Sachin Uppal

[InfoGrapghic] Google's 2011 Revenue Break-Up - Top Spenders on Google Ad-Words in 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:52:00 +0000

Samsung’s “We’ve Been Samsunged” Super-Bowl Ad-Teaser denting Apple’s Domination?

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:31:00 +0000

Have you been Samsunged?

As much as I love Apple for the brilliance in design, precision and high quality prducts, I am getting wooed by Samsung’s recent ad-camapigns. Clearly Samsung is green with envy by Apple products but then they are trying really hard and I must say it can pay off.

Android activation numbers are mind boggling and especially the two recent ad campaigns shows Apple to be buidling green lock-ups to lock people up with their expensive Apps regime. While it projects Samsung to be the cool open world economic app store through Android MarketPlace! It makes Apple fan boys feel bad about:

- The long waits they have to go through during launch of new Apple products
- Paying for apps that Samsung users get free of charge
- And the launch of Apple iPhone 4S while the fans expected iPhone 5

The two recent Samsung Ad-Camapigns saying: “We’ve Been Samsunged” are really poking fun at Apple

1) We’ve been Samsunged: The ad-campaign teaser that Samsung is running for the Super Bowl.

2) And the previously run ad-campaign making Apple fan boys feel bad about standing in queues.

Do you think Samsung’s efforts are really denting Apple’s smartphone domination?

Who in India is Spamming your Inbox?

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:30:00 +0000

I am sure every one hates SPAM and we continue to get SPAM in our inboxes. We try all sorts of ways to block SPAM but then email SPAMMERS find new ways to reach our inboxes.

I recently installed Plaxo for my outlook and I was running some filters on it. I created a filter of people who are not in my address-book and have mailed more than 3 times in past 3 weeks. I hit upon over 100 such contacts and started wondering how is this possible that I have over 100 contacts who have mailed over 3 times in the past 3 weeks and they are not in my address book.

I copied all this data in an excel sheet to see what is happening here. Used some quick excel functions to filter out the email addresses using the LEN(), LEFT(), RIGHT() functions in excel. After obtaining the final email list, I started putting them in categories, spam status and industry type.

The three columns I made were:

1) Category of email – Let’s say I have subscribed to an advertising industry news letter, so I called it industry newsletter. Let’s say Linkedin or Twitter sends me some regular transactional emails about who connected / followed me then I called them as Professional or Social networking updates. Similarly for Banking, Finance, HR, Marketing, Technology, Travel, Food, Airlines etc.

2) Spam Status – I assigned 3 separate statuses to these mails:

Subscribed
Spam
Transactional

So for example, if I have subscribed to a newsletter, I called it Subscribed. If I get a Banking transaction alert, I called is transactional and some crap that hits my inbox, I called it Spam.

3) Industry Type – To generalize and clearly categorize my emails I started putting them under broad industry segment eg:

Advertising
Airlines
e-Commerce
Entertainment
Finance / Banking
Food/Beverages
Gaming
HR
Market Research
Media
News
Publishing – Includes all blogs, online information sources and general publications.
Real Estate
Technology
Telecom
Travel

Below is a chart which summaries my findings.

Key findings:

Publishing – Is the highest SPAM generator category in India. Like fake job sites, fake deals site and these new online deals-online commerce sites which are all publishing crap content on blogs and their sites and are acquiring email addresses and spamming.
Finance / Banking – I keep getting a lot of SPAM from finance / banking vertical too. This is mostly about invest here or invest there. Best schemes to make more money and why my life is in danger so I should insure myself crap.

Surprisingly media and other sites are following much better ethics in emailing.

This was my experience. And my guess is that if I monitor this data over a larger sample size and longer time period this will show seasonality eg: Jan-March quarter more finance/banking SPAM as the year is ending everyone wants you to invest and buy insurance. And hence the increased SPAM. VS during Diwali or similar festival season, you would see more SPAM for consumer brands trying to give the biggest discounts on their products.

Where do you get SPAM mails from and what do you do to block / deal with it?

Is this what Online Banner Advertisements in India are coming to? #DigitalMarketing #India

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:41:00 +0000

Is this what Online Banner Advertisements in India are coming to? #DigitalMarketing #India

Answer here

Komli's ATOM - Online Marketer's Dream Come True?

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:36:00 +0000

The new year's party got Real Time for the online marketers with the launch of Komli's Real Time Bidding (RTB) engine ATOM.

I met Satish Kadu, VP and Business Head, ATOM, Komli Media few months back when he came to take my feedback and an advertiser's perspective on what advertisers would want to do with an online advertising and automation engine. I shared a lot of pain points and also summarized that I want to do the most effective 1-to-1 online marketing with the lowest possible cost while I can continue to scale the campaign up. Satish said, he is very happy with the feedback and he chuckled as he knew he is already onto something as big and powerful as Real Time Bidding engine ATOM. Now, hopefully, I will be able to deliver my promise of 1 to 1 marketing at a mass scale with real time bidding, impression by impression for my Display advertising campaigns.

I have always wanted to optimize my online display campaigns and due to the poor visibility into the campaigns, always wondered how to cut wasteful impressions, my sincere hope is that ATOM should be helpful on implementing the same. We have learnt, optimized and perfected the science of search marketing. We have been able to build models and deliver real performance on search networks as keyword level optimization and keyword level bidding was much easier. However, on Display side, the existing solutions have suffered and even till now they require a lot of manual intervention.

Though, I am yet to see the technical and finer details on implementing the campaigns and seeing how much automation can be brought into the campaigns, however, I am impressed by what I hear. And as Satish likes to put it: "With RTB enabled auction based media buying, the science of search advertising is coming to display advertising, driving quantum leap in effectiveness for display campaigns. Advertisers are able to selectively buy audiences and impressions that matter, and pay exactly what the impression is worth."

Look forward to meeting with my business colleagues and DEMOing the RTB ATOM.

Download the Press Release here.

Hair Raising Story of a Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 04:56:00 +0000

Hair Raising Story of a Blogger

I specially created this picture to appeal to Dove to make Hair Care Products which are easy to use and can help cure male alopecia. And this picture was dedicated to the Dove All Women's Blogger Meet #DoveSpa, where men are not invited :-).

Jokes aside, two of my friends Vineet Rajan and Renie Revin have dedicated their heart and soul to build a brilliant community of Indian Bloggers i.e. Indiblogger.in. This post was to talk to fellow marketers out there who have run blogger contests and get some feedback on how well it works?

What objectives do you want to achieve from such contests or offline connect programs?
What challenges you see?
What contributes to success?

Any expectation on outcomes of such activities?

Google chops off Indian Head - Jammu Kashmir off the map

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Tue, 03 May 2011 05:53:00 +0000

Oops they did it again! A screenshot from Google's Analytics software says it all...

Now never lose a Single Conversation on Facebook Chat!

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 15:43:00 +0000

Alright if you are one of us who wanted to save your chat conversations on Facebook Chat and you have been waiting for facebook chat to add more features, well there is good news and bad news.

Bad news: is that it would still take a long time for facebook to improve your FB chat experience and add new features. One reason is that this might not be a very high priority item for them, they have recently announced improvements in FB messages and while attending facebook's LIVE event on it's launch day, Mark Zuckerberg hinted that it took them almost 1 year to make these changes. So, the hope is dim for chat to add more features soon.

Now the good news: The good news is that you really do not have to wait for Facebook chat to improve to be able to save your conversations. How? Download Yahoo Messenger 2011 or MSN messenger 2011 versions which allow chatting with your Facebook friends inside YM or MSN and storing all chat conversations. Well below is the step by step guide on how to enable your chat conversations to be stored permanently for free and you can search for the important phone numbers, email IDs, links etc exchanged with your friends and family through the archive!

How this works?

1) Download and install the Yahoo Messenger 2011 or MSN messenger 2011.
2) When you install these messengers, you can login and import your Facebook friends using Facebook Connect. (refer to image above)
3) After you have authorized YM and MSN to enable FB friend's import, you can then enable conversation history.
4) Yahoo messenger has taken a lead in enable a web driven conversation storage facility which makes it even more useful i.e. irrespective of you using your personal or official laptop, you can access your entire conversation archive online anywhere.

Would this be useful for you? Leave a quick comment.

2G Telecom Scandal - Reports, Audios, Videos, Documents Download

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 12:06:00 +0000

In public interest I am directly copy pasting the post on 2G scam covering details of reports, tapes, audios, links etc from medianama with their permission.

Yesterday, Open magazine and Outlook published audio files and transcripts of conversations that Niira Radia, who runs several PR and consultancy companies, allegedly had with Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata, Telecom Minister A. Raja, and the DMK’s Kanimozhi, as well as with senior journalists Barkha Dutt (from NDTV) and Vir Sanghvi (Editorial Director, HT Media), around the appointment of the Telecom Minstry in India. This follows previous revelations published by Mail Today and The Pioneer, and broadcast by HeadlinesToday. For reference purposes, we’re putting together is a list of information related (and allegedly related) to the appointment, and the 2G Spectrum scam that preceded the appointment, that has been published online; if true, it is shocking commentary on how the Telecom sector is manipulative, and policies manipulated. We’re updating this list, so feel free to suggest more links in the comments below.

Introduction

Some of these are alleged to be recordings of conversations that Niira Radia had with several people, in the aftermath of the Parliamentary elections that took place last year, discussing alleged issues with the appointment of ministers from the DMK, a regional political party from Tamil Nadu, as well as appointments to India’s Cabinet of Ministers. The context of these discussions is appointment of A. Raja as Telecom Minister, who allocated 2G mobile licenses in India, on a controversial first-come-first-served basis, by choosing an arbitrary cut-off date for allocation, and it was expected at the time that he would not head the ministry again.

Documents

- CAG Report on 2G Spectrum Scam – Tabled in Parliament. Download (pdf)
- Allegedly, scans of documents that were submitted by India’s Income Tax Department to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). View Here

Audio & Transcripts

1. Conversations allegedly between A. Raja and Niira Radia:
- By Open Magazine on November 18th 2010: Read and listen here.
- By Outlook on November 18th 2010: Read and listen here
- Headlines Today video uploaded on YouTube in May 2010. View here and here.

2. Conversations allegedly between Kanimozhi and Niira Radia
- By Open Magazine on November 18th 2010: Read and listen here
- By Outlook on November 18th 2010: Read and listen here
- Headlines Today video uploaded on YouTube on May 6 2010: View here

3. Conversations allegedly between Ratan Tata and Niira Radia
- By Open Magazine on November 18th 2010: Read and listen here
- By Outlook on November 18th 2010: Read and listen here

4. Conversations allegedly between Vir Sanghvi and Niira Radia
- By Open Magazine on November 18th 2010: Read and listen here
- By Outlook on November 18th 2010: Read and listen here

5. Conversations allegedly between Barkha Dutt and Niira Radia
- By Open Magazine on November 18th 2010: Read and listen here
- By Outlook on November 18th 2010: Listen here.

6. Lots of conversations, allegedly between Niira Radia and Ratan Tata, Ranjan Bhattacharya, Barkha Dutt, Shankar Aiyer (then with the India Today Group), Tarun Das, and others. Listen to the files here.

7. Lots of conversations, allegedly on Datacom, RCOM stake in AT&T etc. Lots of files here.

Denials/Responses Issued
- Open’s publisher R. Rajmohan has contested NDTV’s response to Open’s coverage. Read it here on Facebook
- From Vir Sanghvi on his blog: says the transcripts do not appear to be entirely accurate, and there is nothing in the transcripts that he lobbied for Raja. Read here. Published November 18th.
- From NDTV, calling Open’s story on conversations between Radia and Dutt “misrepresentation” –Read here. Published November 18th 2010
- From Barkha Dutt on Twitter- here, here, here, here, here and here
– From the Income Tax Department, denying recording telephonic conversations between Influential Businessmen, Politicians and advertising professionals: Read here. Published April 28th 2010

Relevant Articles

- R Jagannathan in DNA Mumbai writes that the buck stops with Sonia and Manmohan. Published November 18th. Read here
- The Hoot on “Merging Estates”, on Media, Businesses and Politicians. Published on November 19th 2010. Read here
- R. Jagannathan write in DNA that the buck must stop with Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh; Published November 18th 2010. Read here.
- Why we are quiet on the Open magazine story – R. Sukumar, Editor, Mint; Published November 18th 2010. Read here.
- A. Raja’s fairly detailed defense of the 2G spectrum allocation – published by The Hindu, November 14th 2010. Read here.
- Vir Sanghvi on “How does Raja get away with defying the Prime Minister and the public mood?”; Published November 12th 2010. Read here
- Important Lobbyists; Published by Outlook on May 17th; Read here
- Telecom Secretary PJ Thomas Made Central Vigilance Commissioner; Published by MediaNama on September 8th 2010. Read here.

Also see:
- Circlewise list of India’s Telecom Licensees

Disclaimer: Please note that MediaNama is unable to verify the authenticity and accuracy of many of these links; they are being made available for information and reference purposes, and should be viewed with scepticism. MediaNama shall bear no responsibility for content outside its domain (medianama.com), and reserves the right to delete, at its own discretion, outgoing links.

Building a Social Culture in Organization

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 06:39:00 +0000

Building a Social Culture in Organization

We all are social beings. We all want to be recognized personally and professionally. In today’s time, it’s important to build our personal brand to be recognized well not just within the organization but also, in the outside world.

Question: What is that the organizations like Facebook, Forrester, McKinsey, Google, Linkedin, Twitter etc. do differently to build their company culture and how is it beneficial for the individuals and the organizations?

Answer: They help their teams to grow personally and professionally by building personal brands. The organizations help individuals to identify their strengths, weaknesses and set goals and help them achieve those goals.

What’s in it for the Individuals?

· It helps the individuals to receive personal and professional growth.

· It pushes individuals to keep themselves updated and active on the latest in the industry relevant to their work.

· It helps them identify their short term and long term goals and keeps them focused on achieving those goals.

· It builds a culture of being socially humble: “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”.

· It helps them align with the business goals and bring in collaborative growth.

What’s in it for the Company?

· Social culture helps organizations to attract and retain brilliant talent in the organization.

· It helps the organization to see the contributions of the individuals who go beyond the call of duty and identify star performers and reward them.

· It helps the organization to be seen in a positive light in the market / relevant industry.

· Helps in identifying the common growth areas and how to help individuals in achieving those goals.

· Helps in aligning human resources with business goals.

· It fosters an environment of multi-cultural growth, collaboration and razor sharp work force.

· It helps the stakeholders of the company (including customers, shareholders, investors etc) to see that the company has the right talent to grow as well as

How to achieve this?

Simple: Let’s start by getting social!

But how to be social?

Connect with your community.
Learn from your community.
Innovate and share with your community.

What else?

Startup Tip - Take care of those 21% of your customers.

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:26:00 +0000

Experimental data driven learning teaches you a lot about how to run a business. One small tip that I wanted to share...

Divide your customers in 3 buckets-
1) Majority revenue generators (generally 20%)
2) Majority influencers (generally 1%)
3) The rest majority.

The first 20% bucket will help you generate bread and butter for the founding team. They are also, the ones who will be your BIG WOM revenue generators, so, please provide them the tools to share it with their circle.

The 1% bucket is extremely important. These are your BETA enthusiasts. They are active on Social Media. They like to Blog, Tweet, Share on Facebook and create innovative marketing recommendation for your product. They drive Word of Mouth for you. The challenge is not only to keep them happy, however, to first identify them correctly and then think of innovative ways tot keep them occupied.

Take care of this 21% of customers and rest 79% shall follow suite.

2010 - "Emailing is the primary use of Internet" - John Dooner, "Ex" Chairman of McCann WorldGroup

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Sat, 08 May 2010 13:51:00 +0000

Flash Apps on Android vs iPhone OS x vs Maemo

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:33:00 +0000

There is a big Mobile OS battle running out their. With every mobile phone manufacturers and software providers doing all they can to bring the fastest, sexiest and coolest mobile device out for the consumers. A lot has to do with applications or apps. built around these OS platforms which makes the platform look cool and involves more people and gets them excited.

Google Android Phone - Adobe on 7th January updated about the Flash 10.1 BETA support on google android phone.
Watch Video here

It's a significant advancement that the open handset alliance can rejoice this year and pass on the benefits to the consumers and break Apple's App Store monopoly.

iPhone OSx - Presently, any application built in flash can not directly run on iPhone. And off-course the Jesus Phone has millions of fan following. However, iPhone doesn't allow and doesn't intend to allow to run any flash app to work on iPhone directly, you need to develop it with the MAC SDK provided by Apple. This meant that the app has to be available through the Apple's store and Apple gets 30% of the revenue share in each app download. Sifting through pages on adobe's site, when you land upon adobe flash's support for iPhone, you will be surprised to see that * which says: Delivery through the App Store requires participation in the iPhone Developer Program and approval of the application by Apple. meaning 30% revenue share remains.

However, with Google and HTC and other partners of the open handset alliance coming together and launching the google android based phones and adobe extending their support to them, developers can now easily build content or port existing apps to the mobile devices. Which in a way can hurt Apple's App store downloads. Eg: If I am presently hosting my app at any website then I can just promote that link through Admob and other mobile ad service providers like that and get people to download apps directly without bringing Apple in the middle. 2010 will be a significant growth year for apps on open source and growth of google android and hardware devices based on it.

Nokia Maemo - Interestingly the OPEN source Vs BOX race has more contenders, the big-weight in race, yes the world's biggest manufacturer of mobile phones, nokia, is pushing it's agenda with it's ovi app store and Maemo OS, their linux based open source launch is a solid step towards it. They have been supporting flash from long ago, however, their smart phones just didn't pickup. With Nokia N900 device running on Maemo 5, they wish to change this. Their recent announcement of BETA launch of Qt port for Maemo 5 on 19th Jan which will enhance developers to develop cross-platform applications and GUI.

Hoping for a more OPEN environment in future.

Paradigm Shift - Real Time Social Entertainment

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:53:00 +0000

This article tries to track the shifting paradigm of consumer consumption of skill based games and derived entertainment and engagement. Why is it happening and how? It will also try to answer the question: "What's the next step in social skill based games, entertainment and engagement?"

Skill Games, Entertainment and Engagement model in India?

India has showered love and affection for massively popular Game shows on Indian Television and recently audiences have also been hooked to the twisted humour, sensationalism and sometimes vulgarity in Reality TV in India.

Around the year 2000 games shows on TV started to pick up steam in India with the launch of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) the Indian version of Who wants to be a Millionaire?. And then it kept the momentum going with more game shows like 10 ka dum, Sawaal Dus Crore Ka, Jeeto Chapad Paad Ke etc. followed suit by exploiting one or the other human behavioral instinct. The undying hope of humans to succeed with their skills was well leveraged. From a legal perspective these games shows leveraged the fact that any game of skill played for money is deemed legal and if you can involve masses to participate across India with TV as the popular medium, you can make huge profits not just with advertisements but also with user engagement through SMS or online voting systems.

India saw a shift in Entertainment from such pre-recorded games shows to the reality TV. Reality television frequently portrays a modified and highly influenced form of reality, utilizing sensationalism to attract viewers to generate advertising profits. For the Reality TV game shows it is about social connection eg: Leveraging Dating in young men and women in MTV Splits Villa or Channel V's Dare to Date, or it can be about vengeance and physicality like MTV Roadies or channel V's V the Player etc. which taps in to human psychology and delivers a value which not fulfilled well earlier.

What has changed now?

While these reality TV shows continue to exist and flourish along with soaps and other genres there has been a substantial paradigm shift in consumer mindset. The shift is more apparent in US and UK and other countries where internet penetration is high, however, it's catching up in India pretty fast.

Let's take a look at how communication technology changed consumer behavior and media interaction over years. In early years of television, TV shows used to interact with audiences through posts. I remember an interesting TV show "Surabhi" aired on Doordarshan used to ask people to send Postcards to a Mumbai address. Obviously that was an era when Email didn't exist. We saw the emergence and rapid expansion of email technology in 1990s and how TV media started getting feedback or interaction from viewers through emails. The communication paradigm shifted a lot with the emergence and popularity of Internet and Mobiles. India became on of the fastest growing mobile consumer worldwide. TV content producers started to interact with audiences through mobile SMS voting etc and started to engage audiences in online voting systems.

However, the instantaneous response still lacks in the reality TV and the content is well edited to ensure certifications and abiding by censorship rules. This is the limitation in the TV as a medium.

A paradigm shift!

The paradigm shift is REAL TIME information access, participation and sharing for enhancement of one's social status, social contact and instantaneous gratification.

Since early 2000, India saw growth in Internet penetration and a lot of dot com companies emerged. Majority of the companies had a revenue model based on advertisements. Some of the companies later in the decade started to offer e-commerce and allied services. Slowly with the increase of internet penetration the sources of finding entertainment also started to move online. In 2008 India's internet population was almost similar to internet population in US and China few years back. So India was on a brink of rapid internet growth and penetration across country. This is being leveraged by some skill game sites in India and some recent Online TV Shows like Jay Hind. May be real time SMS voting and Online voting to decide results may soon become the norm...or the REALTIME TV.

To answer the questions: "What's the next step in social skill based entertainment and engagement?"

An apt answer would be: Emergence of Real Time Social Entertainment - RTSE.

Rapid expansion of Facebook and Twitter are clear indicators of this paradigm shift and the emergence of Real Time Social Entertainment. Even online games industry leveraged this paradigm shift eg: companies like Zynga and Playfish etc. tapped well into the growing online population. However, when it comes to monetization and producing sticky content especially for Indians which stays for years and people continue to pay for it, we need to go back to basics.

Changyou.com and Shanda Games are extremely successful chinese online games companies and they have successfully demonstrated that, with local games like: Mahjong, Blade Online, MMOGs etc., content is the king and it stays with the people and clicks super fast with them.

Local content providers in India like Games24x7.com offering Online Rummy in India and more such real time turn by turn played games like: nomination, pool, carrom, chess etc. are all set to tap into this real time social entertainment paradigm shift.

The love affair between Indians and card games spans all demographics right from working men playing in subways and buses, housewives playing at social parties, middle aged and retired men playing in social clubs, to friends and families playing on weekends. With over 1 Lakh players registering on Games24x7.com in just 9 months primarily with word of mouth marketing, playing Rummy online is becoming the new face of entertainment in form of Real Time Social Indian Games.

New tools and technology helps people to answer simple questions like: Where are you now? What are you doing now? Where are your friends Now and What are they doing now? This gives that instantaneous gratification of social contact and if you can interact and enjoy with them while being miles away from them either through a mobile device or accessing internet on a laptop or PC, you get the social entertainment in Real Time. Eg: Foursquare.com engages friend circles in real time updates and engagement to explore cities etc through any mobile device like: iPhone, Google Android based phones, Blackberry etc. Similarly Gowalla.com also allows you to share real time experiences to discover new places anywhere and everywhere.

Most of the innovations in today's time are being built on these psychological paradigm shifts in consumer mindset. Skill games and real time social entertainment derived out of them thus is a huge opportunity out there.

Engage, Participate & Enjoy in Real Time, seems to be the new mantra for 2010.

Rummy Online - New Face of Social Indian Games!

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:56:00 +0000

A recent press release that I did.

Pioneers in offering Rummy online, Games24x7.com goes Social with new interaction features and the company promises a complete social roadmap ahead. With over 1 Lakh players, Rummy is becoming the New Face of Social Indian Games.

The love affair between Indians and card games spans all demographics right from working men playing in subways and buses, housewives playing at social parties, middle aged and retired men playing in social clubs, to friends and families playing on weekends.

The growth and popularity of social networking and interaction websites like Facebook and Orkut has altered significantly the shape of the worldwide online games industry. Connecting through games is the new paradigm in online entertainment.

Games24x7.com is undoubtedly beginning to transform the future of the Indian games industry with the introduction of its latest Social Interaction features. The latest features include Personalized Player Chat, Private Rummy Invitations and the ability to create your own Rummy Circle. With these new features and many more to come, Games24x7.com is revolutionizing the online skill games space with a new face.

“We have managed to bring over 1 Lakh Indian Rummy players together in just 9 months of our BETA launch. This has helped Games24x7.com emerge as India’s favorite Online Rummy site. We aim to offer entertaining and engaging game play in local Indian games of skill where people can connect, play and win cash prizes too.” said Mr. Sachin Uppal, Games24x7.com’s, Marketing Director.

Furthermore, Mr. Trivikraman Thampy, CEO, Games24x7.com addressed the legality of the website by mentioning that “All games offered on Games24x7.com have been expressly approved as skill games by the Hon. Supreme Court of India. Rummy was deemed to be a game of skill in 1968. The card distribution methodology used by Games24x7.com has been certified by the prestigious ‘I Tech Labs’, Australia.”

Mr. Thampy continued, “Seeing the popularity of Games24x7.com’s Rummy on popular social networking sites like Facebook , Twitter and Orkut we will launch a Rummy Application on social networks soon.”

Games24x7.com offers unlimited free rummy games, 24x7. The biggest hit among the Indian audience is their premium version of rummy starting at just Rs. 25. To build your own Rummy Circle and be part of this new phase of Social Indian games, log on to www.games24x7.com.

Couple of Questions for Eric Schmidt

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:36:00 +0000

During Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Orlando 2009, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt spoke to gartner's
Analysts and some of the TOP points that came out and my questions to Eric on the same:

1. Five years from now the internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content.
Question 1 - With the amount of sensorship in China - why do you think "Chinese content will Dominate?" Just the Volume of content or Value of content?

2. Five years is a factor of ten in Moore's Law, meaning that computers will be capable of far more by that time than they are today.

Good for us!

3. Within five years there will be broadband well above 100MB in performance - and distribution distinctions between TV, radio and the web will go away.

I hope this happens... very optimistic approach from Eric I must say...

4. "We're starting to make significant money off of Youtube", content will move towards more video.

5. "Real time information is just as valuable as all the other information, we want it included in our search results."

6. "We can index real-time info now - but how do we rank it?"

7. It's because of this fundamental shift towards user-generated information that people will listen more to other people than to traditional sources. Learning how to rank that "is the great challenge of the age." Schmidt believes Google can solve that problem.

Question 2: "Why do you want to rank that information at all?" If I am following someone and I am going to take a decision based on that individual's recommendation, then I have built my ranking algorithm in my mind...so why do I need google to tell me the rank for the same?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHxub_yQfig

Jay Hind - The Future of Indian TV is here.

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:36:00 +0000

I have been away from writing on my blog for few months now. Work kept me so busy that I didn’t get time or maybe I didn’t jump up in excitement to write about something. Though, after this long break, I found something really interesting. Jay Hind produced by Undercover productions (was not sure if it existed J) in association with Buzzintown.com is the 1^st late night standup comedy show on Internet (youtube channel) in India and this indeed made me jump in excitement and here I am writing about it.

I see the future of Indian TV in this stand-up comedy show. This series is path breaking for Indian TV and the power of Internet in India. If this series becomes a hit and starts making revenues to become profitable, then this will be the 1^st gen TV series online and can give birth to more talented players to come online to provide content and be profitable while running the shows.

I am a firm believer that solid content will find it’s FAN following… and evidently I have seen over 1250 Fans of this show already on Facebook FAN page of Jay Hind growing rapidly by word of mouth in just a month or so.

Jay Hind team has done a wonderful job in creating the same magic of Movers and Shakers as Abhigyan Jha brings in his expertise and creativity to tickle the funny bone with the sarcasm, pun, entertaining and funny conversations, hilarious disclaimers and very well executed gags by Sumeet Raghavan and off-course the Divya aka Savita Bhabhi!

After having not watched TV in a long time, this show re-affirms that it was worth NOT watching the idiot box. The same old boring Saas Bahu $#%) and those cameras panning to every joker’s face gives me total grief. Jay Hind comes as a refreshing change and cuts across the clutter and provides solid entertainment. Interestingly, I am trying to see when I will start seeing ads in the breaks on this show. Presently they are building the momentum for getting the eye balls and with few million people on Internet these eye balls are coming very soon for this show.

Jay hind is leveraging the Social media well for it’s promotion. After the 1^st month of it’s launch in August it has crossed over 1 million views. You can:

Follow Jay Hind on Twitter
Become a Jay Hind Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to Youtube channel of JayhindTV
Check it out on Buzzintown.com

BOKU.com – Not so Rosy for MOBILE Payments

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 08:18:00 +0000

The rosy picture painted in my previous post about BOKU.com doesn’t seem to be that rosy. Based on reading fine print on BOKU.com’s website and some number crunching and deeper analysis, it might become more expensive to acquire new customers and retain customers if you use BOKU.com unless you get a phenomenal increase in conversions.

Airtel + BOKU can reach a huge user base of mobile customers in India. However, it seems like talktime currency can not be used to make payments. So the overall user reach (especially in smaller regions) reduces tremendously.

Postpaid customers – If postpaid users are going to be charged in their bills then service charge, recovery and fraud management will become an issue.

Broadly there are some more important issues to think of:

1) Customer’s Perspective: In the bill amount the user has to pay ~10% service charge. Which means that if they spent Rs. 100 they actually have spent Rs. 110 which they will realize in their 1st bill.

Merchant’s Perspective

1) Airtel + BOKU is charging some ridiculous amount of 25% – 45% fee to allow such transactions. If we go by industry standards, online payment gateways accepting credit card/debit card/Paymate(mobile), ITZ Cash cards etc… all these guys charge not more than 10%. Which means in the case of BOKU, the merchants will have to compensate nearly 25% to 45% of the cost of payment made by users. Which is ridiculous.

2) Merchant’s Perspective: If BOKU says that these numbers add up and it’s volume game and more conversions will help in driving revenues and break-evens then it means that by adding BOKU your conversions need to go up by atleast 10%(this number varies for various industries) till you break even.

3) After careful consideration and number crunching it looks like your existing customers who are already using credit or debit cards to make online payments should actually NOT move to this Mobile payment option as in the earlier case the merchant is compensating for 10% of the fee, however, with BOKU the compensation increases steeply.

BOKU Vs Merchant VS Telecom Provider
1) Credit period and liquidity – Telecom providers are asking for a credit period of 90 days before they release payments. Which means the merchant’s liquidity will get hit. They are willing to reduce it over a period of time to 30 days or 60 days. However, this is ridiculously high as compared to almost 24 hours time frame provided by Online payment gateways.

2) Money recovery from customers – Recovering money from post paid users for wrong charges on their bills might become an issue as they will have to handle fraud complaints and resolutions.

What BOKU can be helpful in is… converting new users. Making payments for the 1st time when the user is not sure about using their credit cards.

Unless Telecom carrier’s and BOKU’s combined cost doesn’t come down to something similar to other online payment gateways, this looks like a flashy new system to me which will take it’s own sweet n slow route to become what they want to become.

BOKU.com – NO Plastic – Mobile based online payment system!

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:32:00 +0000

BOKU.com, mobile payments made easy, NO Plastic Needed.

Today morning I was munching my breakfast after a solid gym routine and while scanning through my feeds, chanced upon an article on Watblog by Maneesh about mobile payments system by a company called BOKU.com where you DON’T need any credit card, debit card, bank account etc to make a payment.

I just jumped in the air and got glued to this post and quickly pounced to check out this site BOKU.com. And YES, they are offering direct payments through mobile phones without any card plastic / bank account.

If BOKU.com continues to expand their partnerships with more and more service providers like, there is nothing which stops BOKU to become the World’s most trusted and easiest online payment system.

BOKU.com is funded by Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, Khosla Ventures. VC’s investments includes high-profile start-ups like Infinera, MySQL, OpenTable, PureDigital, Second Life, Tellme, Twitter, Yelp, and Zillow, and franchise companies such as eBay, Juniper Networks and Red Hat.

BOKU.com’s strong management team comes from web, payment and mobile companies like Amazon, AT&T, Apple, Bank of America, GE, Google, mBlox and Paypal.

They claim to have a strong fraud management systems from their strong experience in managing risk in top notch companies like Amazon, PayPal, Google, Bank of America, and FirstUSA and they claim that Mobile phone is a different story as its used by only you… lets hope that’s the case.

This is how the payments work in BOKU.com, citing an example via @watblog a payment test they did in Facebook on Texas Holdem Poker application.

This can be the NEXT big thing to fuel online business growth with over couple of billion handsets across the world. The 3 step easy process just makes it so lucrative for customers to go ahead and make a quick payment.

As a publisher we are up-beat about this service and I personally am very optimiztic that this system will completely revolutionize the online payments in the coming time.

If this is increasingly adopted by more telecom providers, this will basically revolutionize the online payment systems in India as well as worldwide. I had written about one application of such system (to book local train tickets through mobile) on my blog last year. This is super exciting news for many online businesses. However, what would be interesting to note is, how telecom providers cope with managing the Post-Paid customers with bills and recoveries and charge-backs.

Anyways, this is Fantastic, I being in a online games company where we handle daily online payments… this will help us boost our conversions significantly. I think all online publishers will welcome this as a booster for their sales.

Looking forward to a close collaboration with BOKU.com.

#BPL #BFOI Are you the BARCLAYS FAN OF INDIA?

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:04:00 +0000

Twitter Trending Topics - #BPL #BFOI

BARCLAYS LAUNCH SEARCH FOR ‘THE FAN OF INDIA’

Win a trip for two to England to see Premier League team of choice for India’s top football fan

Mumbai, May 11, 2009: Football FANS in India get ready to meet your favorite teams. Barclays today launches its search for the Fan of India as it seeks to find the most passionate supporter of the Barclays Premier League in the country.

From Kerala to Kolkata, Mumbai to Mohali and Goa to Guwahati, India has some of the most fervent fans of Barclays Premier League football in the world. The Barclays Premier League is the most popular domestic football tournament anywhere in the world, with over 4.77 billion people watching it in over 200 countries. It also has many of the top players including World Player of the Year, Cristiano Ronaldo.

Barclays want to find fans that go to extraordinary lengths to support their favourite Barclays Premier League team or player. Do they practice the Cristiano Ronaldo step-over, create their own club anthem, or maybe perform wild somersaults like Newcastle striker Obafemi Martins?

Fans are required to explain in no more than 100 words why they are the Barclays Fan of India and can include slogans, videos or photographs to support their entry. Entries can be submitted by post, by drop box in selected Malls and Café Coffee locations, e-mail, or uploaded online by visiting www.barclaysfanofindia.com.

All entrants in the Barclays Fans of India competition have the opportunity to win:

· A trip for two to watch their favourite Barclays Premier League team play ‘live’ in England during the 2009/10 season. This will include flights, 4 star hotel accommodation, tickets and transfers.

· 10 runners up will also receive a Barclays Premier League team shirt of their choice

Manchester United’s legendary midfielder Bryan Robson, a judge and ambassador for the Fan of India Contest, said: "I know that representatives from Manchester United have visited India several times in the not too distant past and are always amazed at the level of interest there is in the Barclays Premier League. It really is a hotbed of football. I think the speed and intensity of the league appeals to the Indian population, and I am looking forward to seeing how this is reflected in the entries for the Barclays Fan of India competition."

Liverpool’s Spanish goalkeeper Pepe Reina said: “Barclays Premier League supporters are the best in the world and will go to great lengths to follow their favourite team. Liverpool have a

huge following on the sub-continent so I'm hoping the Barclays Fan of India will be a Reds supporter and get the chance to come over to England and see me in action!"

The competition will run from May 12, 2009 through to June 2, 2009 with the winner of Barclays Fan of India announced in mid June, 2009.

Fans can log on to http://barclaysfanofindia.com for more information on how to enter.

How long will you wait to get your product after payment?

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:54:00 +0000

In today's fast paced world, how long do you think you will wait to get your product after you have made the payment?

I have waited over 17 days already to get my Reliance Broadband Wireless Internet connection and its still not active. While the channel sales partner of Reliance - Vriti Infocom is doing something (which I am not sure what) and Reliance customer support department is also working hard to improve it's image (though their actions don't seem to say anything of that sort).

Placing your trust in a company to buy their product is a decision which everyone takes on a day to day basis. I took this decision and I am repenting. But does this affect the company at all?

Doesn't seem to...

But this makes me wonder does social media in today's time (while helping to build awareness) can build Negative Awareness too about the companies and their policies and the way they handle customers?

Reliance Broadband Netconnect - HORRIBLE | HORRENDOUS

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:36:00 +0000

Reliance Broadband Netconnect - New 3.1 MBPS - HORRIBLE CUSTOMER EXPERINCE and SERVICE

I had BAD experience with them till now...and it’s still going on...

Last month I was just browsing in my office and saw this Ad which said Reliance Broadband 3.1 MBPS new USB based connection. 20x high speed etc.

I got excited and clicked on the ad and went to a website where they asked for the contact details and there was an option to BUY NOW or Pay on delivery.

I thought let me buy it right away as I was waiting for some some high speed internet connection and I had tried their previous 2 MBPS one and the speed was OK. So I thought this one would be better...

Now, this is how the story unfolds:

1) March 17 - I attempted online Booking. Result transaction failure.

2) March 18 - I get a mail from reliance for Booking Confirmation.

3) March 25th and 27th two more Emails on Reliance Netconnect promotions

4) Also, I get calls in the middle which I don’t remember on which days asking me that if I confirm that I want to buy reliance netconnect broadband.

5) Then considering it had been over 2 weeks, so I again clicked on one of the ads and this time chose the option on Payment on Delivery. This time again I get a call and the Sales Executive says please go to this URL and make a payment.

6) The sales executive calls me 2-3 times on 29th to make a payment and I made a payment on 29th March and I do not get any confirmation email. Then I call up the same number from where I got the initial calls to make payments. And they confirm that yes they have got the payment. And they also inform that someone will come to my office in 2 days to deliver the product and collect the documents.

7) I didn’t hear from anyone and I tried calling but couldn’t go through...till 2nd April and nothing happens. I again called and they tell me that the status is showing POD. Then the Sales executive asks me to send all the details in the most broken english as they can...and after sending the proof of payment they started processing.

From: [mailto:@connectindia.in]

Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 11:51 AM
To: @yahoo.com
Subject: INFORMATION
Dear sir,
sir pleas send me the oll details --
Regards
(Sales Advisor)
Reliance Net Connect Team
Online Deals
Noida8) After this I get a confirmation that in 1 day my card will be delivered and I got the card on 3rd April. The guy asks for couple of documents and pictures and goes away.

9) On 4th april some guy from this company calls me and tells me that one document is missing. Then he gets that document collected on the same day at 4 Pm. He couldn’t submit my documents the same day as it reached him at 9 PM.

10) 6th april he stop taking my calls and the customer support centre says they dont have any of my details...7th April the guy picks my call for 5 secs and disconnects in a moment saying he is in reliance office and docs have been submitted.

11) However, till today nothing has happened, no one seems to be responding, customer service says call the company from where you purchased. The company from where I purchased dont pick up calls and dont respond. No response on email too.

12) I called the local reliance webworld and the guy there tells me contact the same company where you purchased it from ... we cant to do anything... or wait for 3 more days....

It’s been 9 days since I made the payment and the device is till not active for me! Now I am just thinking what will happen next...

I am also thinking, that when reliance is not selling this directly from their reliance web worlds then aren’t they responsible for their channel partners? How stupid is this way of running operations? I am extremely unsatisfied with the way their highly unprofessional sales channel and support has operated till now. Is someone listening?????????

Subscribe - Games24x7.com Youtube Channel - How to Play Rummy and Win Cash

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:14:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/user/playgames24x7

Jhatpat Tournaments are Coming Soon

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:50:00 +0000

ProteinLassi - Healthy Lassi Always!

noreply@blogger.com (Sachin Uppal) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:39:00 +0000

Protein Lassi - My new recipe to good health!

Today morning when I returned home from my daily gym routine, I noticed that I forgot to bring milk yesterday. It was 9 Am, the nearby shops were still closed. So I was wondering how to satisfy my hungry tummy...

While I was fiddling with stuff in my refrigerator, I saw this container of Curd and the bulb lighted, Lassi, is what I decided to have. However, I thought of getting innovative. I made a concoction, for which the secret formula, is going to patented ;-).

3 Portions Curd + 1 Portion Water + Ice Cubes + Protein Powder = Protein Lassi

Have a chilled glass and enjoy...