e Magus

Many people believe that the markets follow a 10 year (8 to 11 years to be exact (sic)) cycle… Internet as a business had seen the bust in the late 90’s – 2K. This means, it is about time that the bust reoccurs. The last few years have seen a rapid expansion of the Internet, especially what we call the web 2.0 explosion with Social Media riding the wave. Most of the new age Internet businesses have come to life with Venture Capital funding, and low on strong revenue model. I am not sure of the numbers – but almost all of them are not making any profits… so how long will the good times last? As the business cycle model goes after every expansion comes crisis. In today’s world all the publisher (especially the online social media companies) are vying for the limited time a person has on hand… It is today more about share of clock, than share of wallet they are after. For every MySpace – you have Orkut, FaceBook, Hi5, and many more… What is happening is that the time spent by the user onl...

Hmmm.. how do I start.. Let us consider the fact that every day is a battle. We battle the morning rush hours to reach office, battle with colleagues, and clients to seek victory either in form of pushing through your ideas/thoughts or selling to a client…. Along with in this battle is a battle of communication… how do we get our views and thoughts effectively and efficiently to others… Consider Internet as the battlefield, then micro-blogging is small arms; while classic blogging would be all about artillery. Small arms is all about ease to carry, close quarters, and limited ammunition. Very similar to your micro blogging… ease to carry – can be accessed from mobile and computers; close quarters – reaching to your friends in the network, fast and effectively; and limited ammunition – 140 characters?  Artillery is all about heavy equipment, ability of reaching further, planning, targeting, etc… Most of blog dashboards are heavy and best accessed through computers… blogs have a tenden...

For all those (including myself), who have been complaining about the low penetration of Internet, and the great digital divide in India... here is what Airtel has to offer.. Targeting close to 200,000 subscribers by this year end, this would soon become an important platform for people in the fringes of the digital divide to adapt to technology... I feel this would be lapped up eagerly by both the businesses and individuals.. Gist of article: Low-cost computing and broadband penetration in the country is set to get a boost with Bharti Airtel, India's largest telecom operator, launching a low-cost online computer powered by Microsoft and Nivio. Priced at Rs7,999, the Airtel Net PC is a plug-and-play online computer with a 15-inch LCD monitor, mouse, and Nivio companion (which enables the PC to connect to a backend Linux-run server for storage and applications). To read more click here

Some random thoughts on what ails Internet advertising in India - 1) Internet advertising always comes as an after thought in client's campaign 2) few publishers control most of the traffic and ad revenue 3) Always have been sold on 'performance' parameter... branding was never considered as an option 4) In India Internet has been synonymous with 'Free' - even the marketers demand it 5) Penetration has been a perennial problem 6) cost per reach is still higher compared to other mediums 7) Tracking and optimizing the campaign is expensive... and client's mostly are not willing to invest or pay for the same 8) No standards - in rates, measurements - varies from publisher to publisher 9) success stories of internet advertising are by and far few & rare 10) Most restaurants (digital ad agencies) believes in the presentation (creative) not the cooking (science/strategy) of what they serve 10.a) Most of the online campaigns are half cooked dishes served to the cli...

Who do you think is the real winner of the India General Elections? Is it the UPA, the Congress Party, the 500+ MPs, or us, the citizens of this country? Well, I think the real winner happens to be the Media. The television channels and the newspapers that have been covering the elections for the past 3 months They started with the election coverage… on the spot coverage, studio interviews, expert talks, the voter feedback, election bus, you name it, they have done it… it gives the media huge amount of content, and many prime ad spots in FCT, including the political parties Then come a week of great debate (or shall I say the tall tale)… Reams of newsprint and thousands of minutes of airtime was dedicated to what the election analysis experts were calling the Exit Poll… and the possible political permutations and combinations…. The tall tales were of the various numbers the parties would get… the possible look of first, second, third, fourth, and other fronts… who they would support, w...

It is taking on the social media space by storm. eMarketer reports that by 2010 18 Million people would be tweeting in US alone. That is quite a bit of chirping in the online space. India however has a different story to say. Comscore says that there were close to 120K unique visits to twitter during Feb 2009. This figure is minuscule and no marketer would consider tweeter as a medium of engagement at this point of time. However, looking at the exponential growth of people who are joining the tweet-wagon, it would soon become an ideal brand communication tool. And NOW is the time for a brand to experience, learn, and improve using this tool Ok. Some brands are already using twitter. Obama had used this successfully during the US Presidential elections. Media keeps reporting about how everyone is participating, networking, tweeting, and befriending…. So what can brands do to leverage this growing phenomenon? Why Twitter? Twitter as a social media tool is all about real time status updat...

By Brier Dudley It's been awhile since Microsoft introduced a game-changing social Web application, but Vine -- a service that's debuting today with a beta test in Seattle -- could be a contender. Vine is a hyperlocal, personalized message and alert system. It's intended to be a dashboard that people can use to keep tabs of their family, friends, activities and major events in their community. The dashboard -- which appears as a widget on a PC screen -- displays a map of the user's community and the status of their contacts. It also has buttons to send alerts or reports, which can be sent and received on the PC or as text messages on a cellphone. For more click here