Monthly archives: January 2009

Angle Theory Shortcuts – just amusing or really useful ?

By | Published January 24, 2009

PRLog informs that some Indian boys have come up with shortcuts to Google, Orkut, Yahoomail & Microsoft etc. Want to access Orkut? Then type ookkmm.Com. Simple and easy.More enlightment from the press release:

These are a couple of the many keyboard shortcuts brought out by eight net-savvy youth from India using their "angle theory".
According to them, the whole concept is to overcome the language barrier while surfing.
So what if one does not know English. Just follow the shortcuts invented by the dot com company to log on to your favorite sites, the youths claimed.
Demonstrating their invention, managing director of www.Atoall.Com, Sanjeev Kumar, said one has to type three letters twice on the keyboard which are in a straight line, ‘C’ or inverted ‘C’, ‘V’ or inverted ‘V’ twice followed by dot (.) com.
For example, if one wants to open a gaming site, then he can type the keyboard letters "m, j and n" that are in an inverted "V" shape — mmjjnn.Com.
Kumar said multi-language search engines have been used in the concept.

My question, if language is the barrier and typing Orkut is really really difficult for me, Why do I need to go there ? Is reaching to the domain / site really that difficult and if it is the real difficulty – then what about sign in, sign up, forget password, privacy policy, terms of use, navigation, content, activities.

Anyways, I am not the expert on angle theory, so best luck guys. At least some one is developing something in India and something original :)

Try it on Atoall.com

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Why Home PC penetration is just 26% in India & what to do about it

By | Published January 24, 2009

IAMAI has released this report in association with IMRB which says that 37% per cent of all Internet Access from Cyber Cafés:

In fact, access from cyber cafes recorded an increase of 1% over last year. However, it was far below the peak of 52% in 2003. Commenting on the findings of the survey, IAMAI president Dr Subho Ray mentioned, “This is an area where government and other stakeholders keep running in the opposite direction to the users. Since 2000 cyber cafes have been the most important source of internet cafes, but there have been no recognition and absolutely no encouragement of this access point”. “It is time that the important of shared access through cyber cafes is recognized by the stakeholders” he added.

I-Cube survey also reveled that for the first time access through office had overtaken access from homes. In fact access from home declined to 26% compared to 30% last year. Another positive aspect revealed by the survey was that access from schools had increased this year following a secular trend in increase since 2003.

Few days back I had posted “Indian Mobile Penetration Vs PC Penetration: The comparison & reasons”. The reason very much remain the same plus some more thoughts added here.

  • No real need
  • No Neighbors envy, owners pride value
  • No privacy, it’s a shared family device. Not like personal mobile phone
  • Confusing product choices
  • Broadband availability is pathetic – more in cities actually
  • Competition with other Media – Newspaper, Magazines, TV, FM – why the hell you need net for
  • Cheap voice communication – Just pick up the damn phone and call – no need to poke on facebook.
  • Parent’s perception – If I buy my child a comp – he will play games all day or download those dirty MMS.

What should be done to increase the PC penetration in India:

  • Communication – don’t talk about PC in terms of RAMs, HDDs and Processors. The touchy feely Indians don’t get that. Attach emotions, family, need and culture with PC.
  • Mobile operators – you all have entered into broadband markets. Is it embarassing for you ? Why are you not talking about it and/or why are you not bundling or cross marketing your products.
  • Broadband operators – Please share the last mile infrastructure. Be it DSL, Fibre to the building or Wi-Fi. For a huge last mile rollout and access you need to share. There should be no housing complex in the Metros, where your call centre should reply “Sir, we need to check if there’s availability there”. The scenario of single operator owning the building is anyways not possible, then why think of it. Someone please take the first step.
  • Biggies in PC Markets – Indian Languages / Product / Content and PC penetration is a chicken and egg story. Bundle Tally for office PCs, Encylopaedias on home PCs, DVDs on entertainment PCs. Don’t think offers and discounts think Value. It will also support the Indian software makers.
  • Government – Please don’t bring Government into this. Have a look at the others memes in India retail, real-estate, fashion, automobile, mobile, ites/bpo, television and other stuff. If they didn’t require Government to pitch in, then PC too doesn’t need any.

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History of advertising and the future trends for 2009

By | Published January 21, 2009

[ Via Mastercom]

History of Advertising
View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: advertisinghistory ads)

[Via Cheeryflava] Leo Burnett UK predicts the Future Trends in Advertising for 2009

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#1 Rule of the web development – change is constant

By | Published January 20, 2009

I am reading this book by Mike Moran Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing rules. He is talking about the marketing here, but I find it very much suitable for the web development too.

Today winners don’t get it right the first time: they start fast, and relentlessly optimize their way to success. They do it wrong quickly… then fix it, just as quickly

I am not suggesting that one must do wrong purposely. In many web projects due to multiple stake owners, people keep fighting about the rights and the wrongs. However there’s no thing such as perfect right and perfect wrong. There are always multiple ways and approach to the same problem/feature/solution. And many a times, these arguements are not on big things – but small things and peripheral features of the project.

Deadlines & The Refrigerators

The other thing is the Deadline and Do or Die resource and time management. The days of freezing the web development post release are over. Perpetual beta and agile development are not the new words, but some how this thinking has not gone into project management or the business management.

The things you should accomodate now in development cycle should be:

  1. Release
  2. Post release feedback gathering
  3. Post release SWOT analysis
  4. Post release change management

Feedback Gathering, post release ? :

Now you would say that what about user studies that you did at the time of development. Those were user opinions and not feedback (in most of the cases). Feedback is when thousand of people actually start using your product. When they start telling you how your product changed their life OR how it sucks.

Remember, feedback is not a thumb rule or a prophecy from the user that you must listen too. It’s not a survey of a FMCG product that tells you that n number of people use soap brand A and n+1 use soap brand B and hence brand B is successful.

Feedback gathering and user study is half art and half science and if you are neither a scientist nor a artist then don’t even think about it. I have seen even professional usability consulting agencies doing a mechanical observation.

The blockbuster product is not necessarily always the result of your imagination, planning and design. There are always few tipping points behind the success. That’s why not everyone can just replicate the success. The knowledgeable product manager would know these and exploit them full to the advantage.

To sum it up here’s the quote from the same book.

“Iterate, don’t pontificate”

- Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO, Denuo

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The link between mobile penetration and GDP

By | Published January 19, 2009

Gaurav Mishra writes about the link between economical growth and mobile penetration. He points to an article in Economic Times which reports about the study title ‘‘India: The impact of mobile phones,’ conducted by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) (the report is yet to be released)

Indian states with 10% higher mobile phone penetration will enjoy 1.2% higher annual average growth rate than those with a lower teledensity.

The real benefits of telecommunications only start when a region passes a threshold penetration rate of about 25%. Many areas have still not attained that level.

Delhi’s penetration rate is in excess of 100% but states such as Bihar, Orissa, Assam and Madhya Pradesh have not yet reached the critical 25% threshold.

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Why and how Indian consumers buy mobile phones

By | Published January 19, 2009

Amit Agarwal posts What Indian Consumers Look for When Buying a Mobile Phone. These insights are from a survey, but the survey details are not mentioned. they should be available on Labnol on Jan 21st as the post mentions. The number one reason is brand, which is true as the mobile growth was heavy on the grey market and when someone bought the phone from the grey market, the brand of the phone was always a sort of assurance. Nokia is the brand of choice and it also gives the best deal in the re-sale market. Which is the second reason for being brand conscious.

In addition to the above there’s addition of the mobile phone in the market where Indians bought the phones without worrying about the phone manufacturer. LG, Kyocera, Samsung were all introduced through operators like Reliance, BSNL, Tata Indicom, etc. I am not sure if I knew about LG & Samsung phones before they got bundled with Reliance CDMA.

Now today, most of the lower-end mobile phones are bought as operator’s phone and there’s hardly an awareness about the manufacturer. Ask these people which mobile phone do they have – they will say BSNL, Reliance or Tata.

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Web & Mobile Design Trends 2009

By | Published January 17, 2009

Smashing Magazine publishes web design trends and mobile design trends for 2009

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India’s Vernacular and/or Rural Content Market

By | Published January 16, 2009

Pluggd.in and WAT Blog inform about IAMAI’s report Vernacular Content Market in India (pdf). And even without reading the report I am sharing some interesting insights of my own which you will never find in any reports.

We are expressional vernaculars and not aspirational. Even in a remote village, the kids have WWF wrestler’s photo on his walls. SRK is their entertainer but their aspiration is Tom Cruise.

Vernacular media is going to  be very very big and not vernacular Internet or vernacular computing- This will be with very very high polarization amongst the top media players. Don’t think of a popular Telugu cricket site, but a big big huge Teleugu site which covers Telugu everything.

Indians are not local. A personal in rural area is thinking about the cities, the people in cities are thinking about metros, the people in metros are thinking about the people in States. On an average, people in other countries are more worried about the local politics, local happenings and the local weather. Indians are more worried about the world affairs more than their own.

No one has yet identified the rural user. Who is the rural user. Who in rural India has the capability to hit the Enter button ?. Is he an aspirational migratory bird who is soon to take off or a bigger city or a town.

Rural India may not get continuous electric supply for even half a day, but the hot selling product there is flat screen TVs and DTH. So if you think rural India won’t be the right TG for facebooks and orkuts you are super wrong.

Don’t under-estimate the quality of Internet access in rural parts of India. The electricity may be the problem there but not the quality of Internet. The penetration or daily usage may be low but overall I found BSNL connection to be rocking and much better there. But when I was in Bombay and I didn’t have the landline, I called up at least 5 top broadband players and they didn’t cover my area.

Don’t under-estimate the usage of Rural Internet. Why would they be limited to checking local commodity markets and local news in local languages. Won’t they join in the broader Internet eco-system and post their resumes on Naukri.com and search for life partners on Shaadi.com.

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