Category: Internet

What kind of blogger are you?

I have been blogging for over 4 years now. I have been asked why I blog numerous times. And obviously I have give piece of mind to all those people. I have also met and interacted with a lot of fellow bloggers and I have realized that there are basically 4 kinds of bloggers.

  1. Conscious Bloggers: People who really want to make a difference – not only in societal context but also in terms of business, way people use technology and other things. They are very focused in their approach and make sure they are attuned with the latest in their respective industries. More often than not, they end up becoming an influential voices in their respective fields.

  2. Copy Cats: Because having a blog is cool, there are people who want to be cool and who would want to follow fads, they blog. Most of these blogs are abandoned within a short span and end up contributing to the Internet Junk. The lesser said about these people, better it is. Saves times and energy and content on Internet

  3. Money Mongers: People who want to make money using their blogs (inspired by TechCrunch and other such blogs). They would start by posting everything and anything under the sun. They would blatantly copy things from other popular bloggers and will submit their blogs to search engines and aggregators at a feverish pace. It is very unlikely that they would ever make money with their blogs and will end up frustrating themselves. Some who are smarter, would on the course realize that blogging with an objective of making money would not work and they change course and obviously end up successful.

  4. Confused Souls: People who don’t know why they blog but they anyways do it. The idea is not to make money or to get famous. The idea is to find an audience for their thoughts. Only gratification comes in the way of comments from their friends and other random visitors that have stumbled onto these blogs. They often have interesting things to say but due to the lack of recognition, they are lost in the noise. They are like the needles in the haystack that if identified could be put to good use.

What kind of blogger are you?

Originally posted here.

Thoughts on Twitter

Randy asked this question about Twitter on LinkedIn. Here is my answer.

Quick answer to your question would be Yes. It is advisable to use Twitter. It helps in dissipating information quickly and to a fairly large set of audience. I would say twitter can be compared to a crowd where everyone has a mic and everyone is talking simultaneously. Some have larger mouthpieces and some have very small.

I am a fairly active user on twitter and still to come across a business where they use twitter. Some companies advertise about it but that is all. II havent seen it being adopted by a company per se.

For your research, I think you should talk to people @ techcrunch where they use it extensively to promote their posts. Guy Kawasaki used it to market alltop.com. A guy proposed his girlfriend for marriage on twitter. People use twitter but users are sporadic at best.

Also, I think we should look at the bigger picture beyond twitter. End of the day its about a platform where you can get the largest audience. These platforms have come and gone. It started with Internet, moved onto myspace, then facebook, now twitter. There would be another platform tomorrow (I have no clue what it would be but there sure would be one). We should be ready to harness these platforms rather than focusing exclusively on one single platform.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you want me to elaborate.

Regards,
SG

P.S.: Posted a link to my twitter page.

Media in an Open Environment

I was talking to a colleague in office and I realized that I need to talk about taking media to a new level. I have been procrastinating it for a while. I am penning down my thoughts on media in India and invite you people to share this with anyone you think can contribute. Please add your opinions also.

In my opinion media is supposed to perform three functions
1. Inform junta about things
2. Bring people together and share opinions
3. Shape public thought

However, currently media as I see it is not really doing any of these three. Media is being operated as a business with profit motives and as my colleague put it, actual function has become the by product. I would not question why or how this happened. I shall talk about what can be done to bring it back on track. And obviously this is where I would need you guys to help me out. Please help me structure my thought process.

I think there are few things that are really critical for having media in true spirit.

1. Objectivity – Obviously we want to take sides, churn out opinions but we should do it with objective bent. We should kill a brand, praise a person but should be objective.

2. Independence – Independence is a huge word by itself and can have many connotations. Independence of thoughts, independence from influence, independence to write. And lots more.

3. Thought leadership – Apart from just publishing happenings and reporting events, media needs to have thought leadership. They should have original opinion on things. Thoughts on how to shape the society and probably a bit of foresight to be able to foresee the future.

4. Reach and feedback – There are two things here. Media could use any platform for delivery – paper, website, twitter, plays, design anything but it should have a certain reach. Atleast in the targeted audience, it should reach everyone and it should be contextual and relevant enough for them to consider it signal, rather than noise. And feedbcak is more critical than everything else. Media needs to know what is happening, how are people reacting to things, what is the audience thinking, is India covering the right things, is the media being a thought leader in the first place?

Now having established things that are critical for media in my opinion, I will talk about how can Internet help us in achieving the goal.

1. Collaboration – This word has been misused more than any other word on the Internet. When it comes to media, collaboration could take shape of co-authoring stories, thinking out loud, accepting defeats and promoting what is better, so on and so forth. Mutiny is a very good example but again we tend to incline towards popular things rather than pertinent things.

2. Reach and Feedback – With Internet as delivery model, both reach and feedback can be much simpler. With Internet, we can real time feedback from people and improvise at the same time. The time gap between conversations is reducing and making us faster.

3. Democratic – Since people on Internet are hidden behind a cloak, they can come forward and talk about things that they want to talk above without any fears of retribution. Although this silver cloak is a bane as well, it gives regular junta lots of power too.

There have to be some issues with the Internet. I foresee following issues with the use of Internet. This is not a problem because of Internet but because it is open.

1. Accountability – Everyone on Internet is hidden behind a silver cloak. If someone wants to misuse media, Internet help him. No one is owner of the content and no one is questionable.

2. Seriousness – Most people still consider Internet as “oh the internet” and think it as a collection of amateurs blogging away to glory. There are so many good authors that I cant even create a list.

3. Numbers – There arent just enough people on Internet in India. And most of people on the Internet don’t really care about reading things. I am not sure how many would read this post completely, leave apart shaping opinions and contributing. If you do read , please say “SECRET REVEALED” in the comments, I will be happy to get 10 comments.

In the end, I dont know if this kind of an initiative could ever gain momentum in India or anywhere else or if this can ever replace traditional businesses disguised as media. I am just trying to present a perspective on things.

Please understand that everything I have said could be incorrect. They are just my opinions and want you guys to help me come up with something concrete.

Thanks for a patient hearing.

P.S.: I started this as a personal email to Sanjukta and another good friend (Swagat) but I thought I could share this with a larger audience too.

Originally posted @ saurabhgarg.com

Food For Thought

Yet another blog (located at FooForThought.Wordpress.com). This time, I shall be talking about technology, businesses and perspectives of customers.

Here is a brief QnA with myself about Foo For Thought.

Why a new blog?

I realized that War of Words is a personal blog with too many things that a reader might not want to read. Hence a new location and a new start.

How is it different from other similar blogs?

First and foremost, I would not be peddling news like a lot of other blogs. I would talk about things that I think are relevant for businesses and what most people often ignore. These are softer issues related to how humans use and interact with businesses. I would act as a customer advocate, an eager student and an egomaniac visionary.

Are you trying to say that you are a visionary and an evangelist?

Not at all. I am not an expert and dont want to be one. I just want to meet new people, interact with them and learn from them.

What tools would you use?

I would use the most potent tool of them all – commonsense. Then I would rely a lot on feedback and observations. I would also use few examples from history, biology, anthropology, physics, politics, economics, design etc. One of my gurus taught me the importance of multidisciplinary thinking and Foo For Thought would echo that.

Keep watching it for action. I would give occasional updates here also.

Please leave your comments and thoughts.
(As if there are going to be a lot of visitors)

PlaygroundOnline.com > Review

Playground Online
PlaygroundOnline.com is yet another entrant in the Indian e-commerce space. It retails sports related media and equipment. They currently offer books, CDs, equipments, apparel etc. This is probably first of its kind online store in India. I took PGO for a spin and here is my feedback.

What I like about PGO?
First and foremost, although they want to sell things online but they have put a lot of focus on customer friendliness and costumer interaction. Things like polls, news, forums can make this website a default place for sports enthusiasts. These initiatives help build a strong and loyal community and eventually garner sales.

The range of products on PGO is really wide. From a t-shirt worth Rs. 280 to a bicycle worth Rs. 46000 (obviously for a professional), PGO had a lot of things for offer. I could not check if this range is comprehensive but everything I could think of was either there or they were accounted for and being worked upon. This is a good thing for an e-commerce business. I can think of people visiting PGO to find out more about sporting goods and then buying it offline. Challenge will be to convert these information scouts into customers.

Design
The website interface is impressive for an Indian startup and they have used a good mix of traditional style web design and Web 2 functionality. They still need to work on few things though. Like for example when you are trying to signup, the errors are reported in a pop-up box. This should ideally be a Web 2 pop-up where errors are notified the moment they are encountered. I should never get a Windows pop-up.

Team
PGO has been started by a team of 4 people with average work experience of 15 years. Experience of 60 man-years could be a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. With experience comes rigidity; you might start shooting down ideas even before you give them enough time to fruit. You start living on assumptions. You are scared of breaking out of the mold.

And with experience one develops the knack of running businesses. The team is experienced enough to know what is to be done to make the business run efficiently. Looking at the website and they have used their experience well.

What I like about their team is the fact that all 4 co-founders have different and diverse backgrounds. From client relationships to technology to marketing to customer insights, they have it all. The roles could thus be clear and they can concentrate on larger things.

Competition
They don’t seem to have one large competitor right now. However they compete with bookstores (fabmall, om books etc), apparel stores (rediff, sify) and obviously with traditional retail stores. The business model is new in India and looks lucrative. There should be many more players in the market soon.

Payment Options
One of the key reasons why e-commerce is still in nascent stages is lack of adequate payment options. Credit cards penetration is still low in India. People are still skeptic of using their cards online. And finally they are not really convinced about credibility of these websites.

At PGO, there are limited payment options currently but they have mentioned that they are working on more methods. I would love to see them implement a cash-on-delivery method. COD gives an online merchant immediate access to people who dont have cards and people with cards who are scared of using the cards online.

What more can PGO do?
Comparison between brands and products. When buying a product, people love to understand the features, benefits and differences. I don’t see a link for comparing two items. If they can somehow implement a comparison, it would be great.

User community. All the ecommerce websites have been adding users to forums. If PGO is really convinced about sports as a leisure or a lifestyle activity in India, create special interest groups of people with similar interests. Give them things like competitions to participate in, platforms to talk about their interests etc. Basically in one word, give something more than a typical forum or a social network.

Final thoughts
PGO has done a good job with their store. The only thing that might let them down is the very acceptance of the business model. If I was a VC with money, I would have invested in the business, obvisouly after talking to the owners and looking at the projected cash flow statements.

And finally, since we are talking about ecommerce, lets try to see what can be sold successfully over the Internet? Something that is standardized. Something that you are confident would be similar irrespective of place you bought it from. Something like an airplace ticket. Something like a computer. Something like a book. Sporting equipment – I am not sure. Lessons for other players? Make the products standardized, eliminate shopping pains and have in place an awesome customer service.

Questions to ponder on?
Are sporting goods similar to airline tickets? Books?

Advertising online?

Adlab has posted this comScore press release on banner clicks. One of the most important observation is that

a very small group of consumers who are not representative of the total U.S. online population is accountable for the vast majority of display ad click-through behavior.

What does this mean for online advertising industry?
For brands: Advertising online might be a good idea but its still far from generating the revenues.

Disclaimer
I am using a study conducted in US to base my opinion on. This study might not be relevant in India.

IBNLive.com > News or Sleaze?

I have wanted to join theatre for quite some time. I entered a query on Google and was directed to homepage of Mumbai Theatre Guide. And right on the top was this ad from Google Adsesne.

The copy read

Watch the hot pics of Indian Women in the world on IBNLive.com Now!

Is the biggest and the best media house in India trying to sell it website by paddling pictures of Indian Women?

Imagine. IBNLive.com is the internet presence of IBN7 – part of TV18 group and a news channel that goes with the punch line “Khabar har kimat par“. I used to think TV18 is an awesome company. I am in awe of Rajdeep Sardesai and Raghav Bhal. I know competition on internet is huge but these small cheap tricks to get more visitors on a website will not take them very far. Are they winning medals for journalism by showing hot pics of Indian Women? Are they creating personal fortunes and big companies by selling soft porn?

Coming on to the other side of the issue, do these women know that their pics are being advertised? That their personal lives are being used by IBN to promote their website? If they don’t, isn’t this breach of their personal privacy? If they do know, doesn’t this amount to crime? Paddling soft porn? Ms. Sushma Swaraj are you listening/reading?

Can someone forward this to TV18 group? And specifically to Mr. Bhal and Mr. Sardesai?

Google and Publicis to share Resources and Talent

Adage.com has this interesting article about Publicis and Google. According to adage, Google and Publicis have agreed on talent sharing to design and develop new product and services. Talent sharing has been done in the past as well but there is more to this sharing than any other partnership.

In an interview to adage.com, Publicis CEO Mr. Levy said
1. “For a few months or a year, people from Publicis Groupe will be working at Google, and people from Google will be working at some of our companies”
2. “We’re bringing Google our knowledge of advertising communications, consumers and client needs. They’re bringing us knowledge of technology and the world of the web.”
3. “Google might develop partnerships with other agencies, and Publicis is free to work with other groups, such as Yahoo or MSN.”

Publicis is into advertising and communication and Google is in technology and web. How can these two companies benefit from talking to each other?

If you look deeper into the core businesses, Publicis is effectively into communication of benefits of existing brands and still deeper, creating the need for a new brand. Google on the other hand is in the business of providing information to users and enabling transactions between users and brands.

If Publicis was to get into a relted business, they would logically get into Google’s domain and if Google integrated backwards, it would go into Publicis’ territory.

More and more companies are willing to share information to design new products. Interesting times ahead.

Online Travel Agents in India

TOI has this piece on Online Travel Agents in India.

The survey about locations of users is important. It shows the readiness towards e-commerce in India and where a location specific service (local search, order aggregation, ) might work. More on this later.

There is something even more interesting. The number of tickets that leading OTAs book per day. MakeMyTrip.com books 8000 tickets a day. ClearTrip.com books 6000 tickets a day. This number has been reported by the company themselves. There is no reason to doubt the accuracy. After all they are not like social networking websites where the number of members is the only way to evaluate these companies.

Going by these numbers, Cleartrip.com books approximately 22 lakh tickets per year. I assume this number to be correct (don’t know if these many people fly in India per year) and going by earlier post on Cleartip.com earnings, average billing per ticket is 3200 bucks.

And again assuming that they get between 1% and 5% of the ticket as commission, they make anywhere between 50 and 250 bucks per ticket. This is a big range but without data, this is the best number.

Anyone thoughts?

Related Posts
Cleartrip.com earning report

The future of Indian Web 2.0 brands – will they make money?

Anurag from DGM India posted an interesting piece about Web 2.0 brands on his blog.

I replied

Hi Anurag,

I would like to digress a bit.

I think its not technology at the core, rather as we move to open standards and free availability of source codes, technology would become more of an enabler (or means) rather than being at the core.

Yes, I agree that people with deep pockets do put tons of money behind these ideas and algorithms and it is very difficult for a small player to complete with them.

And you hit the nail on the head when you said that Indian companies don’t have the mind-set to compete with offerings that are purely tech led.

Finally, talking about local search, online classifieds etc, I think they have a long way to go before they truly become effective. Currently the users that they have are mostly biased and same users are creating content everyone on the web. It will be effective when Internet becomes mass and people participate rather than just read.

Thanks,
SG

Any opinions?