Nigel Fernandes

 

A new look Orkut... And new pawn in the game.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

There a new look to Orkut in the making. As the biggg honcho in the Indian social networking scene (inspite of the bad press), Orkut promises to bring in a whole new set of dynamics to Indian dot com businesses.

Just as Facebook and its API is redefining the rules to giving your site/service that most important access user pools, Orkut with its considerably growing traffic promises to change the way Indian dot coms via for a bit of the traffic pie.

There's a whole slew of new features coming out of the Orkut stables right now ( like photo and rich content scraps, favorite videos and feeds), and one can only wait with lip smacking anticipation for a Facebook type API. If and when that happens it will be interesting to see who jump onto the bandwagon.

BookEazy took an innovative approach to tapping Orkut's huge potential even before the appearance of an API with their MovieLog feature. What else will India Innovative throw our orkut'ing ways then ?

Labels: orkut startups india

 

Indian Branding after 60 years

Friday, August 24, 2007

I read a fantastic article in Outlook Business, August 20^th Issue. The magazine was a special but certainly not unique, edition focusing on India Inc. after 60 years. While most of the magazine was the usual rhetoric of India’s red tape raj of the 70’s and 80’s, of the Indian business families and their pioneering spirit in the face of all bureaucratic odds, blah blah blah… there was one article with a difference in my opinion.

Survival of the Focussed by Ajita Shahsidhar and Sriram Srinivasan was an interesting look at Indian brands over the last 60 years. What the article basically covers are a few iconic but totally Indian brands that have really stood the test of time. Their success mantra, according to the article would be sticking to their core positioning and their customer relationships. Lux, Lifebuoy, DairyMilk, Horlicks etc. have gone far beyond just marketing to become ingrained in the social fabric of the nation.

The article also delves into brands that were iconic and seem to have lost that sway (Bata), brands that have under-utilized their iconic status (the Bullet), and brands that have the very real potential to become iconic (Titan, Amul). I really recommend this article to the casually interested and novice alike.

The article by Alyque Padamsee, CEO of AP advertising called Personal Look In The Rear View Mirror is the perfect follow on. Insightful and reflective, from the man behind MRF’s ‘tyre with muscle’ and liril’s waterfall girl, this is really a worthy read.

I think both articles are relevant even to the dot Com generation of brands. Already you have Google and Yahoo being so well established that even my yesteryear parents recognize them. While these may not be Indian in their origin, the super speed in which sites like Shaadi.com and Baazee.com became synonymous with online matrimonial and online shopping respectively, could mean the trend extends even to India’s rather nascent dot Com brands.

I must however consider at least one question further however. How much a part did word of mouth play in making these brands iconic, and how much of it was down to massive main stream advertising and big budget marketing campaigns. While ‘Tandarusti ki raksha karta hai Lifebuoy’ was thrown at me from every media possible, for as long as I can remember, Google and its products however, to the best of my recollection, never has been.

Seth Godin seems to believe this is primarily down to the word of mouth effect that Google some how managed to build up. The trend among new Indian dot Coms seems to be quite the opposite, with Zapak mail, IndiaTimes mail and even BigAdda all going the heavy advertising route. While it is true that going one way does not exclude the other, I still think its pretty indicative of the general mindset.

I can’t wait to see which if any of these newcomers will establish themselves against the existing big players. Regardless of if they do succeed or not, I can’t wait for the articles from the marketing gurus explaining what their mantras were, and why they failed or succeeded.

Labels: thoughts brands india

 

Vacation time in Goa

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Its been a mixed bag of fortunes this last week. I said goodbye to two friends who are going to the U.S.A. to pursue their masters. I also met a few college mates who I hand not seen in ages. I met up with Ryan (pictured alongside, it was his birthday), Sid and Ivan (of the ol’ Pune days), ran into Dhruv on the road, had a long chat with Liz Anne, met Analiz, wished Ralston and Ashay all the best, met with the a few ‘mandal’ members, met Jorge & Josie,…

Best part of meeting so many people was getting updated on their lives and the people around them. Goans thrive on knowing whats happening with you, your friends and any minute acquaintance you may share. Heck we even care about people we don’t know and haven’t ever seen.

Each Goan you might meet is a real life Orkut community complete with scrapbooks (‘you know what x said to y last week ?’), friend connection systems (‘she is my so and so’s cousin's neighbor.. ’) and more.

Yes, it is gossip in the most part, but what’s really shocking is how much that defines us as a community. Strangely the sooner you admit to this ‘mongering’ trait, the sooner you’ll wear that queer badge of Goan identity. I must admit, as an exiled son of the state, that gives me a happy sense of belonging.

But I digress. This post was meant to be a summary of a week of vacation time most enjoyable spent. I read a whole lot. I managed to stick to my new policy of a book a week. I re-read, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and added Maria Aurora Couto’s Goa, a Daughters Story to my kitty. I really missed reading, but at least I’m slowly remedying that.

The other thing I did, was make a concerted effort to learn. I threw myself deep into mastering JavaScript. What I realized was, that since I started working, I had stopped taking time out to really learn something. But you should read more about the JavaScript story here.

Another thing I have realized is that since I left school, I don’t do creative writing anymore. What also hit me, was since I stopped writing to my blog in recent months, I had actually stopped writing completely. And that’s a bad thing. Office and work based communication is just not the same thing. There you need to be concise and accurate for most part, and while that is a skill to be polished, it does very little for your writing ability in general.

I realized that I found just writing about nothing a little hard. For someone who prided himself on his ability to creatively produce sentence after sentence on ridiculous topics, this was a startling discovery. This is going to change now. I am going to be much more prolific in terms of my own writings. God spare your souls.

Its back to work from Tuesday onwards. I am quite looking forward to the week. Vacation time is great. Recharge time is much needed, but there has to be something meaningful to get back too, or else I feel like life is slipping by. Its only the promise of doing something productive, and probably doing it better now that I’ve had time off, that makes rest and recreation so incredibly good.

Labels: reflection