ashes2brands

Sprinklr Launches Database List With 20 Million Opt-in Users

2010-04-21T01:10:00.001+05:30

Sprinklr List, manages a growing database of over 20 million opted-in email addresses.

The advertiser has the prerogative to choose from multiple verticals which will help them to acquire customers and grow their business.

“E-mail marketing is still nascent in India. High quality opt-in lists are not common in India. Sprinklr's initiative to bring together a targeted opted-list along with world class e-mail campaign management solutions is commendable” states CEO & Co-founder Ad Magnet, Ratish Nair.

Sprinklr List offers quality databases published by a large pool of partners. The USP of the business model is that the Advertiser/Agency/Ad network is able to reach the right prospect with an insight based on the detailed analytics. This analytics is a function of an individual’s profile and previous message responses. Lists are updated and recommended based on the previous campaign performances also keeping in mind the advertiser’s requirement. Campaigns are managed in-house through a world class e-mail marketing platform which ensures high deliverability and highly efficient campaigns.

“Purchasing a list is like biting a bullet. The damages caused are inevitable; additionally it affects the campaign performance and the brand-proposition. A good-list along with a catchy subject line and creative will deliver quality traffic to the Web site” stressed Saurav Patnaik, VP Marketing & Business Development.

Sprinklr List has catered to UNICEF, Remit2India, BindaasBargain, PVR, Intuit Money Manager, Regalis pens, 99 Labels in the past and aims at reaching out to a lot more in the coming months. Various leading agencies in the country like Madison India, Quasar Media, Contract Advertising, Rapp India (Mudra), Urja Communications have also been benefitted from Sprinklr’s List Rental Proposition.

Home Work before you take an email service provider

2009-10-14T15:38:00.002+05:30

The questions the Marketing head or, the manager need to ask himself.

1. What does email marketing mean to your organisation?
2. What are you trying to achieve from your email marketing campaign (retention, loyalty, brand
awareness, new leads, sales etc)?
3. How will email marketing compliment your existing marketing strategy?
4. Do you currently communicate with your clients/customers on a regular basis and if so how?
5. How many emails will you be sending each year and how often?
6. Are you looking for different email designs for each send-out or one consistent template?
7. Who from your organisation needs to be involved in the decision-making process (IT, legal etc)
8. Who will be using the system within your organisation?
9. What budget do you have?
10. When are you hoping to launch the programme?
11. Where will you be getting the email addresses and permissions from, e.g. own customers, address
generation campaigns, website?

Opportunities for Email Marketing Business in India

2009-09-11T13:17:00.000+05:30

Tremendous opportunity exists for a really focused and experienced email marketing solution and service provider in India to assist Indian Companies to utilize the high RoI channel as an effective marketing mix.

The opportunity for email marketing business in India is primarily because email still is the number one media that provide a higher return on marketing investment. Also because of the economic slowdown, a lot of companies have a constrained budget and are looking at optimally utilizing it for more direct, cost-effective and highly measurable email marketing option. Moreover growing usage and adoption of email by Indian internet users provides a compelling reason for companies to best use this channel as a must have and an effective marketing mix.

The volume of the emails sent by Indian companies is just 1 billion a month in contrast to 45 billion a month by US Marketers generating $1.6 billion business a year – shows how advanced markets are using the high RoI channel effectively. Despite the global economic slowdown, worldwide use of the internet continues to grow, and by 2013, there will be 2.2 billion internet users in the world.

With this large base of internet consumers, advertisers are realizing the power of drip marketing for their customers, prospects, and leads database. There is a range of mailing solutions from in-house, hosted bulk mailing solutions (provided by Indian Application Services Providers) to Global Email Marketing Service Providers.

Indian companies are still in need of a Email Marketing Service Provider, who can provide end to end solution from email blasting to delivery of email into inbox and feedback report on emails delivered to inbox, blockages by ISPs (Internet Service Providers synonymous with yahoo, gmail, rediff, aol, etc. who also provide email accounts), spam traps, spam complaints, reputation etc. Marketers also need a fully functional and all inclusive featured Email marketing solution that provides a high data security (ask for certifications), high performance email delivery throughput, more robust, high availability and rich reporting and a highly experienced support team.

Raising to the genuine needs of the Indian Companies and Marketers, few companies are beginning to emerge in the Indian scene, with local presence and strong email marketing domain and technology expertise.

This initially got published on Pluggd.in

A Look at Email Marketing Business in India [Opportunities]

2009-08-27T02:32:00.002+05:30

Email Marketing is one of the most powerful and effective forms of marketing today. It has emerged as a cost-effective, efficient, real time marketing channel defiantly challenging the traditional methods of customer contact. No other medium – offline or online – provides marketers with such a direct, personal, interactive and measurable customer communication capability and marketersare increasingly demanding e-execution capability within their marketing toolkit. The Direct Marketing Association has consistently reported that email garners the highest ROI among all direct response methods.
A recent study shows email marketing’s average ROI to be $45.06 for every dollar spent, more than double internet marketing ROI of $19.94 for every dollar spent.

It is a tragedy that email marketing is not being recognized and is given its fair share of marketing budget by Indian Marketers. The online ad spends in India represent just 3% of total media spend compared to 8 to 20% in developed markets. It is ironical that most of the online ad spend by Indian Marketers is spent on Display/Banner Ads and Searches, when more than 50% of the Indian online population is spending time on email compared to 18% to 25% of the time they spend on searching for information.

The above chart is a very nice presentation of the online consumer behaviour in India.

One of the reasons why India has not been able to realise this simple fact, is because of its lack of marketing legacy. We are a country where people could wait for a Maruti car for 6 months to be delivered. And right now when there is suddenly so much of competition among brands the old marketer is not able to understand the how to go about things. Moreover companies sold brands to masses rather to individuals.

In the US where the market is matured they understand how important it is to be constantly in touch with their customers, address their individual needs and gain their loyalty.

Eg: Virgin Atlantic immediately gratifies the passenger with $10+ worth food coupons or vouchers for giving their email ids. The marketing manager of Virgin Atlantic understands that if he is able to get his customers email id, how valuable the acquisition is for the airlines.

The growing online population and the increasing demand from consumers for more personalized needs, requires marketers to address these requirements quickly. Mostly email ids in India remain constant for a really long while in comparison with mobile phone numbers. And it is the only channel where the advertiser can have the most personalised and complete communication with the consumer.

The technology solutions and best practices for email marketing are available today in India for Marketers to jump and realize its potential to the fullest extent. Well, one has to watch and see the action. India has always been able to pull its socks quickly when it comes to absorption of technology and best practices, when it can provide higher returns!

What’s your opinion?

Note: The post was originally put on Pluggd.in

What is better- spend less and send the email to junk or, a bit extra to land it in the Inbox?

2009-08-17T15:51:00.011+05:30

People who have been following my Gtalk status message and Facebook are quite aware how Sprinklr is doing :).

We have signed up 20+ clients till now and the number is rising every week with 2 to 3 new clients.
However if I have to share my experience there are quite funny reactions from my prospects that I could mention.

Jacob : How many emails are you doing in a Month?
Client : I am doing 4 to 5 million emails :).
Jacob : Wow thats really nice. However I notice most of your emails going into spam and usually the email reaches my Junk Folder after the offer is over- basically late.

Client: Yeah I know that is the pain and my CEO is also concerned about it, as its affecting the business.

Jacob : I completely understand the pain. Well, to start with Sprinklr assures you a delivery of 95% of the emails into the Inbox and can send out emails at the rate of 4 millions/hr.

Client : OMG! really ?

Jacob : Yup (Smiling ).

Client : When can I see the Demo?

Jacob : How about tomorrow 2.30 PM ? Shall we do a "Gotomeeting" ?

Client : Yes, let me coordinate with my marketing guys and my tech team.

Jacob : Cool!

-------------------------------------The Next Day-------------------------------

The Client is very impressed with Demo and is already speaking very high about it.

Client : Wow the platform is fantastic and seriously I had no idea that so much goes in it.

Jacob: Which part of the demo did you like the most?

Client : I like the place where you showed me "How the ISPs (gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail etc)
react to my creatives".

Jacob : Yes it is very powerful.

Client : What is the cost ie; involved ?

Jacob : Let me put you through to Saurav he will be the right guy for it.

Client : Ok.

Saurav : Hi Mr. Client, how are you doing today?

Client : I am doing good Saurav, I wanted to take things forward and start off immediately.

Saurav: Sure, looking at your volumes. We will be able to give you at Rs. 0.0x/email.

Client : Wow did not see that coming. Hey Saurav You are expensive.

Saurav : Well Mr. Client, how much are you spending right now?

Client : I am spending Rs. 0.0y/email.

Saurav : Thats nice, but sir I am only dy more than what you are spending currently.

Client : No No Saurav I want it in Rs. 0.0y. See I am comparing Apples to Apples.

Saurav : Mr. Client How can you say that the comparison is between Apples to Apples.

You are sending emails to the Spam Folder with a Red color warning label which says that you are fake and the rrecipient should not open the email as it could contain a virus.

Client : Well you know Saurav that is the cost that I want to spend.

Saurav : No problem sir, then I would suggest you that you send lesser amount of emails, but at least make the exercise productive.

Client : No Saurav I cannot reduce it its very important for my business.

Saurav : Well sir I could go down a bit more but I will not be able to match your cost completely.

Client : Then I am sorry Saurav. I think I will stick to my system for sending out my emails.

The Client hangs up the call.
In the room - Me, Jacob and Manju get into a huge silence.............

I would really appreciate if anyone has any comments or, any suggestions on how to handle such clients.

Time to be a busines owner - Sprinklr takes birth

2009-07-16T20:35:00.009+05:30

Hi Guys,

I know its been long that I have put some thing new on my blog. Well this time its big and its about me. I started of my own company and it will be called - Sprinklr.

I am making something that will be used by a person exactly like me or, some one more intelligent.
Sprinklr is a large marketing platform in the making and its first offering is the world class email marketing platform e-Messenger from eCircle. We are the exclusive partners of the platform in India and near by countries. It is the only platform which qualifies to be in the tier 1 category and assures you 100% data security, deliverability into the Inbox, transparency and super high end analytics which the Indian marketeer has not seen- Some have, but they have paid a lot for it :).

One of the best features of the platform is the visual reporting for the email campaigns, you will exactly be able to see where all the recipient has clicked on the email inside his Inbox- perfect for some one who has multiple offers like an e commerce player or a travel portal guy.
The second one is that it can throw 4 million emails in an hour, I will definitely be interested if any one else in the Indian market comes close to that.

Well to begin with I have already signed up i Mint for their regular email services and Indian express for their complete emailing needs :). This is a big step for my company and it idefinitely promises that there are interesting times to come for me and my team(My new family).

MyBand Nights - The Best Thing to Happen to Indian Music Bands

2009-07-16T12:38:00.003+05:30

MyBand.co.in - India's largest portal for independent Music Bands have tied up with leading venues across the country to launch MyBand Nights to promote music bands. The first event kicks off at Rattle and Hum in Hyderabad where MyBand will present Cheese the Band from Calcutta for live Rock performance.
This is a kind of unique happening in India's music scene. Apart from being a portal with just a web presence, MyBand team has traveled across all the major cities to meet up with bands and artists to understand their needs and requirement. This is really an unique event as Bands are selected based on rating and ranking on a website for live ground performance.
Speaking on the occasion, Debashis Dey from MyBand said "we have interacted with over 200 bands from different parts of the country across different genres and have identified the true need of these bands- all they need is a proper platform and exposure to showcase their creative talents."
MyBand was launched only in Feb 2009 and in a short span of time has become the topmost destination for Indian Music Bands. The portal incorporates high-end intelligent technology which automatically converts uploaded songs into low bit-rate streams for easy listening by millions of fans and visitors. This helps a lot as most for the students and majority of the visitors access the internet from dial-up connections which never allow proper listening from a majority of music and media sites.
MyBand Nights will mostly happen on weekends at the most happening venues and youth hangouts. We are trying to select venues which are not too high end as they become unaffordable for the youth - our target audience. Bands are also selected from the rating process and charts on the website from a diverse genre like rock, metal, hip-hop, blues, fusion, jazz etc.
MyBand also has a Facebook MyBand Fanpage with over 17000 active members with constant interaction. "Our motto is to help artists in any way possible - be it connecting a vocalist, a guitarist a drummer with a group or be it a copyright issue or presentation to a label. A dedicated team is always at work on the fanpage to address questions" Debashis said.
Cheese the Band will will be doing the opening act for MyBand Nights at Rattle and Hum which opened recently on Februray 2009 at Jubilee Hills in Hyderabad. Aditya is the lead vocalist while Arjun (Jojo) plays the guitar, Jonathon (Jon) on keyboards and Samrat on drums. The Band was formed in 1997 at Kolkata by Arjun and Samrat and have a release to their credit -the album Josh.

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) ;)

Go shopping with friends, even on the Intenet- Shopcon.in

2009-05-29T15:36:00.008+05:30

Well this the face for the new shopping web site shopcorn.in. Its quite interesting to see how a shopping website is trying to relate itself with an a brand ambassador which is a good looking young lady. This reminds me of the character from Ask.com. This kind a strategy has worked for a lot of businesses and has helped them to connect with people in an efficient manner. The best thing is that you are not dependent on someone like a celebrity or, some1 in real. Its a character which is immortal and thats what it does to the brand as well.

But, once you have established the reach of the character it becomes really important that you keep people's interest in the character. One needs to constantly evolve and need to bring changes around the character.
Ideally for this kind of a scenario the shopping website should have new images every week which makes the visitor absorbed by the character.

If I were the site owner, I would introduce another thing- Sophie's Mood.
As the character is young and interesting, she should be doing stuff. She could promote things with her mood swings. Some thing like "Today Sophie is in a mood to dance", so the character is shown in a fantastic mood and she is all pepped up to hit the party. She will be endorsing party gears like shoes,cloths, make-up etc.
This will create a good amount of curiosity in the visitor to check back what Sophie's mood today and will also get him aware of the product line gradually. This will basically encourage revisits to the website and will help in getting more popularity. Basically making shopping on shopcorn an experience.

Any which way I like the whole concept of Social Shopping Community being introduced . I wish all the best to the people promoting it. I hope that they remain Peppy just like their character "Sophie" and hope to see Sirindia as the next merchant on board too :).

P.S. I also got introduced to the Photon and seriously 3.1 Mbs on your data card. Phew!

New look for Rediff

2009-05-22T19:26:00.003+05:30

Just happen to come across the new international Rediff. I must that i really like the way they have shown the transformation and also liked the music- its pretty subtle and it becomes very relaxing watching the whole thing take shape.

I hope you enjoy it too.

I need a Channel Sales Account Manager for Tell-a-Friend

2009-05-14T16:12:00.003+05:30

The Channel Sales Account manager will be responsible for building and growing all aspects of channel relationships related to the Tell-a-Friend, including selection and recruitment of channel partners, training and enablement, account planning, day to day management, revenue and product forecasting, and related responsibilities. This position has direct revenue responsibility and the qualified candidate must possess a track record. The overarching goal is to expand and extend our organization’s channel to deliver world-class solutions to our mutual clients. The selected candidate will need to proactively work with partners to create a leadership position for our company as the biggest Word Of Mouth Marketing enabler. This is a visible and key position who needs to contribute tactically and strategically.
Key Responsibilities:-
• Identify and close key channel partners (interactive agencies, media houses, designing firms) in target markets.
• Develop winning strategies with each partner that results in new opportunities, sales execution, and incremental revenue.
• Collaborate internally with marketing, business development, product management and other organizations to ensure success with partners in the field.
• Bring Consultative approach to uncovering and expanding partner and customer business issues.
• Execute and support the company go-to-market strategy.
• Ability to comprehend Tell-a-Friend’s product line and associate each product line with the appropriate channel partner(s).
• Domain expertise in the digital agency interaction.
• Hands-on approach to building a business around commercial channel partners.
Qualifications:
• Bachelors of Arts / Bachelors of Science (or equivalent)
• MBA would be an advantage.
• Positive attitude, self managed, decisive, and accountable.
• 2 - 3+ years experience building profitable partner networks
• Proven track record of over achieving product revenue quota.

Interested candidates can bug my HR Manager at Sriidhar@Pramati.com

Sanjay(s) makes everyones jaw drop!

2009-04-28T00:54:00.005+05:30

Continuation to my last post...

As the title suggests, I am sure you can anticipate what coming in the next few lines :). Sanjay finally makes up his mind and takes up Microsoft Corporation, where he would be heading the portal MSN and would be reporting to Microsoft MD Hemant Sachdev(via e4m).

There have been a lot of other movements as well in this week. An other important movement- Sanjay Modi appointed as managing director Monster for India, Middle East and South-East Asia. Prior to this assignment, Modi was head of sales at Monster India.

So all in all both the Sanjays get the greener pasture :)

I wish all the best to both the top guns in their fields to excel in their new positions.

Sanjay Trehan quits NDTV Convergence

2009-04-15T11:49:00.006+05:30

A move that not many of us would have anticipated.
It was just yesterday Sanjay put his papers. In his 2 years stint Sanjay changed a lot of things about the company and even while leaving he managed to give NDTV a new look- which is being talked about. He also launched Tubaah.com and the hindi portal Ndtvkhabar.com.

This news has been covered at a lot of places and I notice a people making comments left right and center. I am just wondering "Is it the Indian mentality to of criticizing or, is it some thing else". Sanjay has done a lot for the company in terms of starting things from complete scratch to establishing itself as a prominent Internet player of the country.

Anyway thats just my opinion. I would just like to say "Best of Luck Sanjay, there are a lot of people who are proud of you and wish the very best for your future ventures".

Cheers!

Rock Star Writer for Product Marketing- Socialtwist

2009-04-13T15:41:00.002+05:30

This position is responsible for the quality and timely delivery of product marketing deliverables including data sheets, presentations, brochures, website content, product go-to-market collaterals and managing these deliverables to ensure that they deliver a single unified value proposition.

The candidate will require having a broad range of product marketing, customer engagement and product positioning experience in a dynamic on-line business. Key to success would be superior interpersonal and relationship building skills to deep analytical and critical thinking skills. Strong quantitative, writing and presentation skills are a must. The candidate should be self-motivated, persistent and comfortable working in a fast-paced, changing environment as well as being a good team player. The job requires working closely with sales, senior management, product management, development team leads, and user experience specialists.

Responsibilities:

Clearly understand and define the target audience, value proposition, and competitive positioning.
Assist in defining “go to market” strategy and market positioning by continually researching market and technology trends.
Drive messaging strategies that positively influence the product(s) positioning and sales within the market. Produce collateral, web page and blog content.
Responsible for updating all key marketing collateral for product upgrades and ensure delivery to customers through website updates, blogs, and email. Collect relevant data, and come up with starting ideas for layout/visuals for collaterals.
Work with Product Management to maintain and deliver on an as-needed basis, relevant competitor information
Supports sales with research & messaging, sales presentations, collateral, and competitive intelligence.

Eligibility:

Atleast 5+ years experience in an online product company or, product oriented digital marketing/advertising agency with deep understanding or responsibility covering business aspects of the organization
Exposure to communicating with US clients or employees or having lived in the US
Proven communication skills
MBA would be a plus

Please email Mr. Vivek Lakshman - vivekl@pramati.com

Star Player parks on Startv.in

2009-04-02T11:15:00.005+05:30

From Saurav's Album

This post is the follow up on the story that I had written some time back.
Finally Startv parked this fantastic piece of work on Startv.in, however seems like a live testing phase for the website. The domain is short and very easy to remember and trust me the website is really addictive- yesterday I started with one episode of Sarabhai vs Sarabhai and ended up watching 4 of them :).

The best part is that its very optimised and the videos load extremely fast.
The second feature I like is the "Watching now", its really very cute how you can easily navigate through the 3d tag cloud.
Though they have not included a lot of programs, but as they keep on adding new content(daily updates are happening it seems) it will become more and more interesting.
I did a tiny survey on my facebook account and it seems it was not just me but a lot of other people who were there who liked it.

Full marks to the development team and full marks to the creative minds behind the new Startv.in.

And oh yes how can I forget, they are using my product ;) for their WOMM- Some implementation improvements are required, so hopefully they contact me soon and I can assist them to get it perfect.

BC Webwise to focus on their new "Movie marketing division"

2009-03-17T14:16:00.011+05:30

BCWEBWWISE announce their new division -focusing on just movie marketing.

In this time of recessions when everyone is confused about how and what needs to be done about the market condition, my Ex Boss makes a very smart move by announcing the new division.

Today when every digital agency is fighting for every kind of business they can lay their hands, and ending up as a perfect lost identity case. They are just making it more difficult for themselves to be chosen by any of their prospective clients.
Today the client wants a perfect strategy, a perfect execution and they are not ready to give any margins for error ie; its looking for specialists.

At this time "productisation" plays a very important role in deciding the future of any kind of a business - both product and services.
With this move, BC clearly states its competency in the movie business and demands attention from every Indian movie marketer.
Every one one likes exclusivity, and right now BC Webwise is open to do that if you are making a movie and you intend to market it online.

Keep it up Chaya!!

X-Files(Maybe....)

2009-03-15T15:00:00.013+05:30

Few days back I attended the HYSEA Awards held in Hyderabad. A lot of startups and established players from Hyderabad showcased their products and services- Socialtwist was also there.

But there was this booth which is quite different from every one else.They call themselves the TruthLabs( First of its kind in India)

The services is divided into the following divisions:

Questioned Document Division
Fingerprint Division
Computer Crime Analysis Division
Psychological Evaluation Division
Failure Analysis Division

Few Salient Features:

Reports in 24 hours, in all deserving cases
Free service in case of poor and underprivileged people.
Examination of questioned documents in English, Hindi or any Indian Languages.
Professional Forensic advice, consultancy and re-examination for confirmatory opinions by professional experts having life time experience.
Personalized attention by trained and qualified experts in each and every case.
Exclusive facilities to deal with Finger Prints, Questioned Documents, Computer Crime, Psychological Evaluation and Failure Analysis.(picked from the website)

Great, is not it?

Though I would wonder how do they plan to market their proposition?

I saw them in a Technology event - I don't know how fruitful that would have been, it was so not the TG for it.
On the website, I was looking for their partners- expecting law firms for such a services. I did not find any.
I am sure they would be in a process to revamp their website completely as its really not up to the mark.
Looked for case studies- again did not find any. Though found a couple on a Google search which talked about "How Truthlabs helped a rich family to confirm the chastity of their newly wedded son's wife"( I don know if thats the kind of publicity they are looking for. )
Few of my colleagues were really impressed with the 24 hrs turn around proposition from them, but in case if they get them selves in to trouble would they be going to Truthlabs?

There are a lot of things that I could suggest, but think I will put it one by one in the comments section- Every one else is also welcome to put their 2 cents on this.

Check out Lifeblob: Internet's Timeline on $test

2009-03-07T01:17:00.001+05:30

Checkout Lifeblob: Internet's Timeline at lifeblob.

With lifeblob, you can put your life on a timeline in under a minute. You can link up your photos, videos and blogs from other services and view them on a beautiful timeline.

Head on over to lifeblob. Check out Lifeblob: Internet's Timeline and also create an account if you have not done so already!

Greenpeace fights against Coal!

2009-02-27T12:35:00.003+05:30

The campaign has a very definitive goal in terms of its communication. Interestingly it has, also set a target to reach 100,000 people(quite liked this aspect).

Along with the entertaining video the website(Coalfinger) is quite informative and some of the facts are quite astonishing too. Though I have not seen it getting much hits on youtube, may be because its a bit long close to 6 mins. However I would insist one to watch it and seriously do some thing about the Global worming situation.

Cheers!!!!!!

Porn on Gaadi.com - Where is the Moderator gone?

2009-02-26T15:10:00.013+05:30

I am really clue less about what to comment on some thing like this. Few days back we saw an terrorist school Ad on the Google Adwords and we asked questions.

So what would you say to this?

A place where people from all the age groups visit to know more about cars.

See some thing like the above and below in the discussion forum.
I would agree that its a user generated platform where every one has the liberty of self expression, but should it not be moderated? Isn't the moderator suppose to take care of such a thing?
I was very surprised as the page was there for more than an hour- there was no action taken on it.
Adding on to this, the section where it was submitted was "Advice and Recommendations"(No comments again).

Simple question: Where was the moderator gone?

All I can advice: Similar property owners like Gaadi.com go get a Community Manager, who would be responsible for avoiding such things in the future and will be able to monitor the reputation of the respective brand over the Internet. Please for heaven sake take this medium seriously. Just because things can be taken off air, it doesn't mean that we take things for granted.

I would definitely like to know what is Junta's opinion on this?

Cool Gmail becomes Gfail

2009-02-25T11:51:00.005+05:30

Gmail service was reportedly disrupted for an estimated 113 million users in Europe, Asia, the United States and elsewhere.
The service was offline for a good two and half hours starting from approximately 0930 GMT.

Interestingly every one got on to twitter to investigate about this mishap- every second there were at least a thousand twits for Gmail. It was a complete panic situation and every one seemed worried about their data which is stored on the Gmail server for years now.

Below is the Quote from Google:

"We're actively investigating the source of the issue and will share more information with our users as soon as we have it," said Google spokesman Andrew Kovacs.

Well every thing said done, but seriously it does freak me - I know how those two and half hours were for me. I would have checked for the services at least every 5 mins and the same goes for my friends, who are Gmail addicts.

A tiny piece of advice- Please download all your emails on your desktop every 15 days from here on and give a chance to other email players to make some money- you can try other services matching Gmail and to name few aaaaaahhh hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm and some more thinking, any way I mean you can try new things :).

India's hulu.com - Star Player Beta

2009-02-17T22:44:00.007+05:30

Finally, my mom will find the Internet useful!

The Hulu.com of India is here to stay- Star Player

It is the definitive site to watch the most popular and talked about videos across the Star network. Star player aims to serve you high quality videos across all the popular shows on Star. The player has some extra cool features like -

Lights Off/On,
Adjustable picture settings,
Adjustable video size.

And it looks stunningly sleek to enhance one's video watching experience. The full screen mode can get you confused with a real TV quality picture.

However few recommendations:

Please get yourself a new URL, dont make is a sub domain. This deserves a new brand identity.
And obviously have a good sharing widget like Tell-a-Friend :) , I think you should go for a custom button, along with other customizations.
Please remove those comments from the comments section saying "Testing testing testing" lolz.
It definitely needs profiling- should take registrations and learn what the particular user wants to see and would they like to track.
It could also look at some kind of a collaboration with properties like burrp Tv- so in case some one has missed a star program, burrp will suggest its user to catch up on the program on Star player- the proposition is obvious.
Would also suggest a Desktop version of this player- which updates the user with latest stuff that has gone live on the site etc- I hope the mobile version also should follow.
And finally, you need a forum, all the people coming on to this would definitely like to talk about the particular episodes or, the cast and etc.

Overall a great initiative. I am sure a lot of people would soon follow!

Best of luck Star.

Google Chrome introduced in Japan

2009-02-10T23:36:00.005+05:30

Well As my friend said it takes time for information to travel from Japan to India(stupid inside joke).

Anyway, fantastic job done. Lovely animation and must say its quite inspiring as well. I would not know how much does it cost to make some thing of this sort, but if it gives you half a million views in just 10 days of launch- its all worth it.

Enjoy the video!!

Kaamsutra Vs Adultdost......lolz

2009-02-09T14:33:00.001+05:30

I am sure many of you liked the earlier campaign mentioned on a2b with a similar fashion.
Here is another which will definitely get you excited, however will send you to a job site called the Sutrajobs.com owned by Mr. Waqar Azmi.

Asking to to look for job positions instead of pondering upon sexual positions.

This campaign was covered by Ashis from Pluggd.in.

And the best part of the post were the comments:

Prashant Singh wrote on 6 February, 2009, 16:42
Funny ! but hardly the first .. haven’t they heard of desi*.* websites since the start of internet

[Reply]

Rizwan wrote on 6 February, 2009, 16:43
Thanks for covring this…:) just added this to delicious

[Reply]

Ekalavya wrote on 6 February, 2009, 17:32
Totally inspired by AdultDost.com

[Reply]
Kartik Dua 's reply:on February 6th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
@Ekalavya, Google Search was on the lines of Yahoo search and Ask..

[Reply]

Ekalavya wrote on 6 February, 2009, 17:57
@ Kartik: Oh is that so? But you would agree that Google Search is ‘better’ right?
Or am i being too subjective?

[Reply]
Kartik Dua 's reply:on February 6th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
@Ekalavya, I totally agree to that.. Google search came after Yahoo and was executed better…

[Reply]
Ashish 's reply:on February 6th, 2009 at 6:01 pm

@Kartik Dua, Ah! so are you saying you did it better than adultdost

[Reply]

Ekalavya wrote on 6 February, 2009, 18:05
@ Kartik: Should only copy when you know you can do better…
I think kaamsutra is lame. But then again thats just me. I’m sure you’ll find fans

[Reply]
Sameer 's reply:on February 6th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
@Ekalavya, I guess this was implemented a lot better than aduldost..i liked the overall name funda - of using ’sutra’ brand..good stuff guys..

[Reply]
Prashant Singh 's reply:on February 6th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
@Sameer,

“sutra” brand. ??
as in Sutra HR ??
just kidding .

[Reply]

Ankit wrote on 6 February, 2009, 18:17
its called copying the idea … comparing it with Google and yahoo is not even relevant… anyways I have seen both .. Adult dost is much better.

[Reply]

Clyde wrote on 6 February, 2009, 19:17
brand? Sutra?
So let me get this straight, through a communication which is set around the premise of blindly taking an idea & modifying it through ‘not so well thought out or planned’ tweaks & via poorly executed force fits, you’re trying to say that this is what Sutra is all about. Which tells me that Sutra is all about shoddy execution, unethical practices AND being cheeky. I’m sorry folks, be it my advertising background, but this brand simply does not have the same appeal anymore. I think they’re losing out much more than what they stand to gain.

PS. Google v/s Yahoo being used here. Hilarious. That was a noob statement dude.

[Reply]

Nixon wrote on 6 February, 2009, 19:20
I’ve seen both. I must say AdultDost is much better in execution. Kaamsutra seems like a cheap copy. Maybe its a hasty release but the AdultDost guys should take this as a compliment.

[Reply]
rajnish 's reply:on February 8th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
@Nixon, respect ur opinion, personally feel adultdost is the crappiest and most mindless campaign i have ever seen simply b’coz it doesn’t serve ne purpose. nobody looking for an adult dost wud get attracted to active darshan on tata sky so much so that he wud actually go ahead and buy tata sky to watch active darshan. any campaign viral or otherwise shud serve a purpose and in case of Sutra it works really well. as for the campaign, adult dost can be called inspired from NDTV imagine’s ads about a year ago. grt job sutra.

[Reply]

Rizwan wrote on 6 February, 2009, 19:26
guys I think it is getting too personal….let me get a few things sorted out. Points we have grossly overlooked in the discusson:
* It is just another ad campaign, if you guys think that the idea is copied from adult dost, I can say the same about adult dost getting its inspiration from the numerous viral campaigns executed else where. Dude, there is no comparison in the idea, we had the idea since the inception of sutra and all our friends telling us about Kaam and Sutra.
* Please stop bickering your own industry. This is not plagiarized in any way…..I agree that the concepts might match but this was not supposed to be copied from Adult Dost (it being worthy is completely another discussion, for which we are not the right people)

We had an idea and we did it, I dont understand what is hurting you so much.

I dont want our team to be a part of this discussion - with Clyde hitting at the brand and you guys thinking it was a shoddy execution, I respect your views and accept it as a feedback.

Thank you

[Reply]

Rizwan wrote on 6 February, 2009, 19:28
@Nixon if you guys think that KaamSutra is a copy, then you guys should be happy and boast about it. The very fact that you guys have been stirred shows hints of fury over another campaign

[Reply]

Clyde wrote on 6 February, 2009, 19:47
ahem… lets all be happy. a toast!
no hard feelings Rizwan, the frat does take a few things to the hilt. Guess this was our turn.

[Reply]

Priyanka wrote on 6 February, 2009, 19:53
Hilarious!! I love this!
Good work guys..
Interesting concept!!

[Reply]

Ashish wrote on 6 February, 2009, 19:56

Guys
Lets not take away the fun out of this campaign..if this is a copy, so are bollywood movies/songs….its all about execution and as far as I am concerned, I liked the overall execution..

And please avoid any personal attacks - there are better places to do that.

[Reply]
Rizwan 's reply:on February 6th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
@Ashish cudnt have put it in a better way

[Reply]

Rizwan wrote on 6 February, 2009, 19:57
@clyde dude I understand, I just didn’t wanna compare campaigns and start throwing bricks at each other - I really respect what you guys did with AdultDost.com and I was one of the first to spread the word; its just we didnt design a Me2 campaign - and the remarks at the company and the brand just got a lil too fierce

[Reply]

shashi wrote on 6 February, 2009, 20:50
Excuse me adultdost guys - i do not understand your bitching (yes you guys are!) - isnt adultdost inspired by adultfriendfinder? (feel free to say ‘NO’)..u guys are behaving as if you created world’s first viral campaign,,

Grow up guys,

[Reply]
Clyde 's reply:on February 7th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
@shashi,
It ain’t ‘bitching’. A very mature term to use from such a ‘mature’ person like you, reps to you on that one.
I don’t want to get into the AdultDost ‘copied’ from AdultFriendFinder, because they’re 2 different things if you didn’t notice. One is a business, the other is a ’spoof’ customised to be a communication tool for a ‘brand’.

Really, the ‘world’ does not care what you care about or not, especially not after your ideas of a business model compared to a campaign. In your world, coke & domex are the same thing because they’re both liquid. Rizwan & I had some closure on this, an amicable one, but then you had to act like Kofi Anan on crack (very mature I must say) & ask us to grow up. Don’t consider this a retort. And yes, we DID create an awesome viral idea. IDEA… please look that word up.

@Ashish.
Didn’t want to get personal. Rizwan I agree is professional, reps to you bruv. But it’s folks like Shashi & their late reactions to stir up calm waters that ticks me off. Think he needs to set his alarm straight. Over & Out. Reps to the Sutra team.

[Reply]
shashi 's reply:on February 7th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
@Clyde, so it hurts when somebody starts questioning your own campaign. Lessons learnt - respect others.
It’s not about closure..its about initiating such mindless debates,

god bless you and media2win team.

[Reply]
Clyde 's reply:on February 8th, 2009 at 1:30 am
@shashi,
bleh.
oh and yes, thank you for the bleh-sings.

[Reply]

Ashish wrote on 6 February, 2009, 20:54

Adultdost guys - Please respect others. Honestly, I didnt expect such an unprofessional behavior from you guys..(I agree with shashi’s comment on ‘originality of idea’)..

Do not unnecessarily spoil the fun..I don’t care whether there are 100 other virals speaking the same stuff (or copying same idea)..as long as they have the punch, we will publish them here..

[Reply]

roggie wrote on 7 February, 2009, 12:34
kaamsutra.info would have been a great job website - looking for the best “kaam” - or rather the ideal “position” - what a cool campaign that would be…

[Reply]

Ishu wrote on 7 February, 2009, 22:14
I personally really dont care whether the hen came first or the egg… All i really care is enjoying the viral.. and kaamsutra.info is pure fun…
Dont spoil the party if you can’t find your best position ;), Riz can help you find a better position.. :)…

Great Work Riz and sutra guys. This is pure art and creative thinking.

Thanks.

[Reply]
Clyde 's reply:on February 8th, 2009 at 1:31 am
@Ishu,
great, now the peons are in on this. this just gets better. call in the tea boys will ya.

[Reply]
Ishu 's reply:on February 8th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
@Clyde,
oh man.. atleast you should not tell it in open that all the guys that were commenting for you were your peons and tea boys… cmon dude… grow up… dont show the attitude… mother, mother that guy cheated me in the class…. :(… Enjoy the fun… the fun of web, the fun of creativity…
Chill down and find your kama postiion… htttp://www.kamasutra.info..

Thanks.

[Reply]

Lalit wrote on 8 February, 2009, 14:34
Thanks for all the entertainment in the comments, guys .. maan too bad it got over so soon.
This was funnier than the campaign .. BTW the campaign was great .. I forwarded it to all my friends looking for jobs to relieve them of their stress… good job !!

[Reply]

Rizwan wrote on 8 February, 2009, 16:06
Thanks guys for all the comments here….we respect all your views and will try to come up with even a better one next time….:)

All in all I would say it was nice campaign, though not very polished but manageable.
However thanks to the gentleman from M2W who had a very strong reaction over the matter and it seems he took it very personally and may be helped the campaign to go further viral lolz.....

I would agree that Adultdost was the one which came out first and did fairly well.

My dear friend from M2W the real purpose of a "viral potential campaign" is to provoke an extreme reaction from the audience and it could be any thing laugh, cry , angry etc. And in that case, kaamsutra would be categorized as a successful campaign as it was enough to get the extreme out of you and made you react and pass the information further to your friends and made me write this post as well :).

Well, congratulation Mr Rizwan you did a great job with your microsite!!!

Luck you Ashis :) :) :) :)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All inclusive Air fare - Rs 883.00

2009-02-04T17:46:00.001+05:30

Seriously can you beat this?

Kingfisher Airlines, the only airline that offers flights between Mumbai and Nasik now offers all inclusive fares starting at Rs. 885/- for travel from Nasik to Mumbai and Rs 883/- for travel from Mumbai to Nasik. Guests can now avail these "Value fares" by planning their travel in advance.

The Kingfisher Airlines' flight leaves Mumbai airport at 05:50 am and arrives at Nasik at 06:40 am. The return flight leaves Nasik at 4:30pm and arrives at Mumbai at 5:20pm. These convenient fight timings ensure that those who would like to return to Mumbai on the same day can make the best use of their time and the day, when they are at Nasik. Guests from Nasik can now get onward connections to Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and London from Mumbai and it is now possible for Mumbai based guests to visit Shirdi & return on the same day.

Mr. Siva Ramachandran - Vice President Global Sales, Kingfisher Airlines said, "Since the commencement of flights on the Mumbai-Nasik route Kingfisher Airlines has offered pilgrims, businessmen, traders, corporate executives and other guests a very cost-effective option to travel from Mumbai to Nasik and save time by choosing to fly instead of using surface transport, all for just a little more."

I know it all sounds really crazy!! Now you can sit in a Real Aeroplane for some thing less than Rs 1000. I still remember the campaign done by Deccan airlines about the zero air fare tickets where there was a tax factor of Rs 1000 and some change. This was a ground breaking stuff when they called in people to experiance the aeroplane for some thing slightly more that Rs 1000.

And now the company which bought Deccan just take the legacy further.

P.S. Would be really keen to see the promos of the proposition that Kingfisher has to offer!

World's Biggest Hotel Search Engine Launched by iXiGO.com

2009-01-22T15:54:00.000+05:30

New Delhi, Delhi, India, Thursday, January 22, 2009 -- (BWI) iXiGO.com, India's largest travel search engine today announced the launch of the world's biggest hotel search engine, with easy to use and never seen before functionalities for its users. Now, travelers across the world can search for rates and availability, in real-time, across more than 220,000 hotels, hostels, heritage properties, serviced apartments, home-stays, guest houses and villas.

This latest offering from iXiGO.com, India's fastest growing travel site, empowers globetrotters to choose from a wide variety of accommodations from multiple hotel sites, all of which are bookable with instant confirmation on the respective hotel booking website. A sample search on iXiGO's hotel search engine for accommodation in London found over 850 hotels, with 20 properties within the city below US$20 (Rs. 1000) per room-night and for Paris, the search fetched more than 1380 properties with prices ranging from US$ 29 (Rs. 1400) to US$ 1000 (Rs. 49,000) per room-night. This included 600 properties in the budget category (less than US$ 100 /Rs. 5000 per room-night) and 33 five-star properties. A New Delhi search found over 250 hotels starting from US$7 (Rs 315) per room-night. Similar searches for cities all over the world, e.g. Nairobi (Kenya), Santiago (Chile), Reykjavik (Iceland) and Guangzhou (China), found numerous hotel deals with a large variety of choices for selection by location, prices and star-ratings. According to market research conducted by the company, no other travel site globally offers more hotel inventory with real-time search and booking.

Speaking on the occasion of the launch, Mr. Aloke Bajpai, Founder & CEO remarked - "With our ability to integrate niche hotel aggregators quickly, we have gone from being India's biggest, to being the world's biggest hotel search in just over eight months, now, aggregating nearly 50 hotel booking providers globally". Nitin Gurha, VP, Travel Partnerships added - "Now travelers have a uniquely comprehensive, unbiased and easy-to-use metasearch platform for narrowing down their choice of hotels based on their preferences of location, amenities, rates and hotel booking site. Hotel sellers worldwide get a neutral and unbiased 'hotel marketplace' that not only acts as a marketing medium, but also generates highly qualified online-leads for fulfillment. Our platform allows consumers to choose hotels based not only on price, but also on the unique value each and every property delivers".

iXiGO.com had launched its Indian hotel search engine in April, 2008 and has since established content partnerships with multiple hotel aggregators including HostelsClub, HotelsCombined, Travelguru, Inasra and Intech. These relationships allow travelers using iXiGO.com to search and compare prices across nearly 50 hotel booking websites worldwide and give consumers more than 6 million real time bookable hotel-rooms. In addition to descriptions and pictures of hotels, this launch also introduces some cutting-edge features and usability tools never seen before on hotel search sites, including city-maps with hotel markers, city-landmarks and pictures, search by distance from an address, location-based search, filters for amenities, property-types and hotel-chains, aggregation of travel reviews from multiple review sites and comparison of hotel room-rates for the exact same hotel-room from multiple hotel websites on a single page.

iXiGO.com has experienced phenomenal growth since its launch due to its customer friendliness, supplier-centric business model and a strong focus on product innovation. iXiGO allows consumers to search across all available travel inventory and book on travel sites directly by redirecting to their final booking page. Since it does not sell anything itself, iXiGO can aggregate flight, hotel and bus deals from multiple travel sites. Travelers view it as a comprehensive source of information for travel related products while travel suppliers find this a perfect marketing channel to showcase their key differentiators. iXiGO has been named among India's hottest startups by Wall Street Journal / Mint and BusinessToday.

Here is one startup that has completely depended on its product and its partnerships to get the attention it deserves. And must say that they are definitely doing a great job, since they have started. They always thought to of doing things in a different way and did not fear trying out new things which they thought would enhance the website. Best of Luck IXIGO on your new release!!!!!

Expectations from 2009: A Seriatim > Interactive Agencies (Part 2/5)- Alootechie

2009-01-21T23:45:00.000+05:30

The original post had all of the top honchos of the Indian Digital Agencies talking about "What to expect in the new Year." A lot of them seemed way to optimistic and some have their lines prepared- they have the same thing to say to every question that is asked to them ;).

Any way what I felt is :

The recession has hit every one-from the BMWs to even the grocery store on the ground floor of my apartment. Even Google has stopped hiring and has closed a lot of its offices in the European region and APAC.

So its obvious that the marketing budgets have also become lesser than what they were last year. It would be completely foolish to sit around and expect the advertiser would come and knock your digital marketing store because the Internet allows things to be tracked. Well my dear friends now the advertiser will no longer just pay the digital agency to create a beautiful campaigns. They would not even listen to you unless you are able to give them a competitive ROI matrix of the campaign.

I would completely agree with Vivek Das's quote "The stress is on more efficient strategies and vehicles. A regular media plan with banners being bombarded all over the internet won't do any more."

Right now the advertiser is looking way beyond a general banner campaign in his media plan, he is looking at further cheap and effective options to reach that prospective consumer of its product from the 80 million Internet junta of the country. May be its time that even the digital agencies do some real time research in terms of understanding the consumer while designing a strategy for their clients and not just randomly pick up stuff from western world and present it in their template based ppt.

Dell made 1 million dollars out of twitter in a single day- when twitter itself is yet to launch its business plan by March this year.

So why can't my dear digital agencies in India looking beyond micro sites and some crap game oriented campaign. No offense but the agencies do have a lot to offer the clients, but are lacking vision right now. I get 15% of my traffic from twitter on a daily basis and another 10% from orkut which results in around 10% conversion. I am sure every one would have already raised their hands to ask me about the CPA of my activities- well lets say its the 10% of what my agency was trying to charge me.

So what I wish to say is please put some more thoughts and dont be afraid to explore the posibilities that the Social Media hold for you.

NDTV.com partners with SocialTwist to launch 'word of mouth' marketing

2009-01-14T22:52:00.001+05:30

I read that SocialTwist announced a new free service: Tell-a-Friend, which replaces the old-fashioned e-mail pop-up with a Tell-a-Friend (TaF) widget that makes it easy for site/blog users to instantly reach out to friends on multiple social networks, chats, and email groups. The widget is free and, with a simple signup, can be customized to meet user needs.

See their press release at: http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/press.jsp

You can add it to your site or blog for free at: http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com

The New face for Yahoo! - Carol Bartz

2009-01-14T20:59:00.001+05:30

Over the weekend, it became clear that Carol Bartz really wanted the Yahoo! CEO job, and that the board was willing to give it to her. Today, the appointment became official.

Carol Bartz is the no-bullshit, down-to-earth, highly successful former CEO of Autodesk. Her story in Silicon Valley is a lesson in career management: boards of Intel, Cisco, Cadence, etc. I’ve met her, and found her to be simple, direct, unencumbered by ego or need for adulation. We invited her to a fireside chat once at the MIT Club of Northern California’s Leadership Development program. She candidly shared many intimate details of her journey, including her battle with breast cancer soon after being named to the Autodesk CEO job. In a nutshell, I respect her greatly.

Carol is unlike Carly Fiorina of HP, who was constantly after gratuitous PR, lacked substance and eventually departed as a failure. She is also unlike Meg Whitman of eBay who was at the right place at the right time, and did not have to do a lot of heavy-lifting.

Carol has done excellent heavy-lifting with the turnaround of Autodesk in the past.

And very importantly, she has also mentored a great successor at Autodesk in Carl Bass, who ably shepherds the company today.

And the rest of the story can be seen at Sramana Mitra's Blog post .

Astroyogi.com Introduces the First Ever in India "Live Phone Advice"

2009-01-06T15:10:00.000+05:30

Astroyogi.com, India's leading astrology portal announces the launch of first-of-its kind, real-time service, "Live Phone Advice." This service enables the customer to choose from the in-house/ celebrity experts registered with Astroyogi.com, thus eliminating the need of prior appointment.

The customer can buy time depending on the package and rates of the expert astrologer/tarot card reader/numerologist available on the website. Astroyogi.com offers an easy way to consult expert astrologers, whenever the customer wishes. As the customer hits the 'Call' button on the website, a call is sent out in real time simultaneously to his/her phone (on the number provided by the customer) as well as to the astrologer, thus connecting both the customer and the expert to each other.

Meena Kapoor, CEO, Astroyogi.com commented, "We are very excited to offer this service to our consumers. It has always been our endeavour to provide our customers the best available facilities and services. With the introduction of "Live Phone Advice, one can choose from amongst the best experts without a prior appointment. This tool is especially useful for the NRI audience who wish to talk in person to an astrologer."

"Live Phone Advice" is a personalised service, where the expert is all ears for the customer. Once minutes are bought, the customer may spend them on the astrologer of his choice. All they need to do is choose the expert astrologer, numerologist or a Tarot reader they wish to speak with and purchase a package, starting with a minimum of Rs. 200.

Once they have purchased talk time via a credit/ debit card, they place a call on the website to the expert of their choice. After confirming the phone/mobile number, the customer receives a call on the number provided instantly. Astrologers, numerologists & Tarot card readers can also join this platform. They need to send their profile & register online on www.astroyogi.com within the Phone Advice section.

About Astroyogi.com

Astroyogi.com, India's leading astrology portal was formally launched in 2001. Meena Kapoor, CEO Astroyogi.com, along with her team, had to completely boot strap her way through. The company went on to acquire co-branded channel partnerships in India for MSN, Yahoo as well as Rediff to power their astrology channels. Astroyogi.com is also the preferred partner for several media partners such as NDTV and Web18.

Mobile Industry Partner

With the mobile industry having a substantial need for quality content, Astroyogi.com became the preferred partner of several mobile operators and content aggregators both within India as well as in the international market; due to an ability to deliver quality content across all vas platforms in over 14 languages.

Celebrity Consultants:

Astroyogi.com has tied up with the best in the industry, Ajai Bhambi, Dr. P.K. Sharma, Sanjay Jumaani, Maa Prem Ritambhara are some of the celebrities that provide their email services to our internet clients.

The endeavour is to build a directory of astrologers, tarot readers and numerologists that can determine their own pricing, and the customers of this service, will rank the service, based on their personal experience, and what they feel is value for money. Astrologers will get brand value and promotion through the Astroyogi platform, and will not have to maintain their own website or payment gateway and customers will be able to speak as and when they wish! It is a win-win service for both!

Vdopia Announces Video Advertising Deal with Network18

2009-01-02T13:23:00.000+05:30

VDOPIA , India's leading Online Video Advertising Network and Video Ad Platform Company, today announced an online Video advertising deal with Web18, online arm of Network 18 Group, Network18 is one of India's leading full play media conglomerates with interests in television, print, internet, filmed entertainment, mobile content and allied businesses. As per the deal, Web 18 will use Vdopia Video Ad Platform for delivering ads on its Video Content & Vdopia Ad Network will procure and serve advertisements for all video content across all Web 18 Sites.

Web18 has impressive list of destination sites including ibnlive.com (leading news site), moneycontrol.com (leading financial site),josh18.com, cricketnext.com, tech2.com & buzz18.com. A large number of viewers are now accessing news and other content on the internet across these sites. "Web18 is amongst the leading internet companies in the country today and videos at ibnlive and moneycontrol are huge hit amongst the internet audience not only in India but across the world." said Srikanth, Founder, Vdopia. "Its indeed an honour to be associated with the Network 18 brand and we are happy to be an important part of the video strategy of Web18 group."

VDOAd, Vdopia's Video Ad platform, provides dynamic video ad serving technology to most premium Internet TV channels in India. It is the most effective way for advertisers to reach out to Indians worldwide. The Vdopia Ad Network reaches a very high percentage of Indian audience worldwide, connecting brand advertisers in more than 100 M video streams of premium content every month.

"We are very pleased to announce our deal with Vdopia. They are the Video Monetization Specialists on the internet," says Rajan Srinivasan, Sales head, Web18 "Vdopia has combination of excellent team, superior technology, innovative ad formats and amazing understanding of the Indian and NRI markets. Through their innovations in the Video Advertising Formats Vdopia opens many new monetization opportunities for publishers making them the pioneers in the Video Advertising field. We have been working with them now for over 6 months and they are strategically an important partner for us, as we are seeing tremendous growth in video viewership across our sites."

He added "The viewership of online videos across Web18 sites has exploded this year. Videos have become critical part of online experience for users. Web18 is committed to be part of this experience. Viewers from all across the world come to Web18 to watch latest news, events etc."

TATA Sky the Moral Police- Media2Win gives them the infra support

2008-12-31T15:25:00.000+05:30

Well yes this is how they plan to do it :)
It is a must visit for every one of us. I would say TATA Sky guys have really hit the sweet spot with this. So go to www.adultdost.com and find it for yourself.

Great work Namrata and Team of Media2win .

Blog.co.in introduces Tell-a-Friend to all of its bloggers

2008-12-29T14:48:00.000+05:30

Blog.co.in introduces Tell-a-Friend to all its bloggers on the platform.

Now Tell-a-Friend apears on all the 127000 blogs of Tell-a-Friend over night. Now this way the number of users of Socialtwist's Tell-a-Friend widget moves up from 10000(quoted in the 18th Dec Press Releaseon Forbes) to close to 140000 properties.

This is definitely a great moment for Socialtwist as the number looks great when we see that the widget has been lauched just on 18th September this year.

Online Certificate on Terrorism - Calling for Entries

2008-11-28T17:40:00.000+05:30

Though the original post had 23 comments, but from me "No Comments Google".

But yeah you guys are wel come to comment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Take your ultimate break with Nestle KitKat

2008-11-13T14:11:00.000+05:30

This ultimate story is brought to you by JWT France. The story kinda relates to every youth who is working hard to keep his job safe( because of the current recession).

The moral of the story:

Never sit in front of your bosses cabin.

Hi Ishita, hope you have a great time out here!

2008-11-06T13:17:00.000+05:30

Hi All,

It gives me an imense pleasure to introduce you to ashes2brands new co -author Ms. Ishita Sharda. I know Ishita for quite some time now(around a year and half).

She is an attractive single woman with very very matured copy writing skills, she has been the part of the industry for three years and as an achievement she has changed her company 5 times already.....and the search is "on" yet again;).

Few clients she has handled:

DDA,
Airports Authority of India,
BHEL, Northern Railways,
CTC Plaza Chunmun,
Catmoss,
Clinic Dermatech,
Home Saaz,
Baksons Homeopathy,
Bombay Selections,
Gujral Sons, Spaze,
Orris Infrastructure
Maruti (These guys still offer her heavy discounts) and has been writing for few good number of magazines too.

Ishita holds a Masters Degree in English Literature and is on her way to get a Post Graduation Degree in Business Administration(Phew!). Any way I think you would find out a lot about her once you start interacting with her and incase you want to send her flowers the postal address would be:

Crystal Hues Limited
5th floor, Devika Towers
Nehru Place, Delhi

P.S. The watchman doesnot let any thing else pass.

Please take care of the key to success "Word of Mouth"

2008-10-23T19:20:00.000+05:30

Word Of Mouth, phew! seems that's all my life is about for the last one and half years(and I dont know for how long its going to be with me).

When I was in BCwebwise, I would tell my clients that "lets do some thing so good that you save some big chunk from your media expenditure"-Get a lot of WOM.

Well I would say people buy it, and spend some really good amounts with me to create a fantastic online real estate. The list is long and you can find it out on the "Our work" section of the Agency's own master piece.

So it took me one whole year[:)] to understand that every Marketing Manager wants to save money and he likes to hear terms mentioned below:

You will fetch a lot of Word Of Mouth
Your campaign would go Viral
Imagine the Unpaid Traffic
Wont you like the Complimentary publicity
Think about the savings

And if you are able to follow up with "Think about that promotion", you have won his heart already.

This one is for every Marketing Manager :

Please work closely with your agencies and keep you eyes open for products like Tell-a-Friend

,so that you get the platform to reach all the above bullet points.

Lenovo- finds the man with the longest and the strongest nails

2008-09-29T14:26:00.001+05:30

Word of Mouth Marketing for your website

2008-09-18T10:44:00.001+05:30

With the direct marketing facing issues of overblown promises, overuse and spam, more and more people only trust messages that come from a friend or a credible reference. And with the rapidly increasing use of instant messengers, personal blogs, RSS feeds and social networks, Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) is increasingly becoming the key promotional medium on the Internet.

SocialTwist believes great content on every online property needs to get all the traffic it deserves. Today the best way would be to let the readers talk to others about why they should have look at a particular content. Tell-a-Friend is a free service launched by SocialTwist that enables your visitors to quickly and easily announce the content to their friends via various channels such as Email, Blogs, Twitter, Instant Messengers, etc without hampering the browsing experience.

Worth trying out guys.

My last official email at BCwebwise!

2008-09-16T14:10:00.000+05:30

Spent an amazing time at my dream company but its time, that I move on. So below is my last email sent all my colleagues.

Dear Friends,

During the time I've worked here, I've developed warm friendships with several colleagues. The friendships are so real that I've come to feel this staff is like my second family.
So, it's with a little sadness that I tell you now, I'm leaving the agency. My greener pastures await, and I'm off to the broader horizons.

I'll take with me the memories of the most rewarding time of my life, and hope the future will show me as much happiness as I've had here.
You're all so great, pat each other on the back.
I'll miss you and think of you often. Thank you for the good times, the problem-solving, the 'getting it done by the skin of our teeth'.(if this is true for you)

Best and sincerest wishes for success in all your futures,

Saurav Patnaik

Database-Led Communications - The next in thing

2008-05-27T01:31:00.000+05:30

Ogilvy & Mather India (O&M), Draft FCB- Ulka Interactive, Mudra's Tribal DDB and JWT's RMG Connect are gearing up their operations to attain that edge in Rs 16,000 crore Indian ad industry.

O&M(Interactive) is offering the services for health care marketing, Ulka Interactive and RMG Connect are investing in tools and technology to upgrading their offerings.

All the above advertising giants have their USPs for their special offering, and this is definitely going to affect the general mass media marketing. Now the the advertising will be more focused and targeted, as these advertising will offer accountability for the ad spend.

I am sure you can already think of the sectors and the markets that it can completely take over!!

The kind of investments the agencies have made, well this better be the next thing.lolzzz.

The fastest growing digital agency ... Now in India!

2008-05-13T14:31:00.000+05:30

UK-based advertising agency M&C Saatchi is now in India with its digital advertising and direct marketing agency M&C Saatchi Direct & Digital in India. M&C Saatchi London has won the inaugural APG 'Strategy Agency of the Year' award.

The man in action is Mr Sumantra Sengupta who joined the firm as the chief executive officer. The new appointed CEO was the senior vice president and general manager at RMG Connect. They will kick start from "Sadi New Delhi" and "Amchi Mumbai".

The agency will serve its existing clients and already has few new clients under its belt.

Source : AFAQs

Great news actually, as mentioned in my earlier post about the "big players coming in to India" the competition will now further increase. Just wondering, does India really have this kind of a business ?

Well I am sure every one out there is going to tell me about the success stories, the Indian Internet industry has seen in the past couple of years and yada yada......

I agree upon the fact that the industry has definitely grown and is moving ahead. The concern lies with the corporates who still have not seen this growing and don't have a strategic dept which can handle this medium. The people sitting at the top seats are still unaware how important it is to have a specialist group to manage the company's marketing and branding portfolio on the Internet.
As of now all these top honchos are busy playing the "me too" sports and are happy duplicating things.

I could give few good number of names of the companies which have great online presence in rest of the world but their Indian counter parts are still unaware "How to go about it" and they expect their offline marketing team to come up with strategies.
lolzzzzzzzz.

Think this post has become slightly long than expected, so will continue it in the next post. Untill then lets buckle up our shoes and work towards making this a movement, and make the corporates realise that specialist are important and having a team of strategists for the internet medium is the need of the hour.

Top Positions occupied in the month of March - April

2008-05-04T06:02:00.000+05:30

So where do you want to apply? And who should you send that cover letter?

Id8 labs : The man for the company would be Mr. Vivek Saurabh. Vivek has been appointed as the new CEO for the agency. Vivek will be operating from Delhi and expanding the business in the nation wide.

Tanmay the COO and Sheetal has been appointed as the VP, they will continue to have their influence in Mumbai region.

Connecturf : Mr. Atul Hedge has comfortably taken the CEO position. He was a part of the team which set up Euro RSCG advertising in India. During his seven year stint with Euro RSCG, he moved up from a postion of a trainee to that of a vice-president. In 2003, he moved to Vyas Gianetti Creative to head the agency. During his tenure with VGC, he launched VGC Sports, a sports concept firm.

RMGconnect : This has been the max movement area, where all four from the DDB crowd decided to shift their tribe.

Rajeev Sharma takes up the digital wagon joining the company as the VP. Zeenia Mehta will do the creative supervisory. Anis Bude joins as the a creative director and Kamlesh Mehta has taken the position of the Sr. creative director.

Please let me know if there were any other movements I am missing. I would be glad to add it up :)

Orkut launches Social Applications in India

2008-04-17T17:48:00.000+05:30

Facebook came first with the applications which could be used as media tools for marketeers. However in India Orkut has been the most popular social networking site(No. 2 site in traffic rankings)took a long while to enhance and come at par with Facebook.

16th April, Orkut launches its applications in India. Now you can make your application s using the orkut API.
Apps are integrated directly into your orkut experience. When you log into your profile, you will be able to add up to 25 apps to your orkut profile. Your friends will see all the apps you've added, be able to interact with them, and can add any apps they like to their own profiles.

Few of the Indian:

MyHangman:
It is the classic word game of Hangman and you can create one of your own on your favourite movies, music, TV shows and more. And the rest you know what to do.

This application is developed by C2W.

Chakpak Movies :

Chakpak Movies is a social movies application that lets you rate/review movies and related photos/videos and share your ratings and reviews with your friends. It also lets you organize movies by classifying them into ones you have seen, you own, your favorite movies and other similar categories.

The credits for this goes to Chakpak.com

India Dekha:

Make your India Dekha! Map and share it with your friends.

This one is done by Zoomtra

Teen Patti:

The all time classic game goes multiplayer.

This time the credit goes to Mingle Box which is another social networking site!!

Phew!! it was a tough job pitching corporates with Facebook Application, as every one was not convinced with its reach to the masses. Now they have what they were looking for and its just a matter of time and all the agencies would be called upon for making few of these application to poke, hug, kick, and every thing you can think of on Orkut.

Now you check out this video below.

A short note... possibly the last here

2008-04-02T15:49:00.000+05:30

This medium that was named Internet knows no boundaries. The horizon is yet to be seen, and it's good that way. Keeps me going!

In the love or fascination of the medium, lot of us “internet marketing professionals” miss out on the key aspect – communication. I find it ironical how communication gets limited by the people who are in the business of doing it. It is very critical that we understand the importance of the fact that communication comes first. Internet, mobile, print, television, radio, outdoor - any medium can serve a communication effectively only if it is planned and formulated considering two very basic and essential aspects –

Why is the communication required?
Who is the communication meant for?

Once these two aspects are worked upon and the framework laid, come the next set which depend a lot on the medium,

What has to be communicated?
How will it be communicated?

This approach has worked great for me and has delivered almost always. It is for all people entering the business of communication and those who are lost in the mediums.

With this note, I bid farewell to A2B and hope to start scribbling soon… some blog, some subject, some night…

Blue-sky thinking

2007-12-07T15:04:00.000+05:30

Bikes must be shown speeding up, doing anti gravity stunts. Washing powders whitens any thing comes their way, the shampoo has to introduce some extra terrestrial science to the human species. And there seems to be some law which says that "you have to show ladies in a soap ads in the minimal cloths possible and talk about how did they become that beautiful".

But chocolate advertising : It can either make us drool in anticipation of its deliciousness or inspire us with the sight of how people using the product change their mood.

In the below ad the chocolate brand doesnot say that " Chocolate is about joy and pleasure", instead it shows what joy is.
Hope you guys like it!

Watch out people! The Globalisation wave striketh...

2007-11-27T01:55:00.000+05:30

I will stick to the industry I cater to "The digital ad world".

The Main Story:
Today internationally the digital advertising market is worth Rs 12,00,000 crores and in India the industry will soon touch the Rs 600 crores. Well as of now it looks like a Lilliput. Consider the rate at which it is growing, the day isn't far when it takes the shape of a whale.

The world is watching us grow and definitely wants a chunk of it. The recent news about "WPP acquiring a majority stake in digital agency Quasar", now if that doesn't ring a bell then what will! . The leading global conventional agencies like Aegis Communication Group, Euro RSCG and Publicis Groupe have aggressive strategies to launch their international brands in India.

Our Layman Story:

There is this tiny village market (Indian Digital advertising industry) and the small hawkers (Our Indian interactive agencies) are earning currency by selling vegetables and other edibles at a low cost and yet making good margin. Now what happens is that the Wal-Mart guys (The international advertising giants) aren't too happy about this. So what they plan to do is open super malls and offer things at a much lower price or, gives out free gifts or, may be give tickets to Disney land (whatever!).

The Consequences are obvious, the small hawker rolls out his stall and is home less in due course of time. Unless he decides to fight back.

Lets come back to our main story where the Wal-Mart is buying out the small hawker and naming it Wal-Mart India (hey comn, we can decide the name later).

The question is "What the hell we doooo?"

Are we planning to fight back, do we plan to change our business model (may be start making shoes, hey thats a good idea!), do we sell off our shop, do we rent it out (that is one bloody indigenous idea, you have to agree with me on that, ok!), or, may be buy Wal-Mart (an idea, but don't see that happening).

The new soveriegn netizen 2.0

2007-07-27T22:07:00.000+05:30

It is not the 'we' but the 'i' that matters

Digital technology has revolutionized media & brand consumption and all your time tested tactics might not get you the oh so coveted ROI u know! In the monstrously expanding virtual mediasphere, your brand might just get lost in the drift, become irrelevant and unrecognizable. All your 'About U(A)sses' can screech n bray without making the slightest dent in the constantly evolving user generated ecosystem.

Why do you want to go online? You want a jazzy, flashy presence that doesn't make any intelligent conversation but only massages your ego, makes you feel like RGV?
Rather inspire your consumers to interact with your brand, engage them in a dialogue dude! Self expression is the key (or at least the illusion of it!)Let them show off their personality, contribute & consume...

Social media sites like You tube, Flickr allow consumers (any one who partakes) to experience & interact with the Internet on their own terms. Call it folksonomy, social search or whatever you wish, they have succeeded where stalwarts have floundered. Your brand can make use of the new found (the hottest keyword in the known history of the Internet!) social intelligence. You can sponsor millions of conversations that take place in the virtual world as long as you respect the dignity, the privacy of the 'I'

Sketchcasting

2007-07-25T23:08:00.000+05:30

Welcome the new soveriegn netizen 1.0

2007-07-16T02:23:00.000+05:30

Crazy's last post encapsulates almost all the tentative notions (& premonitions!) that i have been deliberating on for quite some time. The Internet as the New Ecosystem (that's a killer coinage Crazy...patent it!) has evolved as a much more democratized space than any available in the Real world. For that matter, this distinction between the Real & the Virtual should be dissolved for once and all. The Virtual now offers more verifiable information about humans than all known parameters in the Real and is equally tangible and three dimensional.

Everytime i re-conceptualize my profile on any social networking site or everytime i set up a blog (and very rarely when i post any content!) i feed a very basic human urge perhaps - the need for significance. My preferences, my thoughts (conjure,contrived or stolen) are all significant - i enjoy network approved credibilty from all those who care for it. Millions of peer-to-peer conversations and dialogues occur daily through the Web everday. The impersonal, random algorithm of a search engine is not what i rely upon.

As a consumer - not as the narrowly defined TG in any marketing manager's dictionary but as a partaker, a participator - i download, upload, share, record, use, abuse products & services made available to me online. I also have the desire to create & control my consumption.

Consumers are individuals and not a demographic or a webographic lump. Let them contribute & consume as participators...welcome the soveriegn netizen!

Online Disasters - Part 2 - Flourishing the Ecosystem

2007-07-10T22:34:00.000+05:30

"And you cannot tackle hunger, disease, and poverty unless you can also provide people with a healthy ecosystem in which their economies can grow." -- Gro H. Brundtland

Very aptly put Mr. Brundtland!

I believe the internet is now doing just that, providing people with an ecosystem in which economies are growing by leaps and bounds. Yes, The Internet is The New Ecosystem! In this ecosystem, people and ideas are the primary elements without which there will be a total collapse.

Today, the internet powers information in various devices and gadgets. Some that regular human beings like us cannot even imagine, even coffee makers! Don't believe me, well see for yourself. Just type "internet coffee maker" in Google and you will see [:)]. The utilitarian aspects of the internet are actually unlimited as it seems in the present age. Further, with the invention of wireless technologies such as WiMAX and 4G, the binary ecosystem is now even more stronger and larger in capacity.

The internet is getting crowded! Say that to a tech savvy marketing expert, and he will go, "damn! i better rush and send out all the email campaigns to all those spam hungry mail servers out there!", or better, "exciting! let me go and create that special community for people who want to buy blue pair of socks!". All sad and mostly deemed to fail attempts at harnessing the branding, marketing power of the internet. Obviously, winners are there as well. However, the number of failures far exceeds the number of successes in the internet space. I attribute this primarily to the low risk taking appetite of businesses. This has also resulted in fragmentation of the internet to a great extent, and sadly the trend continues.

I am sure you must be wondering, what the hell is this guy talking about? The answer follows in the lines to come.

There are bound to be disasters in an ecosystem, however, in real life we take numerous measures to prevent them. Well, then why not online. Brands across the globe spend fortunes building websites that would serve as a social networking platform for their potential consumers. Did you get that? Yes (Ok you are the smart one!). Well if your answer is No, then let me remind you that associations or groups of people created using a common interest and being utilized for selling products has never worked out, and will definitely not on the internet. Internet is all about empowering people, giving them the freedom of choice. Social networks should primarily be serving the 'socialization' purpose, rather than commercial interests.

Let me give you an example. If there was a large university where students had varying sports interests, and you were to choose a certain number of students from this university who loved to play soccer so that you could promote your company's soccer merchandise. What would you do? Would your company start a new university "meant only for students who love soccer"? Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? I guess as a wiser alternative you would form a soccer club!

Exactly my point when it comes to the online medium. When there are so many social networks out there sprawling with people, why do you want to create another one for all those people who love to wear a blue pair of socks! Just form a club in an existing network for people with specific interests - and if they are interested they will come in. It is always about letting people choose, and if you have the right appeal you will be the chosen one!

A recent example is what NOKIA did by creating a NOKIA Zone on Friendster [and how could i miss out on the very important fact that the NOKIA Connections zone was designed by the agency I work for!].

... and thus the ecosystem flourishes!

Online Disasters - Part 1

2007-06-25T21:42:00.000+05:30

We have been writing about a lot of serious stuff in a very serious manner... and that's not how I generally am. So I thought, I would just add a little humor to the blog!

Here is a chat between a BD guy from an online marketing agency and a prospective client who wants his agency to develop a website for their new brand...

BD Guy (smiling): Hi! It is great to know that you are planning to launch a new online campaign...

Client (proud): Yes.. I know. Although it is a little late in the game, but hey.. better late than never!

BD Guy (happy): Yeah! So tell me about your brand

Client (excited): Ours is a cool brand that appeals to the 18 - 25 TA

BD Guy (mutters to himself): wow! tell me something I dont know... another sad case of lost identity!

Client (thoughtful): Did you say something?

BD Guy (bluffs): Yeah I was saying that it's fantastic! The TA is very happening, internet aware etc etc

Client (in sync): Right... we want our website to have that special something which would make the TA stick to it.. you know!

BD Guy (definitely not listening): Yup... before we get into that, could you share your brand objectives, mission etc

Client (with a "what the hell does this guy want" kinda look): why not... as I said, ours is a very cool kinda brand, which the TA easily relates to in their day to day lives. Our brand is about their life... blah blah blah...

BD Guy (trying his best to smile, and show excitement): Hmmm... that sounds interesting

BD Guy (mutters to himself): Damn! now what... another online disaster...!!!

Client (sudden joy!): ... and you know what! the most exciting thing about this brand is that it is specifically for the 18 - 25 TA, which is a very cool generation!

BD Guy (still muttering): ... oh yea oh yea... this is a major screw up for sure!

BD Guy (I am not listening): Wow! You can probably provide me some brand literature and stuff which would help us understand the brand better... Talking of the website, what according to you will be its primary objective?

Client (damn! why is this guy asking the same kinda question again??): Umm.. mainly it should serve as a platform for the TA to hang out, interact with each other -- you know a community..

BD Guy (muttering... now biting his teeth): oh... f*** another community!!! noooo.... why dont these people get real!

BD Guy (breathe in, breathe out, relax): Yeah, we are experts in creating communities. I am sure we will do a wonderful job for you. However, the website being a hip community could not be the primary objective, it is just the medium... could you elaborate a little bit on it?

Client (arghh... same question again!): Oh yes, you are right. Well the primary objective is to get more and more people involved in the community and to ensure that they stay

BD Guy (now going bonkers. mutters): arghh... sigh.. www – wild wilder wildest

BD Guy (smoke.. smoke .. smoke!!!): Great...! I think I understand what you are talking about. Do you have any budgets allocated for this project?

Client (hmm.. smartass!): Budget is not a problem... we have a good budget

BD Guy (jackass!!!!): Could you be more specific? Give me a range etc? Communities can cost you anywhere between XX and YY you know... I want to make sure that we give you the right kind of solution.

Client (what the f*** is his problem): That will not be a problem

BD Guy (mutters): damn! dude does not even have a clue!!!

BD Guy (I am dead): Let me discuss your requirements with our creative team, and we will come back to you with a proposal

Client (puzzled): Can you show us some designs?

BD Guy (dead man talking): I am sorry, we can do that only after you have signed us up for the project. I can show you some of the great work we have done!

Client (lost in thoughts…): No no.. I have seen them already...

BD Guy (the day of the living dead): So how do we take it forward from here? I suggest that we will provide you a concept or two along with costs and timelines

Client (delighted): So you will provide us designs great!

BD Guy (dead man dying.. dead man wanna smoke): No no... not design. Concepts... written concepts

Client (sad): Ok… alrite, but please send the concepts asap!

BD Guy (dead man gone bonkers): I will let you know how soon I can get back to you. When do you plan to launch this campaign?

Client (I wish I knew that... what do I tell him...): ASAP

BD Guy (dead man totally f***ed up): Still ... something you know... for example 6 months, a year, 2 years (in an intimidating tone)

Client (scared as hell): no no.. ASAP

BD Guy (gotta rush!): Oh in that case I better rush!

Client (thank God!): Yes yes! Please feel free to call me if you have any queries…

BD Guy (mutters): Dude! you let me outta here right now! … am dyin for a smoke!!!

BD Guy (smoke... smoke sssssssmmmmoookkkkeeee!!!!): Of course. Thank you very much for your time. We will get back to you with the proposal.

To be continued....

Brands(please be)in the Internet and appear on the desktops too.

2007-05-23T17:01:00.000+05:30

Most of my friends, by now, are in touch with me at my new address of the digital Ad company which wants me to go fishing all the time.

Let’s come back to our passion and talk about marketing and branding . In the past me and Crazy have talked about how big brands fail in their campaigns (sometimes of course) , and how sometimes small budget marketing campaign do wonders. Now every brand wants to go online, and that they would do eventually. But imagine , when every one (who wants to matter) has a web site or may be micro sites and do multi fold marketing in terms of viral marketing, corporate blogging and other such things, what will be the USP ?

Why dont they
1) generate valuable traffic
2) have traffic but don't attract repeat visitors.

Will that not create a nice cosy problem? Sure , it won’t be the content - it would be the context. All promotional sites have already have the elements which caters to popular content mix: video, blogs, games and calendars.
Unfortunately those sites will ultimately be hampered by the limitations of being inside the browser in the first place.and secondly from endless competition and varied browsing requirements (bandwidth, browser type, et cetera) and internet viewing habits of their core audiences . It is no wonder that coming time will be hard for these well-executed but simplistic sites(especially when you are in Asia where the speed and the bandwidth is a big question mark).

Branded desktop applications (BDAs) could be one of the solutions for consumer brands . Because, at the most fundamental level, they don't need a browser for making an interactive presence separately from any behavior attached to the browser space. The ability of push button technology (instantaneous communication) and seamless versioning (changing content without interrupting the user experience) -- two BDA basics -- and consumer brands can finally begin to realize the true potential of their work on the desktop.

These BDAs get you :
: regular audience for your promotional messages.
: deliver a customized experience.
: bring in the brands to a more tangible, easily accessible position in the daily life and habits of it’s core audience (for whom the bell tolls).

BDA can have a versioning by which brands could switch from fall promotion to holiday campaign seamlessly. It can change the habbit of it’s core audiance completely as they can glide from features to graphics without having to move a finger.

Second Lifeis indeed a very popular site. One of the main reasons of it’s attraction is it is not a website. Second Life is a BDA. It is a downloaded application that relies on the web for it’s real-time content.

Orkut , as everybody swear , is a very popular community website acquired by Google in the recent past , also understood the power of having an application set on the desktop . Addedly , it silently reminds you of it’s community without any interruption. Incase of Orkut the application was Gtalk which extended the power of the premise on the desktop with a single feature and makes this community connection a daily habit for the user.

And my personal favorite ExpressFashion

is a web site whose approach to online is all about persuading the audience to come into the store. To that end, they have embraced the online changing room.
Moving the window to the desktop delivers the crucial ingredients of utility which community web can't provide. Buttons like "e-mail a friend" and "print" hint at expressed hope which men/women will do ultimately to close the loop and further a decision-making process. And on the desktops this facility spreads as a viral.

Have I scribbled a bit in excess ?
Now onwards me and you shall watch and observe how a tiny presence on the desktop can change marketing plans and the business.

Yet again I say Brands wake up!!!!!!!!!!

Web 2.0 award announced for 2006

2007-05-07T17:55:00.000+05:30

Category	1st Place	2nd Place	3rd Place
Blog Guides	Technorati	Blogniscient	Bloglines
Bookmarking	Blummy	furl	Spurl
Business, Money, and eCommerce	LinkedIn	Basecamp	Side Job Track
Classifieds & Business Directories	craigslist	Judy's Book	PageBites
Collaborative Writing & Word Processing	Writely	Rallypoint	Thinkfree Office Online
Communication: Email & Chat	meebo	Campfire	Slawesome
Digital Storage & Remote Access	eSnips	Avvenu	YouSendIt
Mapping	Wayfaring	Frappr	HousingMaps
Mashups & More	The Supreme Court Zeitgeist	Ning	liveplasma
Music	Last.fm	MusicStrands	Upto11
Peer Production News	Newsvine	Digg	gabbr.com
Personal Organization	HipCal	Planzo	voo2do
Photos & Digital Images	Flickr	Slide	Zoto
Podcasts	Odeo	podOmatic	Loomia
Real Estate	Propsmart	Zillow	Trulia
Retail	Etsy	threadless	Wists
Social Networking	Facebook	Consumating	MySpace
Social Tagging	StumbleUpon	Blinklist	Del.icio.us
Start Pages	Pageflakes	Google Start	Live.com
Trusted Search	Rollyo	swicki	Truveo
Video	Dailymotion	YouTube	MetaCafe
Web Development & Design	CSS Beauty	Performancing	Mint
Wikis (Hosted)	Wetpaint	Jotspot	pbwiki

Web 2.0 Content Management System

2007-05-06T17:02:00.000+05:30

Now a days companies are looking at their existing content mangement system. Content is structured entities, its not about traditional layout. To make website interactive people are using various rich internet applications like Ajax, tag clouds, RSS feeds, flash etc in their website.

The new model is based on web 2.0 and it is totally different from old websites. People wants to share their ideas, experiences online. If a old content management system not address the audience demands, definitely websites will loose their audience.

Tips to upgrade and improve your existing CMS:

Your CMS should support User generated Content

You can use third party tools separately to support RIA like Ajax etc.

CMS should support mulit-tier architecture

Quote: The Machine is Us/ing Us

2007-04-25T22:18:00.000+05:30

Viral Marketing: How big can it make ya? - Part 2

2007-04-16T15:01:00.000+05:30

A JUST STATEMENT: We still need to make a few more to know whether the viral marketing ideas coming out of India match up to the global standards

FACT: We need to do a lot more than just making a few more ads! Read on…

However, there are a couple of factors that drive the success or failure of a brand’s viral marketing campaign, namely: the actual deliverables versus the hype created by the viral and the mindset of the consumer.

Let us not even get into viral concepts, let us first look at the regular marketing promotions being carried out in India.

Case Study: Times Global Village
The Times group launched it for a short period of 30 March 2007 – 30 April 2007. It was primarily meant to be a global consumer trade fair, with some joy rides etc to engage the consumer. The marketing guys @ Times Group were apparently totally out of sync with the operations guys (which I realised when I visited the place). The adverts that were distributed via billboards, newspapers etc. promoted the event as a major international fun fete. Things such as 150 dancers, and cusines from various countries etc. were highlighted as the USPs of the event. The average Indian gets pretty excited by these, and he did. The consumer landed @ the Times Global Village to find what – most international stalls were empty, and remaining were occupied mostly by ‘the Janpath’ of various ‘phoren countries’!!!! The event had run into legal hassles as it was set up on the ‘dry bed’ of the river Yamuna!!! To add to the agony, there wasn’t a single dancer to be seen (as contrast to the exotic images chosen by the Times marketing team) and food stalls were none other that our very own McDonalds, a few local favourites and just one stall from Pakistan serving popular Delhi food !?!?!? A complete failure, a blunder!!! (Wish I had heavier words …)

Relate this to a viral campaign: If a viral campaign is over aggressive and enthusiastic as compared to the actual deliverable, the brand behind will definitely end up getting a tonne of negative branding, resulting in a disaster.

I feel that marketing as a whole in India has not matured to that level yet – It is not just the advertising agencies that are responsible, it is actually the brands that are mostly unsure of what they exactly want. Focus should be laid upon the initial market research, comprehensive analysis of consumer needs and expectations etc. before even strategising the viral campaign.

A globally successful viral marketing ad from India is still a far fetched dream it seems.

Crazy Tips

For consumer brands: WAKE UP!

For advertising agencies: Please mature, and give your clients a bite of reality!

In the meanwhile... Crazy lives for making this dream a reality... watch out!!!

Viral Blogging ~ Multiple Blogging

2007-04-07T16:14:00.000+05:30

In my previous post I mentioned... 'How?' the big names and the upcoming names need to look at marketing before they launch their viral marketing campaigns or any sort of marketing stunt.
Today businesses are realising the power of the consumer and how their opinion matters in terms of various aspects of an entity, that is there in the market to fetch a price. Now we understand 'why it is necessary to blog?, tag, bookmark and do all that eBuzz stuff'. Now every marketeer wants to go blogging, start up with a niche segment and accumulate content on a single topic.

This definitely sounds like a plan, but just think about this - if you could have other blogs diverting to your main blog ... well it is a tough ask as it would involve a lot of logins and logouts as you would go blogging, blogging every where. This is exactly what the Biggies are talking about 'Multiple Blogging'!

What? Logging in, logging out all the time gets to your nerves?

Relax, there is a solution...

All you need to do is configure your blog settings in the software and blog, edit, tag, bookmark etc etc which require multiple logins.

I KNOW YOU WANT TO CLICK ME NOW!

Tags: a2b, multiple blogging, software, viral, marketing

Viral Marketing: How big can it make ya?

2007-03-31T10:56:00.000+05:30

This particular thing has been there in my mind for quite some time by now... Which one? Viral or, folksonomy? Well they both have their pros and cons, but again the question is which one?

'Viral' has been there since the day 'modern internet marketing' came into existence; be it 'HONDA's latest campaign' or, 'Nike'. If we look at it carefully, does HONDA need any further buzz for its name or does Nike really want to scale its popularity? If the answer is yes, then I need to shut up right here and get lost.

If you think there is a tiny possibility of the answer being a 'No', you should read on.

We believe it is high time that these names which have already become the so called brands need to move up the ladder and and transform into a tribe, a religion. Make the customer loyal to the name and its products, give him / her a chance to say how he or she feels about it, what would it take to make the product better, give the consumer the power to decide for himself / herself, tell him / her that his / her opinion matters and 'YES IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE'.

Some of the companies have spent more money than my salary, from doing celebrity campaigns to the most outrageous ones - just to draw more attention. Look at some graphs for a long period of traffic to a website, you can see the difference between creating a Community Marketing program versus a Viral Marketing effort that will be like the " pet rocks" of the late 70's.

The concept is still very new to Indian internet marketing & advertising companies like Webchutney, BCWebWise, TribalDDB, D'Zine etc. They have been in a constant race to create an animation or a video that would make it so big that the whole world speaks about it. But how many of them have been able to accomplish this? The answer is - We still need to make few more to know that. (LOLZ)

My point is " It is time that for us to understand that we cannot stand up on the tower, throw a ball, and then see how far it goes. Rather, we need to move with the ball and see where it has a chance to stop."

Technorati Tags:viral, community, marketing, a2b
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The Second Coming - Prelude

2007-03-20T12:37:00.000+05:30

youtube,flickr,stumbleupon,myspace,secondlife,orkut > blogging, podcasting,wiking(?!),virtual gaming, ,social networking > user generated content...err..vc2 too!* > the spirit & ethos of web 2.0.

the drive towards consumer controlled media will continue to mushroom and the web, of today & the future, promises to be a democratic & decentralized cyberspace. wishful thinking? well all you skeptics tradapt it to wish-full thinking!

when blogging was just a buzz word, most of us dismissed it as a fad which greenhorns could indulge in. now organizations of all shapes & sizes keep a keen watch on the blogosphere & even hire professional bloggers to manage the show. everything you think,create,use,abuse is now negotiable. the power of user/consumer participation & involvement is beginning to define our economic & socio-cultural matrix.
in a congested & hyper-competitive market, how many of us are taken in by traditional media channels. 'hoo haa blaah blaah' ads?...WTF! Most of us research products online before testing them physically( read traditional store environment) & social intelligence, blog content,word of mouth have become more credible sources of influence.

More choice,more information,more direct & immediate participation...just how real is all this?

* we are working on a new lexicon to keep you abreast... & us too!

Add some AJAX to taste!

2007-03-11T15:26:00.000+05:30

You will be really amazed to see what AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) can do for you! I have seen it and plan to use it strategically on many of the webistes I currently manage and the websites that I will launch in the future.

AJAX can be simply explained as many web pages converging into just one page. However, I would strongly recommend that you do not take the literal meaning and try to make your website a single page website - it will definitely prove to be a "killer" for all your search marketing activities.

Use AJAX tactfully to improve your product showcase, to offer more functionalities to your users - such as find product by price, by specific attributes, zooming and panning of displayed products etc. without causing the problem of content duplication! That's great news for Online Retailers!

Go Web 2.0 now!

Blogging for some honey and cheese!

2007-03-10T20:00:00.000+05:30

Thanks to 'The Tradaptor" for revealing our secrets about keywords and their density $#@#!

Anyways, coming down to some serious money making activity.... read on!

With more and more people getting addicted to the internet via blogs, forums, online communities, RSS feeds, newsgroups etc., the world of web content is blooming and business of content aggregation is booming. But... (yeah of course a 'but' has to 'butt in' all the time!) what about intellectual property rights?

Cyber laws or laws in general are still struggling to keep up with the growing "violations" reported by people... actually it seems that a new cyber law is made everytime a new type of complaint is filed. You can look at it in two ways - 1. you are the "angel" that was born to clean up all that's bad in this world, so you take it up as a challenge, become an IPR attorney and save the world!... you definitely end up making tonnes of money in the process.. 2. You are the "devil" that was born to do all the bad things, so you get delighted after finding out that the cyber law makers are way behind the cyber law breakers... so you join the front runners, find the loopholes in the laws, and use them to your advantage...ultimately you do end up making tonnes of money in the process.

You might say... "there are actually more ways to look at this issue, definitely not just two...". Hey! but what the heck.... you gotta do what you gotta do... blog blog blog ... some people call it User Generated Content... and are planning to make a fortune outta it! Great... let'em do that! Let's just blog!

Wake up my fellow bloggers and start making some of that "extra" money for yourself... there are many blogs out there that pay you for absolutely whatever you write...

Check out the results of this Google search!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=paid+blogging

Opening Notes

2007-03-09T23:29:00.000+05:30

Friendz, sorry being so late to arrive...blame it on the viral fever n spare my lazy bones!

Speaking of viral fever, i see u folks have already made it quite a rage. Thanx 2 Crazy Marketer & Web Satan, the mantras of new age internet marketing are all chiming here( the depth & density of all the right keywords!)

Now the dilemma is to figure out 'where do i come in?'. I have been asked to walk the thin line between sanity & insanity, the real & the virtual & so on, with all the dull half of the binaries in my lot!!! Well, the 'Real' is an illusion caused by a dearth of 'Ideas'. And i think that between us three, there will never any such crisis!

End Notes:

Borges(the author who has intrigued,indulged & inspired my brains most!) in his fictional review "Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote", posits a bizarre & breakthrough situation. Menard's fragmentary narrative is a line by line replica of Cervantes' original. Yet it is supposedly a much richer & complex literary masterpiece! What has changed is the interpretive drift... Menard sees The Quixote through the prism of his contextual lenses. Significantly it also gives centrality to the reader response... so letz rise from the ashes & keep track of the interpretive shifts in brand-making, marketing - anything & everthing, online & offline.

P.S.
Tradaptor= translator+ adaptor...i am here to interpret & that too in a human voice!

Will AdSense eat up Affiliate Marketing?

2007-03-09T10:57:00.000+05:30

AdSense - Is it the easiest online money making method?
With Google improving its algo, LSI, contextual ads etc., it seems that AdSense might just be a better way to make money online. In the case of AdSense, all one needs to do is create a content website, signup for AdSense and place the code in the appropriate places - that's pretty much it. If you know what's selling hot, and you can write good about it - you've clicked. You don't even need to change the content that frequently.

Whereas for an affiliate website to do well, it takes a lot of effort - writing product reviews, careful selection of merchants, and products, appropriate display of products (comparison, sorting, priority).

Given the hasslefree nature of AdSense - no interaction with merchants or customers, no worries of data feeds, easy website creation - AdSense appears stronger than Affiliate Marketing.

The Other Side of the Story
It's not really that easy - AdSense websites are totally dependent on Search Engines - a slight change in the algo and the traffic will fall majorly. You don't control the ads showing up on your website - so you may get much fewer clicks than you expect. AdSense business is not really a long term thing, but Affiliate Marketing is - prominent, successful affiliates have created loyal customers - leading to referral traffic, revisits etc.

Gain from both?
Build an affiliate website - write good about the merchant products you are going to promote - add the feeds - add AdSense code (at very few places) - make money from both! However, you will have to be a little careful while placing AdSense ads - they may impact your affiliate conversion - so you will need to experiment with the positioning a little bit before you strike the right note.

So.. let's make more money!

Viral Marketing with some thought

2007-03-06T18:30:00.000+05:30

Viral Marketing!!!

It is very true that Penetration of a viral campaign is very difficult to trace and the mileage from it might not be gauged properly. But How much do we really focus on a viral campaign?

According to advertising companies Merchants still now, spend only 1% to 2% out of the complete marketing budget for viral campaigns. The virals Crazy was talking about(which dont work) still have an ATL look which generally is a forwarded message or, things on similar notes and end up as a synonymous mass marketing campaign.

Marketers are still to realize the potential of a "BTL viral" which is data driven, highly measurable and focused on customer acquisition and retention programs. I am sure my friends would definitely agree to this point.

We need to keep this in mind as well that every marketing tactic has its own pros and cons so before taking up a strategy make sure it behooves your business model coz you cant sell aeroplanes with a viral campaign but you can surely sell the tickets.

Viral Marketing - Gone are those days!

2007-03-05T10:51:00.000+05:30

I feel that viral marketing is coming of age. Instead of the much desired hype that it should create, it just creates a very little buzz, if any. Most viral marketing ads through the internet end up becoming mere email forwards - people look at them, enjoy them, and "if" they really like them they forward it to their friends and the cycle continues. But there is no way you can guage the branding mileage that your ad earned for you. So what do you do in such a scenario - bang your head trying to think out of the box?

Well, for the most part, yes! Come to think of it, what matters most in today's market place is user / consumer opinion - yeah! reviews. With the onset of "Web 2.0" and much before that online stores (like Amazon) were encouraging their users to write reviews, and had created a rating system based on those reviews - what it did give them was - word of mouth publicity! The most viral of 'em all marketing methods.

Rich consumer experiences = better showcasing and packaging of products displayed online, user reviews (their opinion counts!), etc. will give your online brand 'the mileage' - and you can definitely measure it! Todays users very well know that what they write is important and that their fellow users will either agree or disagree with it - whatever be the case you as a merchant get more and more people to look at your products and think about it - and in the process buy it!

Now, add to this a good viral ad which will enhance the mileage you have gained by word of mouth by acting as a catalyst.

More (Becoz I got High)

2007-03-02T11:55:00.000+05:30

Yeah Crazy, that is all you can think of ?

But guys in a way Crazy is right, we would agree to the fact that ideas come to us if we are open to things. What I am trying to say is every marketing guy has read all the conventional books and other literatures "How to do marketing?".
How many of us think out of the box?
How many of us think that there is more to marketing than the regular, mundane traditional and so called "four Ps"(Product, Pricing, Promotion and Placement)?

PS: Getting drunk or getting any sort of a high does help a marketer.

Because I got high!

2007-03-02T01:29:00.001+05:30

From my experience, I can say that the best marketing ideas come to you when you are high! Well a lot of you marketeers may disagree with me on this, but... try this -- get high and work on that new and unique concept that you have been struggling to come up with. Don't give up so easily though, coz in the process you might feel the need to get high again ;-).

Crazy as this world is, it inspires marketeers to do all sorts of crazy experiments with their campaigns - and that's how viral marketing happens! The crazier the idea is, the higher the chances of it having 'the viral effect'. In the next few blogs, I will be talking about viral marketing, and the importance of reviews.

Ohhhh!!! look at that, I AM PLANNING... wow that's something! For once I have decided upon what I am gonna blog about next !!!

I need a break...

Ciao!

Crazy

Marketing Alpachino Style

2007-03-01T18:29:00.000+05:30

“Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value.”
- Philip Kotler

Very well said by Mr Kotler. Marketing has been an industry which has been here since the day we were born. Every one is marketing some thing or the other, but most of us dont realize it.

In some or the other way we do appeal emotions of every living being around us. Starting from a young man who is trying to get attention of his lady love or, Nike who is doing all sorts of advertisements and altenate propagada for its products.

The difference is Nike is doing it in a systematic and in a very planned manner. It has people working for it on every aspect starting from its surveying to brand analysis, market segmentation, strategy and other aspects as well.

We will discuss the aspects of Marketing in the next gneration market place ie; you home or, your office(The Internet).

*We am sure every one wants to add some thing to it. Well what can we say you are wel come.

* Crazy Marketer, Web Satan and Samarjit(The only human voice out here)