What is ADAMO?
Well, you would have seen notebooks, laptops, Mac’s and I am sure just like me, you would be a huge fan who would have gasped on the Mac Book Air, when it was launched.
History repeats itself, just that in technology, we always better historical experiences
DELL’s ADAMO gives the whole proposition a whole new meaning.

Okay, so the product is ready, but how do you take it to the consumer?
Big budget advertising is an option which always exists and to counter the fact, for DELL shelling off a few million dollars at focused advertising in creating the required buzz within the relevant community of people who would buy a notebook as a luxury item, may not be a bad proposition at all.
But there still could be better options right? Did I hear you say better options?
Well, yes and so has DELL explored the one!
Adamobydell.com
Strange, to sell a product and create an outreach in the relevant community DELL has designed a website which displays the various features of the sleek, stylish ADAMO with a highly interactive interface. Clicking on the various points on the product you could really feel the design, the technology and the detailing that has been so intricately built into the product that you don’t bat an eyelid and are in awe of all that is happening on the screen, right in front of your eyes.

It’s a Love story says DELL!

If you think how could something be so detailed and intricately crafted of aluminum, yes I had similar thoughts and the design had me gasping in awe. Advanced Polymer Chemistry allows you to enjoy 4 hours and 53 minutes of battery life if fully charged. And I know how much you want to know the weight of the machine, well all inclusive the ADAMO by DELL weighs a mere 1.81 kgs.

And well, this is how DELL simply makes you fall in love that all they ask from you is your name and email id so that you become one of those first people to have an all exclusive access to the amazing piece of technology.
What is striking for me
As an online marketer its highly interesting for me to see DELL leveraging the Viral nature of a message which could be supported with Social Media Marketing, to take it to the relevant community, thus generating the essential word of mouth supported by a focused online marketing campaign.
This proves, Innovation coupled with a deep sense of how much you understand your client and his business, well you can create successful viral marketing campaigns which take your message ot the community, which from there is taken up and spread by the community itself.
The outreach is Global
Since it’s the internet, well one of the biggest advantages is reaching out to a market which is global and hence by keeping a strict eye on the marketing budgets, going online seems to be the best way to reduce your sales costs but not the revenue!

Do you know that your Google Adwords campaign’s ROI depends significantly on the Quality Score? The quality score not only influences the amount you pay for every Click in your campaign but also determines the number of Clicks your campaign will receive.

However, the way the Ad Auction (Quality Score, Ad Rank, CPC, Ad Position etc) works is a complex equation. Watching this 9 minutes video by Hal Varian, Chief Economist @ Google will demystify the complexity. If you are really serious about generating high ROI for your Google Adwords campaigns, you can’t afford to not educate yourself on Quality Score.

In short, the Adwords Quality Score system is meant to serve all the stake holders of the Google Adwords ecosystem:

• The User - to see relevant ads
• The Advertiser - to display more and more relevant ads -> ROI
• The Search Engine (Google) - to merry the needs of the User and the Advertiser by rewarding relevancy

I recently blogged the annual global conference of IIT Alumni, PanIIT 2008. It was a 3 days event focused on innovation across various domains including Rural Transformation, Entrepreneurship, Technology, and Infrastructure etc.  With roughly 300 CEOs in the delegates and 6 parallel tracks of sessions, this conference offers unmatched depth and breath of experience across various industries. I really felt proud to be part of this event and to blog it live.

We posted 30 posts for 3 days event. Moreover, we used Videos, Slides, and Photos to make our blog post more interesting for the users.  Overall, I think we did a good job as bloggers, but have we met the desired business objectives. We received roughly 10 relevant comments within one month after the event. Looking at the people participation, I think even though we were able to do a good job in covering the entire event but we probably missed out on inspiring delegates for their participation.

Why does that happen? Let’s examine the holistic view. The overall objectives of creating an online presence for a Conference can be broadly divided into 2 categories:

1. Increase Conference Outreach
   1. Reaching out to potential Delegates
   2. Converting Delegates to Attendees
2. Improve Delegates Participation
   1. Networking (Before, During and After the Conference)
   2. Information access
   3. Managing Feedback
   4. Archival and Retrieval of Knowledge-base created during the conference

The marketing of conference poses certain challenges for the Online Marketing Initiatives. Firstly, the conference offers limited time to Market, which makes it difficult to leverage long-term online marketing initiatives. For example if we talk about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Promotion, it take minimum of 6 to 9 months of efforts to get some reasonable returns from SEO Promotion. Therefore in most case it may not be advisable to run a SEO campaign. In certain cases for example if it is a repetitive event, it is possible to leveraging the work done for all previous events. Therefore for such situation SEO promotion might deliver better ROI in the long-term prospective.

Secondly, conference is also marked with impulsive and high volume of participation. In order to offer to deliver the desired value in the short span of time, the work need to start much before the conference starts. Moreover, each and every activity needs to be carried out in alignment with the overall objectives and Blogging is no exception.

We need to have clear understanding of the concerns of target audience at various stages before and after the conference, starting from when they are thinking about attending the conference to the time when they have gone back attending the event. We need to understand the online behavior of target market:

•    What kinds of websites/Blogs do the potential Customers visit?
•    Are there existing communities of Potential Customers on various Social Media sites like linkedin, Fasebook, Orkut etc?
•    What value do we offer at various stages of various stages of conference preparation and what message can communicate each value individually?

The Blogging needs to start at least 6 months before the conference. It is important that we should understand the customers concerns at various stages. Each and every blog post should be aligned with the identified customer concerns. This will definitely help in retaining the precious relevant visitors on the website.

Moreover, the Blog promotion should start at least 6 months in advance across all the relevant traffic generation sources including SlideShare, Flickr, YouTube etc. The message needs to be created for all medias and for all stages before the conference. These messages will act as the sales agents on the social media sites that customer visits. The more relevant the message, the more relevant will be the traffic. Moreover, there are number of community building tools available from example CollectiveX which definitely help in increasing the engagement level of participants. Using such tools will help in retaining and converting the relevant traffic generated from social media websites.

In case you are interested in knowing further about designing an effective conference campaign. Please feel free to drop in your comments below and I will get back to you.

For as long as I have been in the Online Marketing world in India, I have not been able to understand why no

Online Marketing for Real Estate Industry

brand has been developed for any real estate builder using Online Marketing as the medium.

It has always amazed me as to how sites like magicbricks.com, 99acres.com and others have so effectively used the web, but most of the actual home producers have done little more than develop a well designed but poorly functioning web-portals, which drives some traffic and helps develop no brand. Some are starting to be more proactive, but there is still a long way to go.

Then I came across a visionary company in real estate, which is coming up with a brand new development 35 minutes from Gurgaon. The company is a visionary in terms of the product it is offering (called as Gulmohar Woods), very attractively priced to cater to the working Indian class. The company is a visionary in terms of its understanding of the environment, and development of an ecologically balanced way of life (pollution free, very close to the nature) and the company is definitely a visionary in terms of its usage of Internet Marketing as a major source of reaching out to its customers.

I have been working with this company for almost 6 months now, and I think they have just started tapping the potential of Online Marketing for their business. I have been managing PPC campaigns for them and the results have been truly incredible.

At a fraction (and I mean a very small fraction) of the costs that real estate developers spend to get new customers, I have been able to deliver leads which are easily convertible.

And now, we are looking to do more. We are utilizing SEO as well as the power of Social Media to deliver value. I see this as a very effective replacement of the expansive budgets that developers have to attract customers, and hefty brokerages they pay in the marketplace.

If you are interested in using Online Marketing for your business, please contact us.

‘mum’-‘ba’-‘aai’

The words ‘mum’ in English language refer to mother, ‘ba’ in Gujarati means mother and so does ‘aai’ in Marathi.

The entire nation was taken by surprise and so was the world. A group of 10 cowards who came and killed innocent people on the roads of that fateful night of 26th November 2008 in Mumbai.

Innocent lives gone, terror looming large  on the streets, fear was the only thing in people’s minds and gloom was written large on the faces. Everything came to a screeching halt. There was silence and there was frantic activity all around in those endless hours.

I was sitting here in Delhi, following the proceedings on Internet and not even a single second was I able to take my eyes off.

Every single incident, each piece of news trickling down was making waves. Information from any source was of utmost importance.

I was glued and all that mattered to me in those hours was that I be updated with information. And what mattered to me in those hours was how I could pass on this information in a manner that it reaches the right people whoa are in need and it reaches the widest possible audience in the shortest possible time.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that internet is the answer to all my questions.

As I logged onto the various social media networks I saw that thousands of people like me who probably sitting miles away were thinking the same thing, were going through similar emotions and were doing the same stuff, that is passing on the information.

Social Media to the rescue? Where did all the information come from?
Slideshare, Youtube, Twitter, Flickr, some of the most major Social Media networks already had content which spoke tones about what was happening in Mumbai. Pictures which probably were being missed on TV, were readily available on these platforms and lakhs of concerned citizens were sharing information like never before.

I had the news even before the TV channels!!
Sitting here in Delhi, I had access to LIVE news updates on twitter (thanks to all the people) even before the news channels, at times! Was all this news of any help? Much help!

Yes! I could retweet and send the information to other networks and people connected with me could get their hands on the information much sooner, and probably it could have made a difference to someone’s life who was looking for all the information.

A simple act of giving away the relevant contact numbers of various city hospitals and other emergency numbers did make a huge difference.

Give me numbers? What’s the proof?
Well, in just 3 days of the attacks I said enough of it. Everyone around is in anger. All reporting the same thing. All doling out tones of news items, there is blood of the common man strewn all around. Who speaks of peace?

WE DO!

OMLogic consulting became the first message creator and the initiative taker of peace all around. It was important to let people know that we have through such horrific acts of terror in the past as well and we have stood the test of time. Hence we decided to take up peace and in less than 4 days, post the attacks our message in the form of the presentation uploaded on Slideshare, got 250+ views and multiple favorites.
The point here is not propagating our deed, but to emphasize the power of Social Media.

Its about taking an entrepreneurial stand and doing your bit in time for the millions of eyes who are waiting for any news to reach them.

Think about people who could not be there in Mumbai and had there relatives, their kids, their parents staying there. Apart from cell phones how could have they been informed about what is happening. Half baked information always boosts the panic. And so came in Social media, with concerned common man like you and me, who pushed in with information. Information which he felt could help many others out.

Twitter

• More than 80 tweets about the Mumbai carnage were adding up to Twitter every 5 seconds! – CNN

• Results Mumbai -

Roughly a 1000 tweets per hour

Wikipedia

• Almost in an hours time from the Mumbai carnage initiation Wiki had an entire pag dedicated to the November 2008 Mumbai attacks

Slideshare

• Over 20+ presentations that appear on searching only the word ‘mumbai’ on slideshare on the first two pages.

YouTube

We talk about TRPs of news channels shooting up, well take this…

• 1 week ago on YouTube a video uploaded by the title “Mumbai Gunman’s arrest caught On Camera” has clocked 45,083 views!

Flickr
Users of this photo sharing site have uploaded 300+ pictures clicked by them, freezing the moments as they were happening.

This is the power of Social Media!!

As we are moving towards a more connected world, we all are affected, we all feel each other closely. We move when our emotions are moved. We hold, we help, we talk and we cry and we laugh.

Now that its over its time for us to build things up back together…lets join hands, and what better way to connect than the internet?

Given the proliferation of Social Media, your profile on Social and Professional networking sites deserves a significant attention. Globally, people are harnessing the power of social media for varied purposes – to attract customers, partners and talent are some of common objectives achieved through professional networking.

But, not everyone is equally successful in meeting their business objectives through professional networking. Your success in the Professional Networking game is a function of many parameters – the quality (who are you connected with) and the quantity (how many people are you connected with) are two of them. How can you build an ever growing, credible network? Here are the top 6 techniques you can use to constantly fuel your professional (and also social) networking success:

1. People You Meet Daily - Everyday, as part of your professional life, you are meeting new people you would like to stay in touch with. This includes face to face meetings (e.g. conference participation, potential customer or partner), email exchanges, telephone calls and more. The chances are many of them are already present on LinkedIn. It takes couple of minutes to request invitation to your network. For e.g., what do you do with the business cards your collect at various meetings. Don’t just stock them, directly connect with those card owners on LinkedIn.
2. LinkedIn Answers - As I wrote earlier, LinkedIn Answers is a great tool for networking in addition to getting highly valuable advice for free. The people who respond to your questions or the ones to whom you response, are likely the ones you would want to be connected with.
3. Network of Network - Just browse through the connections of people in your network and you will be surprised to see the large number of known people, whom you would like to be part of your direct network. So, leverage your own network.
   
4. LinkedIn Groups - Throughout your life, you get to be associated with various groups – alumni networks, ex employers, conference groups, technology groups etc. Many of them already exist on LinkedIn in the form of ‘Company’ or ‘Groups’. Browse through them and be prepared to be surprised by the list of people whom you know but didn’t remember. You can join (and participate) in new groups relevant to your areas of interest and again leverage them to expand your own network.
5. Use Your Webmail Contacts – LinkedIn allows you to check who all in your webmail (e.g. gmail, hotmail, yahoo etc) contacts are present on LinkedIn. Choose the ones you want to network with and send them an invitation.
   
6. Promote Your Profile – Finally, promote your LinkedIn profile through as many avenues as possible. Some of common places to have your LinkedIn profile – your email signature, your profile at other places, your articles, your business card etc. Make sure your profile is public, provide your email id in your contact settings and allow others to contact you. Also, like me you can also blog to promote your profile :).

I am sure if you follow the above ways, you will have a HUGE pool of professionals, who can be part of your network. I’ve used all of the above techniques to constantly expand my own LinkedIn profile. But, of all the invitations you send, how many will accept your request is not a constant. I recommend that you follow these guidelines in order to successfully build a credible network on any professional networking community:

• Customize & personalize your invitation based on the person you are inviting. Don’t use the standard invitations.
• Don’t spam by sending invitations to professionals – just for the sake of increasing the number.
• Build credible profile - The chance of other professionals accepting your invitation is also based on the credibility of your profile. Completeness of your profile, having recommendations, quality of your profile summary and having your photo are some of the important credibility facts. Also, give personal touch to your profile.

I hope these tips and guidelines help you expand your professional network. Please do give your feedback including suggesting more tips and guidelines to the above list.

Happy Professional Networking!

“The surest way to be late is to have plenty of time.”

– Leo Kennedy

Time, as they say flies, and it literally did on 9^th November 2008, when Delhi ran and ran and ran!

And so did we! Yes! Team OMLogic proudly presents the nine wonders, who held each other high in completing the half marathon successfully. There have been several quotes on team work and what not, come to the practical aspect and well today we define team work for you!

Tring Tring….its morning 6:30 and Pradeep called up all charged, to know where I am, and I was just about getting ready to dash off. Okay so I did break the speed laws, Oops! But here I was 15 minutes flat at the common meeting point, where we all ganged up all ready to fly 21.097 Km. the shuttle bus was brimming with enthusiastic people of almost all ages.

The morning sun looked perfect, with the slight winter nip catching up, everyone looked geared up to join in the fun! Did I say fun! Well, yes, it was fun right from the word Go!

Pradeep, Me, Raj and Lalit, well we reached as per IST about 7 minutes late for the race and here we were attracting all the attention of the crowd, the shutters and for almost a moment I felt like wow man I’m a celebrity! But now we had a target to achieve, and the first one was to catch up with the rest of the team, our super runners (Kapil Nakra, Kapil Gupta and Umrao)!

The start line was all brimming with people cheering in support of the runners. Well that was enough for the feet to self start and run hard! And so we did, waving our hands to the crowds.

And now comes the fun filled ORDEAL!

21 km, that’s it, well I’ll do it in about 2 hours. And we all were pretty much sure. The first one kilometer was all charged up. Pradeep and Lalit, I clicked them at achieving the feat. Negotiating the first turn we saw cameras covering the event LIVE and cheering the crowd were absolutely cool folk dancers from Punjab, swaying to the beats of the dhol. Quite refreshing it was!

But where is the fun? I say?

Its an order by the author of this post to not laugh! No laughing at all! (kidding)

Well, we were pretty charged up running in all glory crossing the two kilometer line, when we suddenly saw a group of skinny and bony runners running like there is no tomorrow in the opposite direction!

There goes our 25 thousand dollars I sighed!

So we had just another 19 kilometers to cover, when they had another two, talk about motivation! And so we had a hearty laugh in all amazement, man what do these people eat?

Lalit, I think was the most logical amongst us, when he remarked, “mai toh jeetne aaya tha, par ab kya faayda, next auto pakad ke wapas chalet hain” (I came here to win, but what’s the point in running now, lets catch an auto and head back).

Teamwork, ever heard of it anyone?

Well, so we ran a bit more, crossing the four kilometer mark, with our breathing pattern almost as if we haven’t breathed for almost ages now! And then I started walking, walking as if my target was to complete the marathon in two days! Though I must mention that the arrangement for water and other support was great.

Kahani mei twist hai (this story has a twist)

Here we are joined by a damsel (Jaya Nakra) kapil Nakra’s wife. And we got introduced as if we walked 4 kilometers just to say hi. Anyways we all started from this point onwards. With all that was left in us, walking-running-walking was pretty much what everyone was doing, though as usual there has to be someone super intelligent always to comment in any team, and surprisingly there were TWO!

Me and Lalit, whenever Jaya, Raj, Pradeep used to run, we always had the same thing to say, “bhaagne do, jitney mei yeh aage tak pahunch ke ruk jaayenge, we’ll reach walking” (let them run, till the time they would reach some distance and stop to catch their breath, we’ll reach walking).

When you walk the talk, it pays off!

Well, Me, Jaya and Raj were casually walking and talking when we suddenly saw a guy with a mic in his hands running towards us, screaming something…and then we had a camera in front of us and we were on MTV! So much so for the race, after the brief stint of fame, we all thought “bas apna paisa to vasool ho gaya” (getting featured on MTV, well worth our money).

But when it’s a team it’s a team, we run together and we laugh at ourselves

Its teamwork all the way! Crossing the ten meter mark was like an achievement in the mind, yet we were al perplexed that why are we doing this to us? Tomorrow should be a gazetted holiday in Delhi, at least this was one thing which the whole team agreed toJ

Even the guards standing at the gates of people’s houses had words of advice for Jaya!

So I was really hungry and almost on the brink of I can’t go further, had almost decided that I’m catching an auto from here and leaving home. But the team spirit stayed and the donning the OMLogic shirt, how could we not achieve our mission?

Houston, we’v got a problem

Almost all the rest of the way we were walking-running doing something to make sure that we do it!

Where are Kapil and Kapil?

So we were not able to catch up with either of the two who had finished the race and were coming back from the finish point. Anyways, finally we took a U turn and started running back to where we started from.

Inspiration – perspiration!

On my way back, I saw this old man running and breathing heavy wearing yellow colored shorts and shirt, which mentioned him as Dr. Rao, born 1932.

And were we all amazed, the speed at which the man crossed us and was no where near to be seen in about 5-7 minutes was almost like a strong gust of wind passing you by and in a second everything is quiet.

And so I would love to mention a similar sight at the beginning of the race, a weared out old man, who may be nearing mid 80’s with his stick walking in all enthusiasm.

The Airtel Delhi half marathon was full of such inspiring sights and we were motivated to complete the race now!

I want attention, look at me!

A strange looking group of young boys and girls dressed as if there is dearth of clothes and as if all the attention should be on them only, were shouting the name of the company they belonged to, and marching to the tune of their band. Majority of the crowd did not get the best vibes from the presentation.

So here are the weird moments of the race.

We are Indians, we know our H-inglish!

So, I was crossing this over bridge running towards the finish line, and suddenly on the pavement I saw this board which said “Police cheking ahead” (I have the pic will share soon)!

My lucky moment

So how could I miss this? Lucky lucky!

Coming back with the team, two beautiful damsels crossed and suddenly stopped by asking me to click them! Well, ladies I think we forgot to exchange our numbers!

If you get this post, I’m @ OMLogic!

YES! We’ve done it

And so came the moment! Finally we saw the finish line and the clock, and it was a moment which cannot be described in words! It was the loudest YES I would probably have cheered for in my life!

Where are you?

Finding each other in the crowd was difficult, somehow we managed to catch hold of each other at ground zero!

Ohh! Certificates as well, and a medal, wow running was worth it!

So the race finally ended on a high when we got to know that all the participants of the half marathon were getting certificates and medals and we all cheered up!

Breakfast @ 12

So we finally decided enough is enough. Either you get me food or I’ll eat you guys off! and the entire OMLogic team proceeded with lots of money in every pocket to a famous eating joint.

Was a great day! This is Life @OMLogic.

We have fun, we hold each other dear, and we win races as a team for our clients!

Ask your client does he know why Barack Obama is the President-elect and Mccain is not!

If your client does know it, well, half your work is done and if he does not hmmm…you have a perfect playground to set your rules!

Strange it may sound, but if we trail the campaigns of both Obama and Mccain, one of the biggest differences that takes you where you least expect it is the effect of properly defined, structured and followed up Social Media. Obama’s campaign team leveraged the Social Media aspect of the internet so effeciently that Obama had a clear cut lead over Mccain online.

One of the best blogs on the internet which provides elaborat figures as to how Social media made all the difference, I found is: http://adultaddstrengths.com/2008/11/05/obama-vs-mccain-social-media/

NEARLY 6000% MORE PAGES ON Barack Obama’s website than Mccain’s.

Okay so lets dwell deeper…into figures…

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS/WEBSITES

Search Engine Results For “Barack Obama” and “John McCain”

Internet Presence For Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s Offical Websites

So what do all these figures say? My client is getting confused!! What should I do?

Now you actually do not have to say much. Your client says he has multiple options in the internet domain who provide services at a lesser cost then why should he still go with you?

So its simple, either your client’s campaign could be Obama’s or Mccains.

What does this signify?

Well, in the Online Marketing space its not just the quality that matters, its also how well does your online marketing solutions provider (partner) understands your business domain. How well does he/she understands your objectives and goals and then charts out a workable architecture, that’s how you should choose your online marketing partner.

That’s our philosophy @ OMLogic!

Friday was the end of TiEcon Delhi 2008. Great sessions over the last 2 days were silverlined by this session on “Future of Internet”. We have seen some great speakers over the last couple of days, and this session was no different.

OMLogic Blogged the event live, and this is Kapil Gupta bringing the details to you. A must read for everyone participating in the Digital Revolution in India.
The session has the following panelists:
Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder, Naukri.com - Chair
Shailesh Rao, MD, Google India
R.Ramaraj, Sr.Advisor, Sequoia Capital Advisors
D.Shivakumar, Vice President & General Manager, Nokia
Mahendra Swarup, Chief Mentor, SITG
Rohit Agarwal, CEO, techTribe - TiE Host

Key takeaways from the session were as follows:
- India will remain single screen household for a long time. IPTV, DTH operators will play key role in expanding reach of broadband.
- 80M internet users is when major ad revenue starts flowing into the internet marketing.
- What will really drive the steepest slope in Internet growth in India will be next set of services which will address issues of Indian customers. Spirituality, governance, healthcare, matrimony, etc..
- Real question for growth in India is entrepreneurship. Are we seeing start-ups which will create the level of innovation to deliver next set of products?
- Growth of Web 2.0 in India is dependent on delivering the next set of applications which can promote growth of user assisting user.
- For new businesses in Web2.0, following are guidelines for success
1. Expertise wins
2. Scale is king
3. Web 2.0 businesses don;t need that many people. Staff very light.

4. Use free tools, open source.
5. In India, build business which is india only.
6. Build your business around Google, don’t compete with Google.

- Internet and mobile internet growth in India will be entertainment driven, not enterprise driven
- Go cross-media for marketing

Below is the detailed conversation between the panelists.

Rohit Agarwal kicked off the session by talking about the current economic scenario. It was a Q&A session, and Rohit asked the audience to write their questions on paper sheets provided to them, so they can be brought up to the panel, and they can respond to the questions..
R. Rajaram talked about the telecom sector and how the government policies over the last few years have helped fuel the penetration.
Sanjeev: When will there be 200M internet users in India
Mahendra Swaroop: Govt is putting 26B to help get broadband into the villages. Current penetration is 20-35 Million. There is tremendous opportunity for Creating mega brands on the net. India will remain single screen household for a long time. IPTV, DTH operators will play key role in expanding reach of broadband. 80M users is when major ad revenue starts flowing into the internet marketing.
Sanjeev (to Shivkumar from Nokia): Mobile is the next big wave. Nokia is putting lot into mobile but not happening.
Shivkumar: It will happen, its just matter of time. America is no longer the center of mobile revolution. They represent 17% of the market. 52% of revenue for google came outside America. Internet has 2 dimension. Affordable Qwerty keypads will be very useful. Its already happening. It will happen in 4-5 year.
Sanjeev: Google is having great success in India?
Shailesh: Great response from Indian businesses. Concerned about entrepreneurship and innovation. What will really drive the steepest slope will be next set of services which will address issues of Indian customers. Spirituality, governance, healthcare, matrimony, etc.. Prices of chips and PC’s will fall. Real question is entrepreneurship. Are we seeing start-ups which will create the level of innovation to deliver next set of products?
Mahendra: Indiatimes has verticalized the market. They are launching separate brand for mobile.
Ramaraj: Worried about innovation. He brought up the fact that most countries had internet revolutions around one central theme. For e.g. E-commerce did it for Europe, and online games did it for china. He also talked about applications like tutorvista (teaching students across the globe).
Shailesh: India can serve as a platform for much of the emerging world. SEA, ME,etc.
Sanjeev: Cable had limited penetration till it was English. Local and it exploded.
Mahendra: Local content will definitely be the key.
Sanjeev: What is future of SMM. Potential of web 2.0 given current financial crisis.
Rohit: Penetration is a huge issue. No killer app yet. Web 2.0 worldwide is the concept of users helping users. Question right now is what are the applications which will deliver that value. Education, healthcare seems promising. But 90% of education is still delivered using local language.
Sanjeev: What’s gonna happen to funding. Will it be difficult to get funding. Expectation few months back was 60-70% of companies will get second round.. now they say 20-30%
Ramaraj: During recession may be great time to build great company. Valuations will be lower. Second round funding may be small. money is available but companies would need to be more cautious. If you need money, there maybe problem short term.
Sanjeev refered to the 56 slide sequoia presentation at slideshare, which was also covered at alootechie, and asked everyone to read it.
Sanjeev: Will LP’s meet their commitments.
Ramaraj: Not seeing a problem yet. Early stage funding may reduce. Risk appetite will be lower.
Sanjeev: How will mobile 3G help small companies market?
Shivkumar: In India, it will be entertainment driven, not enterprise driven. But fine targeting will definitely be possible.
Sanjeev: What is the future of Wimax?
Ramaraj: Wimax will make a difference. Reserve price got double, so its bit prohibitive.
Sanjeev: Future of search. Anyone taking market share from google?
Shailash: Not enough innovation. Google making search more useful for Indians. Litmus test for when search has become effective, every search provides only one result and it’s the right result for the user.
Sanjeev: Can someone disturb google.
Mahendra: Not at this point. Google has done a great job of creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Young entrepreneurs planning on internet based enterprise, build it around google, and they would have the best chance of success.
Sanjeev: What happened to cyber cafes?
Ramaraj: Cyber cafes still account for 47% of internet access. Problem is lot of competitors, very low prices. Quality of access, user experience, provide more services holds the key to making the cyber café model more ubiquitous. Some cyber cafes are starting to innovate. Bring in LAN based games and Printing services etc. There is company commoditizing and consolidating cyber cafe screens.
Shailash: Cyber cafes need to innovate. PC in the home is still not viable. Pay-per-use model has a role to play. Someone has to see the opportunity and innovate.
Sanjeev: Why not enough profitable internet businesses in india of any significance?
Mahendra: Penetration and scale.
Shivkumar: Number 3 player in most categories doesn’t have more than 10% of share. For full line player, you need 15%. in internet industry in india, users are used to free. So, not enough money to be made.
Ramaraj: Not enough killer apps to get paid by customer. Not enough apps thinking about global marketplace.
Shailash: Web 2.0 post 2000 bust had following rules:
- Expertise wins
- Scale is king
- Web 2.0 businesses don;t need that many people. Staff very light. Use free tools, open source.
In India, build business which is india only.
Rohit: Scale is the problem. We haven’t tried enough businesses in india. We have tried social networking.. Most business think about site and adsense. We are still in infancy of what internet business is.
Sanjeev now went to Nikhil from Medianama and asked why businesses are not profitable
Nikhil: Primary factors are Scale and lack of cross media utilization. Naukri has done a great job of going cross media. Most business restrict themselves with one media.
Sanjeev: What is future of businesses based on blogs?
Nikhil: Time to get more people. People looking to monetize needs to again go cross channel.. Advertising maynot be a viable channel.
Another member from the audience (Pawan, couldn’t capture his last name or company) mentioned that Law is becoming technology neutral.
Sanjeev: Google is doing lot of work with law awarement agencies.
Shailash: Working with IAMAI. Going to cybercrime, police regimes. Conduct dgitial day. Internet and how it works. Seeing great results… Be net smart, go to school.. meet with parents, educators about safe, valuable, fun use of internet for children. Tech is not high fixed price cost. Potential to outpace knowledge level of broader population is tremendous. Services available on internet are net positive for society. We are at tenuous juncture in india where people needs to start seeing that and simulate it. IAMAI and industry needs to continue promoting it.
Ramaraj talked about the dot bidding opportunity coming up and talked about is a very exciting time for young entrepreneurs to utilize it and build businesses around it.
Sanjeev: Has ecommerce lived up to its potential?
Mahendra: Ecommerce not succeeding because of missing backend infrastructure and logistics. Mobile may promote growth of ecommerce. Mobile payment will help stimulate it.
Sanjeev: Future of mobile payment and mobile banking?
Shivkumar: Certainly there, don’t know when.. For every 100K people, u have 7 ATM’s, 14 banks, 25K phones. So, it has to happen. Some genuine concerns at consumer end (Tech and security) and regulatory side. As soon as they get resolved, market will grow.
With those parting comments we come to an end of this session. As always, it was great fun live-blogging the session. For any questions and comments, please write to us at info@omlogic.com