to satiate my innate desires to understand any issue from 3 important aspects: Logic Building, Asking the right question and last but not least intuitive analysis.

So you may ask why so? In the beginning of this week, Robert Scoble discussed about Twitter noise referring to unnecessary monologues on “What are you doing”. So I thought what better way than discussing the same topic/issue with Tweople (referring to inhabitants of Twitter) themselves. So I asked a simple question to most of my followers in Twitter and they responded back. Thanks a ton fellas!

The question: Why u *FOLLOW* or *Un-FOLLOW* someone in Twitter?

Methodology: Launched a survey on 19th May via tweets asking the same question. Till date got about 32 responses off 310/203 i.e. “Following/Followers” in my Twitter profile through Twitter replies, direct messages (DM’s), emails and additional few responses came from other sources anonymously.

Who responded:

1. Afzal Khan (http://toprankseo.blogspot.com)
2. Chris Brogan (http://chrisbrogan.com/)
3. Daksh (http://themarketingblog.wordpress.com/)
4. Netra Parikh
5. ideasmithy (http://www.theideasmithy.com/)
6. Subatomic (http://www.yeskarthi.wordpress.com/),
7. Franticnews (http://franticindustries.com)
8. labsji (http://labsji.wordpress.com/)
9. garimadhiman
10. gsharma (http://www.gsharma.com/)
11. seanpaune (http://www.seanpaune.com/)
12. watblog - Thanks for the link (http://watblog.com)
13. cruisemaniac (http://thecruisemaniac.com/)
14. mokshjuneja (http://mokshjuneja.com/)
15. hiway (http://www.harshadsharma.name/)
16. juancarlosarzol (http://www.juancarlosarzola.com/)
17. Damiano (http://www.nitmesh.com/)
18. Ravages (http://www.selectiveamnesia.org/)
19. shirleyjohn (http://livingthelifeofmydreams.blogspot.com/)
20. dhudiburg (http://www.dailymarketingace.com/)
21. ronakshah (http://www.richdollarblog.com/)
22. vimoh (http://www.vmohanty.com/)
23. shankargan (http://www.shankarganesh.com/)
24. montrealseo
25. palinn (http://advocable.com)
26. DDeeps (http://deeplydeeps.blogspot.com/)

And many more who responded anonymously via other sources, So thanks to them also!

What did the statistics say?

The analysis is primarily divided into two types of graphs i.e. “Why we Follow in Twitter” and consequently “Why we Un-Follow in Twitter”. The graphs below show such:
The micro-survey results shows that 5 reasons come out to be more influential i.e. Follow those whose tweets are interesting & usable information, follow thought leaders and role models, Follow friends, Follow back those who follows you and last but not least latest tweet from users. Clearly, it seems that interesting & Usable info guides more twitter users to follow.On the hindsight, the survey portrays a clear and definitive response to why they un-follow in twitter. Spammy tweets is the clear winner and following it are less benefits from tweets, one-sided or monologues by Tweople, Un-follow them who doesn’t follow you and last but not least high SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) puts off users from following someone in Twitter.

Findings & Conclusion

There is no doubt that there is a lot of noise in twitter due to spam messages, blog links, self-glorifying updates, blog marketing and many more ways. But from the figures above, it is very much clear that usable information will get Tweople following you whereas spam messages will put Tweople off.

According to DoshDosh, the Twitter community has grown more aware of these ’spammers’ and many tools like the Twitter Blacklist and Twerpscan have been developed to help Twitter users weed out people who try to follow many users in order to build a large audience. Still, a portion of Twitter users (perhaps the new ones) tend to add anyone who befriends them.

Still my take from the data I have gathered is that most users want Twitter to be a much filtered source of information and social tool (thanks Afzal). And once Tweople understand and start applying this, it’s not far from the fact that signal/noise ratio will drastically improve since it’s still early days for twitter for all of us.

One more interesting thing that I noticed is that Twitter is more for extrovert ones since at the end of it all you just type “What are you doing” and if you follow those two graphs up above, you will surely find some amount of coherence in our offline behavior as well as online i.e. we all want to read about what our mentors are doing, brand ourselves, let others know what we am interested in. So it won’t be wrong if I say that all of us want some amount of limelight.

This is one of my many analysis that I will put forward in times to come. Hope you will participate in the near future to make it better and more indepth.

Lastly, if you want a piece of me, follow me here in Twitter or Subscribe to my Blog RSS Feed.

Amitabh Bachchan's blog: Marketing gimmick or serious cause?

I never thought that I will write anything about bollywood stars in this blog. But for the couple of weeks something is brewing offline as well as online which is quite interesting to talk about. India's mega superstar Amitabh Bachchan(BigB) has started his own blog which has been the center of attraction both in media as well as in film fraternity.

Though WatBlog has stated this move from Amitabh Bachchan as a marketing gimmick by BigAdda.com (Mr. Anil Ambani's Social Network) but what excited me was the more recent news from this front in ET that Amitabh Bachchan is paid a huge sum of Rs. 100 Crores ($25 million) to blog on BigAdda.com! I guess Mr. Arrington of TechCrunch fame who reportedly earns something around Rs 1 crore ($250000) per month may take some tips from Mr. Bachchan...Psst!

But whatever may be the scene out there, but Mr. Bachchan has justified to BigAdda.com since the amount of controversy it has generated has given the portal enough viral affect which has generated enough furore in offline media to catapult BigAdda.com into a superior visibility status.

Not only the viral impact has helped BigAdda.com but this sort of joint venture has helped Mr. Bachchan to put his much needed voice across his rivals subtly but also do much needed PR for BigAdda itself for free which they could have spend as direct expenses via advertising in television or print. So I believe that it's win-win situation for both these brands.

One more thing about his blog is that it's a big hit among his fans as there were 100's of comments which shows that his fans have taken his blogging step seriously. But the question is will Mr. Bachchan take blogging seriously like others such as Aamir Khan who has even hosted his blog at aamirkhan.com? Or he's going to use this voice-up platform to promote his future films.

P.S. The backdrop of his blog has a picture of Amitabh Bachchan in his next awaited release "Bhootnath".

Screenshot of the Day

This provides the perfect recipe for your morning coffee with snacks. Isn't it? NO I'm not kidding. Of all the Facebook Apps, research shows that "Just for Fun" is a clear winner. The next one is Gaming. Not surprising though, at least for me since I get most of my Facebook apps invitation from this group only (guys stop sending me such). Anyway getting down at number crunching, it's no rocket science to understand that numero uno i.e. Just for Fun Apps is ahead of the 2nd one i.e. Gaming by a whooping 270%+. Oops!!! There goes Facebook's valuation, at least for me...but as they say "..the rest is history".

Courtesy: Flowing Data

Future of Social networking in India

Social networking is here to stay. I remember some of my friends and colleagues arguing over the demise of social networking in India (that too some even went to the extreme of giving me a deadline too).

But as far as I’m concerned I don’t agree to them. Though I believe that the form of acceptance of social networking for India in the future will be in a different format altogether. Ask me why? Yeah, did anyone mentioned about mobile telephony in India which has been growing at a hurricane pace though the talks of Global recession are round the corner.

To tell you the truth, it doesn’t matter since its helping the masses and the classes to get hooked on to their friends and foes at a click of a button. Now one more argument about social media catching main stream in India would be the ever growing population who has been accessing each other starting from remote villages to uber class denizens.

But of course there are some hindrances before going back to the future. One of those is the technology limitations like the browser based networks don’t leverage the power of the mobile device, and client based applications are blocked by service providers and handset limitations. So once someone utilizes this potential (oh by the way very few people are working in this domain, not even Facebook’s or MySpace’s) to create an application that has enough traction to catch the attention and remove the tech limitations of browser apps compatibility with mobile devices and stuff like service providers blockades', then Hari from a remote village can connect with an unknown friend via future Facebook through his mobile device in future.

Anyways, keep a tab at Google’s Android platform and Apple iPhone SDK which may provide an excellent opportunity in this field.

Size of Indian Web 2.0 industry: An inconvenient truth

According to a report <link here>, Indian web 2.0 industry excluding the established, large global players like Orkut, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia et al, Indian 2.0 start-ups have a combined user base of about 1.5 million users.

Now a blogger has an interesting take on this abysmal data. After some amount of number crunching, it says:

Assuming an average of 10 pageviews per user (a random guess) at 1$ CPM (5$ for an American user parity adjusted), the Indian Web 2.0 industry generates a not-so-whooping 15,000$ per month combined.

At 10X revenues, the entire industry would be valued at an abysmal $1.8mn.

But still I'm kind of optimistic about the future of web 2.0 in India due to following 5 reasons:

• A huge domestic market (Oh I heard India's middle class is infact bigger than US's total population)
  
  
• Access to large intellectual capital and worthwhile talent base.
  
  
• Decreasing communication cost, be it mobile or internet accessibility which is bridging the digital gap.
  
  
• Venture capitalists are now pouring in lot of moolah into new Web 2.0 start-ups to find the future Google, Yahoo or MSFT!
  
  
• Cultural shift as risk taking and innovation is being rewarded.
  

So let's see what future has in hold for us. As of now we have 5 aces in our pack.

Related Stories:

• How Indian social networking sites are raging a new kind of war
• Orkut: Paradigm of future Branding
  

Demystifying Influencers: From Pyramid to Diamond Model

CNET Networks conducted a three-part study called "Understanding Influence, and making it work for you" (Download here). It explored the structure of social networks, methods of acquiring information and the motivations for giving/sharing/influencing others. Guy Kawasaki explains the basic tenets of the study in his blog post.

But what I was interested in is the marketing or advertising takeaways from the white paper.

The study provides three key marketing takeaways:

1. Two unique characteristics of information that influencers value are that the information is unique and trusted.
   

2. Shape your marketing messages for the larger network of moderately connected users, not just the few highly connected individuals at the top.
   

3. Make content actionable for users.
   

But these theories may have some loophole. For instance, a meme originating in Facebook may or may not catch and have a world wide reach. But it may catch on in particular group and spread to other similar groups by virtue of the fact that a highly connected individual in a group on Facebook is also in a group of like minded individuals on MySpace.

So in a niche group context, the meme will spread. If enough niche groups catch on and the meme has a wide enough appeal it is likely to take of on a grander scale.

This can only occur if you have a large number of highly connected individuals in a niche. Without highly connected individuals there would be no way to connect outside of the specific niche group with other groups.

I would suggest that a highly connected individual must also be a highly active group member that also has a high degree of credibility within a group in order for a meme to spread (thanks to one of the commenter).

Other than this in country like India, there is a high chance that this theory may not be put into practice as such since demographics is widely varied, so different customers will consume the same product in different ways.

Note: In case, the pdf downloading plays crazy with your mind, shoot me a mail at sampad.s@gmail.com. I will send a fresh copy of the white paper ASAP.

*This has got to stop* - Where is Social Media heading?

This week has been quite hectic and the week is not over yet. Yikes..!! So "less blogging is the outcome". So won't be able to post that much. Meanwhile I stumbled-upon this Facebook group which is named "This has got to stop".

The group description says:

"I DON'T WANT TO BE A VAMPIRE
I DON'T WANT TO BE A PIRATE
LEAVE ME ALONE

POINTLESS FACEBOOK APPLICATIONS ARE RUINING FACEBOOK"

This group was created by 16 year old guy, Evan Poteet of Hamilton Southeastern High School, class of '09. Infact the group has more than half a million members (503,005 members on 30th January, 08). This proves that "pointless mini-apps are ruining Facebook, if not Social Media".

By the way, I am a proud member of this group and as they say "The rest is History".

Facebook markets *Your Face* through their online advertising

I have mentioned in my previous posts about two likelihoods- one on "Mass Advertising being dead" and the other being that online ads should be revamped to make it more user friendly in the context of Advertisement 2.0.

Now yesterday, Facebook came with an official press release of their Facebook ads. By and large, those ads are targeted at the members using their profile data pertaining to demographics in three parts according to TechCrunch.

Now that's ok for me. But is something more to it there? Now it seems that Facebook wants to market my brand preference, social networking, Web 2.0, websitess (though taking my own permission) according to nytimes (link). I will explain how!!

Literally, they want to put your face on the ads for the products that you like or your friends in your profile likes. Now am I missing the line here between privacy and social networking? Actually, yesterday they began showing ads with profile pics next to the advertisements for the products which their friends like or purchased before. So one sunday morning some of my friends will see me beside a commercial message which tries to sell them something which i liked or would like to have since I have a opinion on that brand. Now these hard data comes from the profile info we all have given to them.

Now according to Facebook, they are in charge of it having access to these sort of information and not the advertisers. Interestingly, this news broke out just a few days after F.T.C. (Federal Trade Commission) came out with a hearing on online privacy and customized ads.

Still not taking the credit away from Mark Zuckerberg (CEO- Facebook), the idea of using more interactive or rather the concept of using "social ads" is pretty kool as in they make direct emotional attachment with the users. As he says nothing influences than the recommendation of a trusted friend.

So as of now, I believe Facebook is going to bring a lot of tremors in the online business world. So check out the space for more info in the near future.

Email 2.0 versus Social Networking

There is a huge difference between network and networking with respect to social networking space. Network can be primarily defined as connecting with people-known or unknown whereas networking is within the boundaries of known people (be it in form of friends etc). Now the promise is very well delivered by all those social networking sites like myspace, facebook etc.

Now there is something which is left behind between all these. Or is it? Remember Web email services of the likes of Yahoo Inc, Microsoft Inc, or Google. Now we used to use these email services primarily for sending and receiving those boring and mundane messages. But nowadays it seems that these email providers are trying to run away with some of the thunders of social networking sites. They are adding features that allow users to perform certain sociable functions as connecting with friends and creating personal-profile pages for others to see.

So this is surely going to increase the competition between those old daddies of Web email services and new Gen Y social networking maestro's for loyalty of users and revenues from online advertisements.

But the question is who's going to win this. Now my take on this would be from my personal experience. Since I still use both these services to an equal amount, so I would take a fair and balance perspective on it.

1. Most of the social networking sites provide us with IM service . So most of the users use it as an effective alternative email service. So email service providers don't have an edge.
2. Social networking sites have given enough importance to the word "I" which email service providers haven't yet i.e. "I" is the new word in the Web 2.0 model.
3. Since most of the email social services work effectively only when most of my friends are hooked onto same service provider, so tracking all my friends on a common platform becomes difficult (still there are reports that email service providers are trying to extend this service across all networks- but the bottleneck would be sharing users' personal info).
   
4. Slowly and steadily, social networking sites are allowing its users to send messages to those stereotyped email addresses.

So after looking at these artifacts (pun intended), I guess by now most of you have made up your mind who's going to survive. Actually that's why most of the Web email service providers are vying for big social networking websites likes Yahoo & Microsoft trying to buy Facebook etc. It's more like insulating themselves from Web 2.0 (i.e. user generated content) wave which is taking the whole world into it's grip.

FaceSpaceTwitRatiCkrKutUbe – Are we Online Zombies?

FaceSpaceTwitRatickrkutube - It is an acronym for Facebook, MySpace,Twitter, Technorati, Flickr, Orkut, Youtube. Now I could have written more social networks but my domain of social networking is more or less bounded within the contours of these mostly.

My usual day with the internet starts by checking responses from my friends (i.e. usual hi's & hello's) to the responses to my blog to usual twitting to keep my friends and fans upto date. Along with these checking my blog status in technorati to usual goofing around in youtube to checking my status in flickr. Also worth mentioning here is to keep myself update with the rss feeds & podcasts from my most liked bloggers and websites.

Now I can say one thing for sure i.e. I am a internet person. But more often than not i keep asking myself one question. Am I being played in the hands of these social networking sites? Now their promise of keeping me close to my friends and my foes (pun intended) at the same time is working well for them. But is social networking getting more integrated to our daily rountine?

Now some of the reasons why we like social networking sites are-

1. Arm's length reach to our friends and foes.
2. Maximum value delivered in terms of time and content.
3. Requires less attention from the content developer to content reader.

Still the questions remains in an elusive form that who is controlling whom? Are we all online social zombies trying to connect through bits & bytes? Or there can be a definite cure to this?