Click and Brick

Head to the Workosaur blog

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 06:25:00 +0000

I quit my job back in August and have moved back to Mumbai since then. As of now, I have started 2 sites - workosaur.com and resignr.com. All my thoughts around this new phase of my professional life can now be read at the Workosaur blog.

R.I.P. Indian Tech Blogosphere

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:17:00 +0000

Have I missed something?

I mean.. I have been reading Alootechie.net, ContentSutra.com, Medianama.com, Pluggd.in, StartupDunia.com, WATBlog.com, Webyantra.net every single day on my feed reader. All of them claim to cover the Startup / Online Media / Internet / Web 2.0 space.

And yet, not one of them has blogged about the TechCrunch 50 event (Sept 8-10, '08) or the Demo '08 Conference (Sep 8-10 '08). These are the Sundance and Cannes for Internet / Dot Com Startups. You had some of the best startups demoing at these events - more than 100 of them. These startups showcased products and technologies that will be shaping the future of the Internet. But no f#$%ing coverage in the Indian tech blogs?

The best part is that TechCrunch 50 (the better of the above 2 events) was streamed live over all three days. Anyone who saw it would have been inspired. The startups demo'd in front of a 1500+ audience and were judged by top executives from Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook, Youtube, MySpace, Thomson Reuters, Charles River Ventures, Clearstone Venture Partners, Fenwick, Founders Fund, Mayfield Fund, Sequoia Capital, and more. I still don't get it... how could anyone in the Internet / Tech space be completely ignorant of something as big as this?

Merely publishing Press Releases and writing about where their friends in the Industry have moved would be an accurate job description for the guys writing at the Indian tech/online media blogs I have mentioned above. I can't help but declare that the Indian technology blogosphere is dead. R.I.P. They would do well to create a memorial of their blog at Footnote - Facebook for the deceased (BTW, that was one of the many interesting startups that demo'd at the event).

P.S.: Even the Apple conference (during the same time) announcing the launch of the new iPod was not covered anywhere.

TechCrunch 50 - Session 12: Research and Recommendations

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:19:00 +0000

Good Guide: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50

What's it about: GoodGuide.com provides free and easy access to the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental and social impacts of products and companies.
What's cool: The most detailed scientific data about every product out there. This is going to be the definitive product search engine.
What's the model: Sales commissions from online stores for the products. While this may go on to be a product search engine, the advertising model may not work on it.
What's the challenge: Handling the repercussions of a disruptive model. Eliminating the conflict with corporates and working with them to improve products.
Hot or Not: HOT*
*From what I've seen, GoodGuide is my winner of TC50. By far the most disruptive business out there. And addresses a huge need. Fantastic execution. Great team. Extremely difficult to replicate.

Go Planit: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: The most convenient online travel planner.
What's cool: You can now plan your travel itinerary in less than 30 seconds.
What's the model: Just go to the site, enter dates and the location to which you are traveling. And your tour is planned. They further allow you to enter more preferences to customize the itinerary. Revenue model - Travel is a fairly evolved advertising vertical; White labeling their product for airlines, tourism boards, etc; Affiliate commissions from travel e-commerce sites.
What's the challenge: Scalability across geographies.
Hot or Not: HOT

TrueCar:
What's it about: The ultimate new car price guide that can save thousands of dollars for car buyers.
What's cool: Solid monetary benefit to consumers.
What's the model: Automotive advertising accounts for close to 15-20% of all online spends in US. If this works, every car buyer is going to be visiting true car.
What's the challenge: Handling the repercussions of a disruptive model. What happens when the US auto industry (downstream) adopts a fixed pricing system (as is bound to happen with the introduction of a service like TrueCar)? Naturally, TrueCar must learn to leverage their tech across other products/segments with a similar challenge.
Hot or Not: HOT

GoodRec: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: An extremely simple social recommendation system that fully leverages the mobile platform.
What's cool: Fantastic UI.
What's the model: Short, simple and meaningful recommendations from your social network.
What's the challenge: Needs the network effect going for it.
Hot or Not: NOT

iamnews: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: An open newsroom platform which enables publishers to collaborate in the creation of news i.e. an alternative news syndication service built through users.
What's cool: Could be a great news agency for small publishers. A potential disruptive model.
What's the model: iamnews aggregates users (who are experts in certain subjects) and gives them the opportunity to be journalists. So content publishers can create news assignments and get news through the user-turned-journalists instead of taking feeds from Reuters or Associated Press.
What's the challenge: Building a good incentive system to ensure a large pool which can ensure great service/delivery levels.
Hot or Not: HOT

TechCrunch 50 - Session 11: Vertical Social Networking

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:51:00 +0000

Birdpost: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: Birdpost.com is a social network on which birdwatchers will be able to record, share and map their birdwatching experiences.
What's cool: The change-the-world concept behind Birdpost. Watch the demo.
What's the model: Freemium subscription model. Free for a month and then USD 50 per annum. Birdpost claims that birdwatchers are rich and spent USD 35 billion on birdwatching in 2001. So subscription would work. They also wish to build this out for other nature lover interests - insects, fish, plants.
What's the challenge: Tinkering the business model to ensure that while they make money, it also becomes the nature search engine.
Hot or Not: HOT

Closet Couture: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: A fashion social network for women with expert consultation wardrobe management.
What's cool: Ability to dig deeper into your email
What's the model: Its a desktop email application and its free. Revenue model non-existent. I doubt if they'd get an exit considering the fact that the technology being worked is specifically for their desktop client rather than a plugin like Xobni.
What's the challenge: Getting online email users to use a desktop app. Getting desktop email users to shift from existing desktop clients. Long-term relevance. What happens when these features get built into Gmail or Yahoo!?
Hot or Not: HOT

Footnote:
What's it about: Facebook for the deceased. Actually, more of a genealogy site than as a social network.
What's cool: Already has 80 million records that were avialble publicly. Also has digitized a huge amount of old newspaper photos, magazine photos, etc that was previously unavailable.
What's the model: Subscription. But that is just not taking off.
What's the challenge: Transforming this into a wiki because that what it actually must be.
Hot or Not: NOT

Causecast:
What's it about: Social network for not-for-profit organizations.
What's cool: The cause its been built for.
What's the model: Two entities. One deals with the contributions, 100% of which are passed on. The other entity deals with brands being charged to associate themselves with cause marketing.
What's the challenge: Adoption at the individual level. Maybe I am missing something but I just don't see the product adding any great value over the FB causes app.
Hot or Not: NOT

Shattered Reality Interactive: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: A social network (rather a community) which can go on to guide and contribute towards SRI's MMO game development (Kaos War).
What's cool: The game screens looked great.
What's the model: SRI has built parts of their game which would be given out free. This would be used to build a community who'll contribute with their ideas to build the remainder 80%. SRI thus lowers their cost of game development.
What's the challenge: Adoption. Participation.
Hot or Not: NOT

TechCrunch 50 - Session 8: Language & Communication Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:27:00 +0000

Alfabetic: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: They translate, localize and distribue content for websites in the 10 most popular languages and so it reaches an international audience.
What's cool: The Vertical Machine Translation System (i.e. Politics, Sports, etc)
What's the model: Alfabetic monetizes the additional ad inventory on the additional pages. This is shared with the content provider. They should consider charging additionally for the manual content editing bit and make it a part of their premium solution.
What's the challenge: Competes against Google's translation service. Scalability could be an issue in case of heavy manual editing.
Hot or Not: NOT

Postbox: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: A desktop email application with some great new search and organization capabilities that help you find, organize and act upon emails.
What's cool: Ability to dig deeper into your email
What's the model: Its a desktop email application and its free. Revenue model non-existent. I doubt if they'd get an exit considering the fact that the technology being worked is specifically for their desktop client rather than a plugin like Xobni.
What's the challenge: Getting online email users to use a desktop app. Getting desktop email users to shift from existing desktop clients. Long-term relevance. What happens when these features get built into Gmail or Yahoo!?
Hot or Not: NOT

Swype: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: A superior text input method that works across different devices.
What's cool: Increases your typing speed to 40-60 words per minute even on mobile devices.
What's the model: Just like T9 has become the standard pattern recognition technology for mobile inputs, Swype aims to the new standard for text input. And make tons of money from licensing deals once they find adoption.
What's the challenge: Adoption by mobile phone manufacturers and mobile operating systems.
Hot or Not: HOT

Dropbox: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: Sync, store and share files in the cloud.
What's cool: Almost real-time collaboration in the cloud.
What's the model: Free 2GB account. Pay USD 9-10 per month and get a 50GB storage account. I foresee a high level of interest from Microsoft as this helps the longevity of Desktop Apps.
What's the challenge: Adoption levels at 2GB FREE. And then the infrastructure with scale.
Hot or Not: HOT

TechCrunch 50 - Session 10: Games

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:50:00 +0000

Grockit: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: Massively Multi-player Online Learning. Traditional study groups taken online.
What's cool: The Conversation System for Collaboratove Learning.
What's the model: Collaborations with traditional players in the competitive examination space.
What's the challenge: Content. How do you scale the system for user-generated content?
Hot or Not: NOT

Akoha: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: Mission cards. Buy a card and accomplish the mission and then pass on this mission card to your friend online for him/her to complete the mission.
What's cool: The attempt of make charity fun.
What's the model: The money generated through the mission card is donated to a charity of your choice. You get a simple mission like READ A BOOK or FEED A BLOGGER. You accomplish the mission and pass on the mission to your friend. And then they pass it around. It makes everyone feel like they are part of a mission originating from a charitable cause.
What's the challenge: This thing could see some traction amongst corporates as a CSR initiative. But they need to make it more compelling. It's just not there.
Hot or Not: NOT

Atmosphir: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: A Collaborative Game-making and Deployment Platform. The Lego of Video Games.
What's cool: Democratization of game-making is here. This can completely change the market. Everybody could be making great games with this.
What's the model: Users create their own game and deploy and distribute it using the Atmosphir desktop client. Paid elements could be introduced such as characters and environments and levels.
What's the challenge: Making it simple enough for you and me to build games.
Hot or Not: HOT

Playce: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: High-end online social gaming destination.
What's cool: Great graphics in online gaming.
What's the model: Playce is an online destination for gaming. They provide game developers with the gaming infrastructure to develop engaging games with great graphics at 30-50% of the current cost. Game is monetized through in-game ad placement and sale of virtual goods. The revenue is split with the game developer.
What's the challenge: Getting validation from the game developer community. I doubt the revenue share from virtual goods and in-game ad placement is incentive enough.
Hot or Not: NOT

TechCrunch 50 - Session 2: Meme & News

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:15:00 +0000

DotSpots: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: Annotating the Content on the Web. Or converting every content-based page into a Wikipedia.
What's cool: The technology really leverages the power of the Internet to enrich news content. Also, the Server and Browser-based extensions are a great way of catalyzing the network effect.
What's the model: I don't think they can make content publishers pay for this service since they also want to make it into a browser extension. But from the look of it, they could build in ads into this. I foresee a lot of interest in this product from the Internet Goliaths. In all probability, they'll sell the intellectual property for a huge sum if the product sees adoption.
What's the challenge: Making the network effect happen. Filtering the junk.
Hot or Not: HOT

Angstro Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: News alerts about people and companies in your social network.
What's cool: The filtering algorithm in case of people sharing the same name. The algorithm matches the resume/profile with the piece of news.
What's the model: Useful feature in the High Net-worth Individuals (HNI) segment who could spend some money to subscribe to this service. However, it makes more sense for a LinkedIn or even a Monster. Executive search firms using these sites would love it. (I'd love to have this on workosaur.)
What's the challenge: Scaling this from a feature to something more significant. Also, Google Alerts is a great service. Am sure they'd soon figure out an algorithm to make it work better than Angstro.
Hot or Not: NOT

LiveHit: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: Social News Discovery based on Concurrent Consumption of Content.
What's cool: The social discovery technology in itself is cool. We all know about StumbleUpon.
What's the model: This seems to work like Sphere in terms of recommendations albeit with a social spin to it. The recommended plug then leads to customizable pages of LiveHit with Ad Inventory and the recommended newspiece in an iframe. So the sites using LiveHit make money and LiveHit makes money off them or as a percentage of this ad revenue.
What's the challenge: Technology and Distribution. Social discovery is going to be big but the technology and monetization models will evolve with time. I really think that one of the bigger players is going to be doing this better than LiveHit (Hint: Google already does it in case of YouTube.)
Hot or Not: NOT

Quant The News: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: A product called StockMood.com. An AI system that that analyzes news stories about stocks, identifying their sentiment, and then measuring their potential impact on a stock's price direction.
What's cool: The potential applications of a sentiment identification technology. (I had seen something similar year or so ago at a company called SpotEazy. They have then changed their biz model but the technology has that WOW effect on you.)
What's the model: Subscriptions to the sentiment analysis by investors. Also, they could license their technology to the online trading systems or look at building a trading system themselves.
What's the challenge: Technology. I am not too sure if it's advanced enough to be relied upon as guidance. Also, as this scales and if it works and people depend on it, more people will find ways of gaming the sentiment. So, the technology needs to hold especially in a system where people have an incentive to game it. I see it more as a fun feature that gauges sentiments during elections or before the launch of a movie or an album.
Hot or Not: NOT

TechCrunch 50 - Session 1: Youth & Culture

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:29:00 +0000

TC50 (September 8-10, 2008) is turning out to be the event to watch out in the Web 2.0/Startup space. The event is being streamed live and the videos are also archived on ustream.tv.

Here's my take on the startups featured in the Youth & Culture segment of the event. I'd recommend all readers to check the pitch video first, then to check the individual sites and then post their feedback in the comments section of this post.

BlahGirls (Katalyst Media): Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: Interactive Online Episodes from Katalyst Media (Blah Girls is their first show - Celebrity Gossip News using Animations)
What's cool: Ashton Kutcher & the animations
What's the model: Production house for the Internet. This is all about the content. Katalyst Media has understood its audience well and going by the first episode, seem to be good at the content. Revenue model is proven. They make money through advertisers - product placements in the episodes and traditional advertising on the site.
What's the challenge: The same challenges that a production house faces i.e. Scalability.
Hot or Not: HOT

TweeGee: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: Online Destination/Social Network for Kids
What's cool: A kid-friendly UI. Proprietary 'Word Up!' safety.
What's the model: I really don't know if they can make money out of this except for advertising kids' wear/chocolates/games/toys. even that I doubt. I do not buy the 'we got the kids hooked and can then port them to other products when they grow up' pitch.
What's the challenge: Lack of a revenue model. No real WOW tech.
Hot or Not: NOT

Shryk: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: Educational Money Management App called iThryv for Kids.
What's cool: Shyrk has smartly decided to ally with schools to educate kids rather than trying to reach the kids directly.
What's the model: They want to catch 'em young and build "customers for life" for partner banks.
What's the challenge: I have my doubts about the need for such an app. Assuming there is, I don't think its simple enough to make it useful enough. Adoption is going to be a major challenge. Even, if it's useful enough and is adopted, I don't see banks treating this as a starting point for customer acquisition. It could at best be a CSR initiative for the bank rather than a business in itself.
Hot or Not:NOT

Hangout Industries: Click to watch their Demo Video at TC50
What's it about: Facebook/MySpace + Second Life for Kids & Young Adults
What's cool: Awesome 3D Immersive Experience. Especially, the posters & pictures on the walls.
What's the model: Revenue sharing arrangements with partners such as AllPosters.com and apparel/clothing companies. I guess similar transactional layers would come in for music/games/videos.
What's the challenge: Lack of depth in the revenue model. Commissions would never amount to significant revenue. They seem to have a WOW technology though and probably could sell-out to an offline brand wishing to establish a connect in the Young Adults segment or to one of the larger Internet companies.
Hot or Not: NOT

chittR... but why should I?

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:57:00 +0000

Well, I started micro-blogging today with twitter. Also read about an Indian clone of the same that goes by the name chittR. And so the questions visit my mind again:

What makes the guys at chittR think that being Indian is a source of competitive advantage for their micro-blogging platform over a non-Indian but far better twitter?
What makes the guys at BigAdda and DesiMartini think that being Indian is a source of competitive advantage for their social networking platform over a non-Indian but far better Orkut or Facebook?
What makes the guys at Indiatimes Mail and Zapakmail think that being Indian is a source of competitive advantage over a non-Indian but far better Gmail or Yahoo! Mail?
What makes the guys at Fropper think that being Indian is a source of competitive advantage for their blogging platform over a non-Indian but far better Blogger or Wordpress?

Is it that difficult to decipher that being a me-too Web 2.0 product with the Indian tag can not cut ice?

Scrabulous is fabulous!

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:01:00 +0000

For the uninitiated, Scrabulous is an online version of popular board game Scrabble. Scrabulous gained immense popularity through its Facebook App. There are nearly 600,000 daily active users for Scrabulous and it rakes in USD 25,000 per month in advertising revenue through banner inventory. The Facebook version of Scrabulous raised the ire of toy-makers Hasbro and Mattel, which jointly own the rights to the game. They asked Facebook to pull down Scrabulous and behind the scenes negotiations have been going on between Hasbro, Scrabulous, and Electronic Arts, which has the license in the U.S. to the online version of the game. Hasbro is trying to get Scrabulous to sell itself to Electronic Arts, or else shut down completely.

Interestingly, Scrabulous has been built independently by two brothers from Kolkata - Rahul (26) and Jayant Agarwalla (21). And while they have simply taken the board game online, they have done a fabulous job of it. I am a Scrabble fan myself - and own a Scrabble Deluxe board from Mattel as well as the Scrabble Game CD from Electronics Arts. Without a doubt, the Scrabulous Facebook experience beats both the official formats. Firstly, one gets to play with members across the social network at any time they desire to do so. That apart, the Scrabulous duo have continuously improved the UI/UXP and launched some great features based on inputs from users.

While Hasbro/Electronic Arts may force the Kolkata brothers to shut down Scrabulous, I am hopeful that they'd go on to build some fabulous new apps/games/products.

Auto-rickshaws - The ideal advertising medium for Internet start-ups

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:11:00 +0000

By now, most of us would have seen a lot of dot com ads on the back of auto-rickshaws and cabs/taxis. IMHO, this form of advertising is ideal for Internet start-ups/ventures - it's economical and effective.

Economy
The ability to burn a fortune on fancy TV/Print/Radio/Billboards advertisements is not a viable option for most Internet companies given the scale of their operations and the low monetization opportunities in the industry. Instead, if one is able to put up their brand on 500-1000 autos in each of the major cities (@Rs. 100 per auto per month), their brand is sure to be seen by a majority audience at a fraction of the cost that it would otherwise require to reach the same audience.

Effectiveness
All the people I have spoken to in Mumbai have seen ads by MouthShut, Khichdee & MapMyIndia on Autos.
All of the people I have spoken to in Chennai have seen ads by TestingJobz on Autos here.
All of the people I have spoken to in Delhi have seen ads by PropertySensex and BuySellOldBooks on Autos and SeventyMM on Cabs.
Also, since people follow the traffic, you tend to see the ad for a prolonged period. From whatever I have read, these dot coms have employed close to 200-500 autos in the respective cities. And it sure is being noticed.

Brand Association
I have had several discussions with those in the marketing industry about this form of advertising. More often than not, marketers would tell you that the associations resulting from such advertising would affect the brand adversely. They'll add adjectives like 'cheap,' 'shabby,' and 'shady' to get their point across. I couldn't agree less. MouthShut, which pioneered the concept, has been exploiting this economical and effective method since 2001 and I don't know anyone who thinks of MouthShut as a 'cheap,' shabby' or 'shady' site - even after 6 years of advertising on auto-rickshaws. MapMyIndia, Kijiji, and SeventyMM are some of the other dot coms that have also warmed up to this form of advertising - all of them being dot coms that provide great value to online consumers.

Anyways, those who accept and adopt this innovative form of advertising stand to gain customers without spending much. The cynics can continue to burn their precious funds on traditional media and feel good about the sophistication of their brand.

Skin business on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:42:00 +0000

Yup! After completely taking over the Classifieds sections of major print publications (Times of India and Hindustan Times), escort services are now using Social Networks to promote their services.

First, escort services create a series of fake profiles on Orkut with revealing pictures of pretty looking girls. They then kick off conversations with other Orkut members and add them as friends. Those with an inclination to use escort services get hooked, numbers are exchanged and the business gets rolling.

Well, a friend of mine recently pointed out how these guys have even started tapping users on the more-secure Facebook network. Here, a fake profile is created and the same is used to create 'compelling' Marketplace listings (Screenshot attched). The listing reads "I am an airhostess to meet me visit http://www.mallikaairhostess.com/.

And when you visit the site mentioned, you are taken to a site which was earlier hosted under the domain http://www.chamadi.com/(Screenshot attached). Note: Chamadi in Hindi means Skin. Here, you have details of the escort services like fees and contact numbers, gallery, etc.

I don't know whether this would be considered by Facebook as an abuse of their services. Or whether they'd take it off after one has reported the same. The print industry in India definitely doesn't have a problem with such ads and seem to make copious amounts of money from the advertisers. I only hope that the online industry doesn't follow suit.

The boy-next-desk turns CEO

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 03:59:00 +0000

When I joined my current organization in Feb 2006, I met up with an extremely smart 21-year old techie named Murli who worked on SEO/SEM initiatives for one of our portals. He was always scouting for freelance projects to leverage his geekiness and make some additional money. Sometime in Jul/Aug 2006, one of his clients invited him for a permanent position at a substantially higher pay. Or so he told all of us. And he moved on.

I pretty much lost touch with Murli after that and only recently did I chance to visit his Orkut/LinkedIn profile on seeing his New Year wishes. And I was pleasantly surprised that Murli has gone on to found a company of his own called Horizon InfoVentures. And Horizon has already seen some fame and success. They have a property listings portal called RealAcres, and the portal was amongst the 13 winners from India at the Red Herring 100 Asia 2007 Awards.

I was also able to dig up a video of Murli being interviewed by Joel Dreyfuss, the Editor-in-Chief at Red Herring magazine. It's quite refreshing, but strange, to see Murli in a formal suit giving spiel. He'd always come to office in a t-shirt and denims. Never thought I'd see him like this.

Rock on Murli! All of us who have worked with you are proud of your achievements and it surely has inspired many of us to take the plunge.

E-Commerce: An opportunity for logistics services companies

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 22:30:00 +0000

Today, I was chatting with a friend of mine who is working at an e-commerce start-up. One of the bottlenecks in their go-to-market plan has been the identification of a professional logistics/courier services company to deliver products to their customers.

While there is a plethora of logistics services companies in India, most of them are not professional enough and those that are professional are either too expensive or do not service deliveries of the high-value products in which the portal deals with.

While I wouldn't like to draw conclusions based on the experience of a singular person, there seems to be a huge opportunity for logistics services companies in the e-commerce domain. They would do well to create a tailor-made offering for e-commerce companies and boost their own volumes.

Now check cricket scores on Google

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 21:35:00 +0000

Are you missing live cricket action because of a ban on cricket sites at your workplace? Google has some good news for you.

You can simply access Google News India and you'd see all the latest cricket scores. 'If there's a cricket match going on somewhere in the world (and there always is) you will have the latest information available.'

As you can see from the screenshot, the default feed comes in from Cricbuzz, and you also have the option to choose Cricinfo and Willow. I am really glad to see Google giving preference to Cricbuzz over the other two better known names - a. Cricbuzz, without a doubt, has the fastest ball-by-ball commentary; b. One of Cricbuzz' founder, Piyush, is a friend of mine and I have seen their site grow to its current stature from the time they kicked it off.

BTW, Guruji, the search engine for Indian content, launched a similar feature quite some while ago. When you run a search for the keyword "cricket," they display the latest cricket scores above the search results. Once again, this feature on Guruji is powered by Cricbuzz.

Using the Internet to promote non-cricketing sports in India

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:03:00 +0000

Thanks to the upcoming India-Australia Test Series, I am reminded of one of my long-cherished aspirations (dating back to Jan '04) i.e. to start a portal called 281notout.com - which would promote non-cricketing sports in India. While I did make a small start in 2004, I never pursued it too well. I still hope I kick off 281* some day.

Thought I'd share the idea on this blog and hence this post.

The 281* concept

281notout.com would be an online community of non-cricketing sports fans in India (would rather think of it now as a social network).
When anyone registers on the site, they are probed as to which sport (apart from cricket) would they like to see developing in India.
Let's say the user chooses Archery. The user is then requested to make a small contribution towards that sport from his monthly paycheck - as per his/her convenience.
Once the site has a sizeable community and fund for a particular sport, this money would be used to take up a project that would help the sports' cause in the country. It could be something as small as providing for free training facilities for an Indian athlete who has shown potential in that sport.
The chosen project would be monitored by the contributing group.
When the site would gain momentum, a lot of corporate participation and endorsements could be sought for such an initiative. Given the cause, I assume there would be quite a few interested. I think Indian cricket players and Bollywood stars too would like to be associated with this.
Over time, projects funded by 281* would manifest themselves in results.

Why 281*?

The name 281 not out is dedicated to the historic 281-run knock played by V V S Laxman in Kolkata against Steve Waugh's formidable Australian team. (India were following on in the match and ended up winning it.)
Laxman's innings of 281 represented the aspirations of millions of Indians - to emerge from a rut and come out trumps.
While Laxman lost his wicket at 281, 281 not out is symbolic of an undying spirit to fight and emerge victorious despite the near zero support that other sports receive in India.

A Humble Start for 281* - Sponsorship for an Indian Muay Thai (Kick-boxing) Fighter

Sometime in Feb/Mar 2004 I had discussed the 281* concept with a friend of mine (Hari Joshi) in Bangalore during one of our late-night meet-ups and about a week later he got me to implement the idea.
Hari's friends, Nitesh Pillai, was one of the 18 Muay Thai fighters chosen nationwide to represent India in the forthcoming World Muay Thai Championship, 2004 from April 7-14 in Chiangmai, Thailand. Unfortunately, the task of finding sponsorship for the fighters was left to each of the fighters. Consequently, with just a month to go before the championship, fighters like Nitesh had to devote their time towards gathering sponsorship rather than focusing on practice.
Nitesh had quit his job as a sub-editor of a magazine in his pursuit of being a Muay Thai World Champion and now when he was closer to his dream, he was looking to gather a sponsorship sum of Rs. 65,000 to fund his participation in the championship.
That's when I decided to action 281*. I registered the domain name, 281notout.com, and set up a small site with a brief note about what I had set out to achieve and detailed the first initiative i.e. sponsoring Nitesh's participation to the World Muay Thai Championship. Also, I shot out a mailer to my IT-BHU and IIM-L alumni groups with the same details.
Within a week I had gathered enough contributions to sponsor Nitesh. While he did not win the championship, he was able to represent the country and give his dream a shot.

However, as it turned out, that was the end of 281*. Since I was just starting off my own creative agency, I put all further plans for 281* on the back-burner despite my personal belief that it could have taken off.

Almost 4 years have passed by since then. The Internet is surely more powerful now than then and this may be a good time to revive the concept.

An interesting piece of news on WATBlog: Vijay Mallya is looking to start a social networking site for Formula 1 fans in India. This initiative is aimed at promoting the sport in the country given that his F1 team, Force India, would be participating in the 2008 Championship.

Points to note from the Gujarat election

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 18:07:00 +0000

Post the Gujarat election results, one of the TV channels had an interview with Shashiranjan Yadav, who is looking after the BJP's hi-tech campaign. He made some interesting points about how they leveraged the Internet to their benefit:

BJP gathered a database of 1,00,000 e-mail IDs of Gujaratis who were pro-BJP/BJP symathizers. Over the last 1 year, they sent fortnightly e-mails to this database which Shashiranjan Yadav believes were then circulated to 5,00,000 others.
The BJP managed to attract 50 workers through this e-mail initiative and these workers actively participated in BJP's election campaign in Gujarat.
Several rallies were held by these workers by asking people to participate through e-mail notifications.
The exchange of e-mails resulted in several election slogans that were employed by the BJP.

Also, one must see the number of Gujaratis who have come out in support of Narendra Modi and the BJP by trashing the media in the comments section of major online news publications (Rediff, IBN Live, etc.). Every online article that was anti-Modi had dozens of comments which refuted the content of the article and spoke about Gujarat's development under Modi. Am sure most of it was due to a well-orchestrated online strategy by the BJP.

Another important role that the Internet played for the BJP was the mobilization of NRGs (Non-Resident Gujaratis) in favour of Modi. After all, they are the ones who fund the campaign.

Surely, there's a lesson or two that we can take from the e-electioneering.

Also Read: Guj Polls: It’s BJP vs Cong on YouTube and Orkut

Asking around where to go this New Year's? Check burrp!

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 09:24:00 +0000

burrp! has compiled a list of all the happening New Year Parties in and around Mumbai / Bangalore / Chennai / Delhi / Ahmedabad / Hyderabad / Kolkata / Pune. Details of the parties (Venue, Contact person, Price, Events) are mentioned along with the ability to download these details on the mobile and an invitation that can be sent out to friends. Nice!

I must say, burrp! is by far the best site for all local stuff (although it is currently focused around restaurants and bars). The site is extremely pleasant to look at and extremely easy to use. However, what is most impressive about burrp is the participative community of burrpers that they've built over time (who not only generate content for burrp but also provide feedback during the development of new features.). Way to go!

Content - the missing piece in the Indian Internet puzzle

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 07:56:00 +0000

Internet in India may have reached millions of households (at least in large cities) but are all members of the household using the Internet? I rarely see parents going beyond e-mail/IM/online banking/trading. And I ask why? Why doesn't the Internet have the same impact on my mother as do TV/newspapers/magazines?

My mother stays in the heart of Mumbai, runs a 20-25 member strong fashion designing and tailoring business, and spends more than me each month. And she has a 2 Mbps Internet connection at home. But that is used primarily by my sister or me (when I am back home). It makes absolutely no difference to my mother whether the Internet connection is up or not.

And if the Internet industry has not yet found a way to reach her, then there is surely something missing. In such a scenario, I don't see much coming out of the Internet industry trying to woo users in semi-urban India. For the Internet to become a mass medium, it must go beyond the youth and reach out to everyone.

The Internet industry must provide enough compelling reasons for older people to come online. For a start, there is a huge need for local content (not mere online versions of newspapers). For example - my mom would surely like to see online versions of magazines that feature designer clothes. I couldn't find any when I searched for them. She'd definitely catch up on episodes online if she missed out on them on TV. Also, she'd rather consume content in Gujarati/Hindi than in English. Unfortunately, none of these content needs are met.

Imagine that the content needs are fulfilled and more older people in India start spending time on the Internet. Surely, the network effects would take over and there would be a wider Internet audience for advertisers to reach out to. And this would keep the online machinery running.

So, where do we begin?

I love my job!

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:50:00 +0000

Posting this just after having launched a new portal, LoanWala.com. I well and truly believe that this is by far the best loan portal to hit the Indian market.

While I truly would want users to echo this sentiment, I sure am thrilled. I am thrilled about the fact that I've built an über-simple Web 2.0-styled UI with über-complex back-end algorithms. Moreover, the portal's up and running finally - just the way I envisioned it.

The endless nights spent at work by myself and my team to make the launch happen finally feel worthwhile. Moments such as these are what keep me going at work.

I wish... Airlines in India offer Wi-Fi/Broadband Internet access.

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 22:18:00 +0000

Last week, there was news that American Airlines would offer its passengers Wi-Fi/Broadband services in 2008. (Though, it's still a pilot program.) With all the advances in technology, I feel this ought to have happened much earlier.

In any case, I am hopeful the technology will become prevalent soon and is quickly replicated by airlines in India. After all, a notebook without Internet is nothing more than a piece of furniture that is better left in the luggage cabin. Given the intense competition amongst airlines here and with each player trying to go one-up in in-flight entertainment services, this may not be too far-fetched.

When will traditional businesses adopt the Internet as a serious medium?

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:02:00 +0000

I am currently managing a portal, IndiaAutomobile.com, that aids potential car buyers in making the right car purchase decision. We provide visitors to the portal with all the information they would need during their decision-making process - 360 degree animations, pictures, prices, specs/features, expert reviews/consumer feedback.

Given the fact that most visitors to the portal are looking to make a car purchase, it also becomes an excellent platform for auto manufacturers and dealers to showcase/market their vehicles to the potential buyers. Moreover, we offer auto manufacturers and dealers the benefit of a Cost Per Action model i.e. they pay us only if we get them customers. And I have no doubt in my mind that we help these clients cut their customer acquisition cost by a substantial margin. Under such circumstances one would think that the industry should have embraced us. But that has not been the case thus far despite a more than satisfactory volume of potential car buyers. Why?

I'd like to demonstrate my answer to the above with an example.

Consider a car dealer who sells 300 cars in a month with a marketing spend of Rs. 6,00,000 i.e. a spend of Rs. 2,000 per car. Using our product, we can help them sell 15-20 more cars at a fraction of their existing spend per car. But even then, we have found it difficult to convince most of the dealers to subscribe to our service. Agreed, its a relatively new concept in India and the dealers are not Internet savvy - but WTF, as long as we generate more business for them, why should it matter whether the concept is new or whether we are an Internet company? And I for one do not think this is the reason for low adoption levels.

The real reason lies in the fact that we help them sell an additional 15-20 cars against their existing volume of 300 cars i.e. we can help them grow by 5%. And it is this 5% where the problem lies. The number is too inconspicuous for someone to look up and take notice. Its only when this number goes upward to the 20+% levels that we will be seen as a serious marketing medium.

We have seen the above happen in the recruitment industry. Job sites like Naukri and Monster are now the primary recruitment channel and hence employers have taken a serious note of the online medium. Am certain the same would happen in case of autos and other Internet businesses in India. Till then, the excruciating wait continues.

A note for professionals walking in to the Internet industry

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:01:00 +0000

"The important thing is to identify the future that has already happened." - Peter F. Drucker

If you are an Internet industry professional, the most efficient way to action this bit of advice from Drucker is to get reading blogs focused on the developments in the Internet space. Here's the list of blogs I read daily:
O'Reilly Radar, TechCrunch, GigaOM, Web Worker Daily, Rough Type, Mashable, Read/WriteWeb, Scobleizer, Official Google Blog, WATBlog, ContentSutra, AlooTechie.
The last three on this list are specific to the Indian Internet industry.

P.S.: You obviously can't be visiting all of these sites on a daily basis. So get smart, and aggregate all the news feeds to your account on Google Reader.

Update (Dec 16, 2007): Some additions to the list of blogs specific to the Indian Internet industry - pluGGd.in, VentureWoods

Look who's blogging!

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:17:00 +0000

When eminent Indian personalities blog about their personal experiences, it is bound to engage a large audience (primarily consisting of the nation's youth) that is waiting to be inspired. Three cheers to those in the list below.

Bloggers from the film fraternity:

Aamir Khan - AamirKhan.com
The Passion For Cinema (PFC) Gang (PassionForCinema.com is an attempt to bring together all movie fanatics, cine lovers and those who eat, breathe and drink cinema. The PFC initiative deserves a large round of applause. Several members of the film fraternity maintain their online diaries at PFC. It would be great to see a similar initiative covering other spheres of life.)
Anish Kuruvilla (Executive Producer of Amigos Creations) - Cinema-Man
Anurag Kashyap (Director - Paanch, Black Friday, No Smoking Writer; Writer - Satya, Kaun, Yuva, Water) - My Diary
Ashvin Kumar (The youngest of the six Oscar-nominated directors from India) - Ebb & Flow
Bhavani Iyer (Screenwriter - Black) - My Bell Jar
D Santosh (Actor - Supporting roles in The Legend of Bhagat Singh, Khakee, Dewaar, Iqbal, Traffic Signal) - Reactions
Hansal Mehta (Director - Jayate…, Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar, Chhal) - Oblivion
Manish Tiwary (Filmmaker - Dil Dosti Etc) - Empty Pictures
Navdeep Singh (Filmmaker - Manorama Six Feet Under) - An Idle Brain
Onir (Filmmaker - My Brother Nikhil, Bas Ek Pal) - Dream Seller
Pavan Kaul (Filmmaker - Chor Aur Chaand, Jaadu, Sssshhh...) - Experiences & Experiments of a Film Maker
Prroshant Narayannan (Actor - Waisa Bhi Hota Hai, Chhal) - Badmash Banna
Ramu Ramanathan (Playwright-Director) - Murmurings from Mumbai
Sam Longoria (Filmmaker, Technician & Author who has worked on Hollywood projetcs) - IndyCine
Santosh Sivan (Director - The Terrorist, Asoka; Noted Cinematographer) - Lil Bit of Sin, Lil Bit of Zen
Shashank Ghosh (Filmmaker - Waisa Bhi Hota Hai-2) - Confessional
Shilpa Shukla (One of the Chak De girls) - Reading Between the Lines
Sourabh Usha Narang (Director - Vaastu Shastra) - Mere Paas Maa Hai
Sudhir Mishra (Director - Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Dharavi, Chameli; Assistant Director - Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron) - Trying my best not to Bullshit
Suparn Verma (Director - Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena; Writer - Chhal, Yeh Kya Ho Raha Hai, Qayamat, Zameen, Janasheen, Karam, Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena) - For Adults Only

Bloggers from the sports arena:

Karun Chandhok (India's most promising motor sports talent who is currently knocking at the doors of F1) - Karun, Motorsports & More...
Krish Srikkanth - Cricket Zone with Krish Srikkanth Courtesy: Prashanth Ramamurthy

Bloggers from the government/civil services:

Kiran Bedi (1st woman to join the Indian Police Service IPS) - Crane Bedi

Bloggers from the world of business:

Harish Bijoor (Brand Consultant) - Brand Thinker | India Coffee | Ask Harish Bijoor | Indian Marketing Trends Courtesy: Rajagopal S
Ramanujam Sridhar (CEO, Brand Comm) - Third Umpire on Branding Courtesy: Prashanth Ramamurthy
Sanjeev Bikchandani (Founder & CEO, Naukri) - Wisdom in Hindsight

If you are aware of other famous personalities who maintain a blog, please do post a comment. I shall update the list from time to time.

What should brand advertisers and agency professionals be doing on the Internet?

noreply@blogger.com (Nimish V Adani) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 06:24:00 +0000

I recently read an article on WATBlog talking about branded "microsites" being a growing trend amongst companies and media agencies in India. Examples of these are Sunsilk Gang of Girls, Mentos Helpline, Pond's iBlushed, Cadbury's Meetha Moments, Kwality Walls' Spill Ur Dil, HSBC's Your Solutions and Gillette Winners. The article further goes on to term this as the "perfect technique to create a quick connect with the users," claiming that "Microsites encourage conversations with the brand" and "It is All About Conversations & Not Clicks." While I'd love to trash this article for its vagueness and lack of logic, it throws up an interesting subject:

What should brand advertisers and agency professionals be doing on the Internet?

While there isn't any time-proven formula for advertisers to adopt, there is some fantastic advice in the following white paper written by guys at Jackson Fish. (Jackson Fish is the name of a company and not an individual.)

Here's, an excerpt from the white paper that explains why the current crop of promotional sites is far from the "perfect technique":

Some advertisers are realizing that there are more possibilities for engagement when the message goes beyond the rectangle offered by most ad networks. To that end, these marketers often end up creating their own entire sites. Unlike the “official product website” these sites are more interactive, less-focused on educating and more focused on engaging the audience. While a step in the right direction, these sites often have one or both of the following characteristics that come with their own drawbacks:

1. They are dependent on produced content. Producing high quality content is expensive. And even if you can get away with cheaper content, it often gets stale quickly. The production costs, which can be high, become excessive when they turn into recurring costs.

2. When they try to go beyond passive enjoyment of content and engage the user to extend their time with the site, the interactivity can often be relatively shallow taking the form of things like simple flash games and the like.

How true! I really don't see consumers making repeated visits to any of the promotional sites that are mentioned above. And these drawbacks explain why.

So then, what should brand advertisers and agency professionals be doing on the Internet?

Jackson Fish builds a case for what they call Branded Software Experiences - an innovative concept which is beautifully explained in the white paper. I wouldn't want to spoon feed the readers on this blog by copy-pasting content from the paper. This white paper is worth the cumbersome tasks of downloading, saving, printing and reading. It is the most sensible answer you could read to the question above.

Jackson Fish have even created a Branded Software Experience Index that lists all the branded interactive and online experiences on the web along with their thoughts on it.