e Magus

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

It has been quite a while since I have blogged here. Well the reason is not that I was so busy that I did not find that couple of hours every week to write.. it was not that I was exiled into the Gautamano bay, and had no access to internet… it is not even the fact that I was not active on Internet… in fact, I was never so active on the Net, ever since I first started browsing around 15 years back, as I was last 2 months.. then what stopped me from blogging?? Blame it on the new sexy babes in the online space – Facebook and Twitter. Since the time I got active on Facebook and Twitter, I hardly find time for any other thing online, especially writing at one go and blogging about 500 words of my thoughts. I am all over drooling over these babes and I have access to them from my mobile phone too. Though the core feature offering of Facebook or Twitter is ‘Status Update’ it has transcended the update feature. People update their status, remark on others update, follow, write on walls, poke...

Following a tight pitch against local agency Crayons, Mindshare Delhi snapped the Indian National Congress (INC) media account estimated to be worth US$15 million. The agency will be handling the political party’s electronic media campaign in the run up to the general elections to be held from 16th April onwards in stages. Mindshare will focus primarily on TV and radio – reaching out to the ‘common man’ – which constitutes the majority of the voting population in the country. The account is led by client leadership and will draw heavily on resources from the exchange teams at Mindshare. “To be associated with a campaign that will help form the government to run the country for the next 5 years is a great privilege and honour. The entire country is talking about this campaign.” said Chirantan Chandran, partner of client leadership at Mindshare. Also Congress Party has bought the royalty rights for the AR Rahman song - Jai Ho... This song would be used by the party during this polls. Wil...