e Magus

My Facebook friends list has reached close to 140 (give or take 3 pending requests). One of persistent thought I have been having for past few days is the fact that the number of people in my social network is close to Dunbar’s number (148 appx) – my neocortex limit for maintaining stable relationship Dunbar's number (also known as the Dunbar number or the Monkeysphere) is a value significant in sociology and anthropology. Proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, it measures the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships". Dunbar theorizes that "this limit is a direct function of relative neocortex size, and that this in turn limits group size ... the limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity is simply on the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained." You could read more about Dunbar’s number at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_nu...

The best thing about my generation is the fact - we have seen much more technological advances and innovations than any generations before. The introduction of Video Cassette Recorder, Colour Televisions, Personal Computers, Internet, WWWs, Pagers, Mobile Phones, DVRs, Ipods, MP3s, etc, etc, etc… One thing I notice, in my job, is that most of the companies (especially into technology – software/hardware) believes that their primary audience as ‘early adopters’ are the youth… and most of the marketing managers definition of youth happens to be people between the age group of 18- 24… well is this true that the youth will drive the technological product innovation?? By market definition – Early Adopters are those who closely follow the footsteps of Innovators… Early Adopters are usually identified as the one’s that are curious, open to new ideas, integrated into local social system, etc But, we all know that humans are most inquisitive when they are kids. A child of 5 year is most curious...

Couple of weeks back, I was in Malaysia, attending a 5 day workshop on Advertising during these times (read tough times). Everyone was of the unanimous opinion that times are indeed tough, especially for the advertising industry. With lower profits, bleak economic forecast, companies are cutting down their budgets – especially their marketing budgets. While the overall mood was somber, everyone were gung-ho about digital medium. Internet / Mobile they say are the way to go. Advertising can be measured, sales quantified, and at end of the day – the client gets to see the ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) What makes digital such a favorite amongst marketers and advertisers is the fact that controllable, measurable, and all on real-time basis. Until the advent of Internet, most marketing campaigns were like a bullet released – you could only aim and shoot; once the trigger is pressed, you had no control on it… however, now it is like a guided missile – you can target, shoot, change di...

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...