I am not a data point

Firefox comes up with a brilliant message in the form of an open letter and along with all the netizens I am loving it. The Web is our largest shared resource. Let's keep it free and open for us, and for the next generation.

Stay alive

While you were sleeping, all the data on your computer, phone, social media accounts have been stored at a distant location. Trust me when I tell you this is for your safety. Come on. You trust me don't you? How would you like someone snooping into your phone conversations, text messages, mails and basically your entire life? Scary right? But aren't we all doing the same thing?

We are all online all the time, armed with the hitech smart phones that have cameras which you would willingly pose, send mails on, post pics to instagram, facebook, twitter and many other places where it is easy to retrieve and use for malicious purposes. I am not scaring you but am just exposing the fact. Remember you are not a data point, you are a real person and trust me you would like to remain human. I don't have anything against being active online, I am very active too but always have the human in you remain alive. Draw a line between what you want to share and what not. Stay away from being a compulsive social media member. Stay alive as staying alive is awesome and it is not just necessary to post everything online but to enjoy it while it is live.

Be a batman

When small mosquitoes trouble you and sing, I-will-get-you song in a slow horrific lullaby then you take out the bat and feel like a ninja warrior. Don't you?

I think this mosquito bat is one of the best inventions that have really helped a common man. Especially in terms of usage(simple technology and very easily adaptable), availability(market penetration) and results. Should I call it the best example of buzz marketing? :)

And just think how powerful you feel once you have this bat in your hand? I for one feel like batman.

Pic is from here.

Someone is listening to you. ALWAYS!

Today's headline and open ed pages in The Hindu, a leading newspaper in India caught everyone's attention. After reading the article its déjà vu!

Now that you know the government is listening to you for your security or at least to help you, what if the technology falls in to the wrong hands? Scary. Such technology should be kept very very safe and out of the hands of miscreants and marketers ;) But given that you are already giving out a lot of information yourself, I might not need to listen to you all the time after all.

Here is a post I wrote in April this year and here is the bit you might like.

Did u get text messages and mails asking you to buy a site, car, loan, camera, etc.? Try talking about buying something on phone and you get these messages. Try speaking about eating out and you will get messages about dining and restaurants. Try speaking about parties, birthdays and you will get offers about gold, etc. You get the drift? Technology intrusion can be appalling.


This information allows me to see when you would feel low and have ice cream or down yourself in booze or call that particular friend, watch that movie, shop! I can understand your profile, your behavior, your psyche and us it to my advantage. I, the marketer, would be glad to shell out greens to have access to that information.


Scary? I feel so. Careful what you type on your Facebook status!

Where's my privacy? It ends where the next person's starts!

Pic is from The Hindu.

Get off my trail!

 

Ever more intrusive, storing your personal information, saving, tracking, predicting and monitoring. What next?

Do you know that each and every search query you type on Google gets stored in some way or the other even if you are not logged in(IP address) to Google and Google can automatically track and recognize your gestures and how you behave? Though it happens to be on a good side reducing my time spent on searching or seeking information. To give you an idea, if you add up all the status messages on Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, you would find that your behavior follows a trend. You watch a particular genre of movies on a particular day, eat at a a certain place these many times a month, call these people this many times, travel, etc. and all are always track-able, more importantly more predictable.

Did u get text messages and mails asking you to buy a site, car, loan, camera, etc.? Try talking about buying something on phone and you get these messages. Try speaking about eating out and you will get messages about dining and restaurants. Try speaking about parties, birthdays and you will get offers about gold, etc. You get the drift? Technology intrusion can be appalling.

This information allows me to see when you would feel low and have ice cream or down yourself in booze or call that particular friend, watch that movie, shop! I can understand your profile, your behavior, your psyche and us it to my advantage. I, the marketer, would be glad to shell out greens to have access to that information.

Scary? I feel so. Careful what you type on your Facebook status!

1 in 6 wants to change service provider

More than one out of six mobile phone subscribers (17.6%) want to switch over to another telecom company. Given India’s mobile subscriber base of more than 700 million, it could mean that up to 120 million people want to switch. As number portability comes into effect on Thursday, a Hindustan
related stories

* Pay Rs 200 for cellphone number portability: TRAI
* Customer king with number portability

Times-MaRS survey — the first ever on number portability — across eight Indian cities covering 4,564 subscribers between December 15, 2010 and January 15, 2011 shows that Airtel and Vodafone Essar will gain the most.

One out of three consumers who are considering switching want to sign up with Airtel, and one out of five who want to change will go to Vodafone Essar. But only half the subscribers who want to switch are dissatisfied with the service they get.

Read full report here.

Love you Dad

Though I have been driving over a decade, each time my dad sees me drive away, I see the anxiety in his eyes. Especially if it is a car. I know he waits for my call, to know I reached safe. He never calls unless my call doesn't come in the stipulated time, lest he disturbs me while driving. I try and tell him that I would be fine but the message doesn't hit the spot.

'You will know one day, when you get to be a dad' is his quip. May be, I will. Look at this video I found at Anxiety Index and you would know why your parents behave the way they do. Loved the ad. Love you Dad.

Using a Blackberry?

I am using Blackberry for almost an year now and am super happy with it. Have you ever heard the cut about RIM's baby? Once you go Black, you never go back. True it is...

Here are some interesting facts about the usage and consumer trends about how Blackberry users check email:

• 83% on vacation
• 59% the second it arrives
• 53% in the bathroom
• 59% in bed
• 37% while driving
• 12% while in Church

Courtesy: Shiv's blog

Spamming away?

Tired of spam mails offering you everything you didn't want? We usually delete them. Few go the long way. Baby did just that. Read on.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Teachnology blues

Got this as a forward from FFO. Very apt. Ain't it?

[Click on the image to see full size]

Adopt Twitter to stay in sync

Gartner analysts have predicted that by 2012, over 50 percent of enterprises will use Twitter, and by 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.

Greater availability of social networking services both inside and outside the firewall, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead 20 percent of users to make a social network the hub of their business communications. During the next several years, most companies will be building out internal social networks and/or allowing business use of personal social network accounts. According to Gartner, social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and expertise location.

By 2012, more than half of the enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging, but stand-alone enterprise microblogging will have less than five percent penetration. The huge popularity of the consumer-microblogging service Twitter, has led many organizations to look for an "enterprise Twitter," that provides microblogging functionality with more control and security features to support internal use between employees. Enterprise users want to use microblogging for many of the same reasons that consumers do to share quick insights, to keep up with what colleagues are doing, to get quick answers to questions and so on.

India's rural inventors drive change

Mansukh Prajapati invented a first-of-a-kind refrigerator that is made out of terracotta, works without electricity, costs US$53 and is selling in the thousands. It's a sample of an innovation wave from rural and small-town India enriching the world with common-sense products.

Anil Gupta, a professor at India's premier business school, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, leads a pioneering tribe of technocrats working for no-frills change at the mass level, by harnessing knowledge wealth from economically weaker sections of society.

"Being economically poor does not mean being knowledge-poor," Gupta told Asia Times Online. "But the poor who are at the bottom of the economic pyramid are often considered as being at the bottom of the knowledge pyramid as well. Nothing could be further from the truth."

To prove the truth that wisdom does not depend on university degrees, Gupta's 21-year-old Honey Bee Network has compiled an unprecedented database of 140,000 innovations created by farmers, villagers and small-town inventors. Many have no formal education or technical training. Teams of Honey Bee volunteers scout across India to hunt out local innovations, inventions and traditional knowledge practices.

The Honey Bee Network of rural and small-town inventors, academics, scientists, entrepreneurs, policymakers and volunteers gather, pool, develop and share know-how from a mass-based, much-ignored source. India's heart beats in its villages, and the country is entering a phase of listening to its heartbeat.

Read full article here.

Mobile Marketing ahead

Numerical data is finally starting to corroborate claims of mobile marketing’s potential for massive growth in the future of advertising. According to a new report from industry analyst Berg Insight, mobile marketing could account for as much as 11.7% of all digital advertising by 2014.

In conjunction with these projections, it is estimated that the total value of the mobile marketing sector could similarly increase ten-fold. Berg Insight has based its projections on the evolution of mobile marketing as a more commonplace component of traditional ad campaigns, as well as other digital marketing endeavors like online newsletters and email marketing.

“Advertisers are increasingly aware of the opportunities and seek new ways to exploit them,” says Marcus Persson, telecom analyst at Berg Insight. “Just the simple fact that people are able to make a phone call or send a text message anywhere at any time has changed the conditions for marketing in general.”

To read the full report from Berg Insight, click here.

They know...

I literally mean it. They know. They just know. You got to be watching what you speak. I don't know if I am thinking too much but definitely seeing things that you should be worried about. By you I mean all of us consumers. Let me explain...

During the last few months I have moved across 4 states in Southern India and have been using 5 different mobile service providers and I have seen it everywhere. I think the privacy of my conversation or sms is being compromised! That worries me. I guess this is common across service providers.

I speak to someone on my mobile about eating a pizza and next moment I get sms offering me a pizza at a particular outlet, I talk about doing a PG course in psychology and the next sms is about a distance program in psychology! This just gets better... talk about marriage, paying bills, changing a job, buying a flat, car or whatever and there are high chances that you end up getting offers on you mobile. Now is this common? I don't know if we have that kind of technology being used by service providers now or if it is legal, but you can easily make out certain words and then sell it to a 3rd party who might be interested. That's MY privacy... sold!

Try this and check for yourself. Oh... the rules of the game are loosely like this:

• You got to have a post paid connection
• Avg. bill amt is more than a particular limit(I don't get offers for a BMW)
  
• Splurging age(20-35yrs)
• Working
• In a metro

I am sure you should have seen this and dismissed it but just think. They just know what you need next. Isn't that haunting?

Omron smile 100%

First seen @ Buyer Behaviour

'Bing'ing ahead

Microsoft want to spread Bing to beat Google and they are working deeply and in correct way to make this real. Starting today Bing is going to throw up results of Twitter messages for search queries. Let me explain how. If you search for 'A R Rahman', you would find @arrahman tweet messages as well! Brings out more realistic and live information online. This is very exciting because there are numerous companies who are trying to build and design widgets which would broadcast Tweets to personal mail boxes, blogs and websites. Now Bing wins it all and throws them into oblivion.

This is really one step ahead of Google but there might be few problems. Consumers expect more intrusion and the privacy factor is at stake and most celebrities would opt out and the search results might be more cluttered and irrelevant. Google is waiting and watching. For now Microsoft has 1 point more then Google. The game has begun.

You can follow me on Twitter at @Vamshiavk. Search for Vamshiavk and you get all my tweets!

Iran & Twitter

What can 140 characters do againist a Nation and world peace? If what is goig on Twitter can be believed and taken as a trend, it can stop a world war! Twitter has the younger generations of Iranians that are protesting in the streets, letting the USA know whats going on. Now this is good, as the older generations in charge of Iran, are being forced to deal with digital cyber warfare and updates. Twitter will bring the world closer.

Twitter on the other hand, is helping the USA and the rest of the world keep up, with updates of the protests in the streets of Iran. People do not understand how serious this is. Its like a game of cat and mouse with North Korea and Iran launching their missiles here and there. Public opinion is being voiced more easily and frequently across Twitter .

Spamming away

(Click to view bigger image)

Off late I have been receiving many spam mails on my Yahoo account. I don't think this is pure coincidence. I have been continuously using it for the last 10 years(does it count as loyalty?) and spam content was very low when compared to my other mail accounts. Around six months back I was asked to start a paid option for better services, which I declined. Which capitalistic consumer would pay for a mail account? Wake up guys it is 2009. Suddenly spam has found me a perfect target. Is this pure coincidence or is someone playing foul? I am just thinking aloud.

I really don't understand spammers. If I get to win millions of dollars just by giving my account number and a few other details, do they want anyone to believe? What interests me is that they really think so! Find better ways to make money.

And as the spammers have improved their technology and found ways to penetrate firewalls, companies should upgrade and update too. Hope Yahoo comes out with something like that or else I might be packing my stuff and walk. Trust me, many are already packing.

New advertising model

Latest reports by Nielson Mobile suggests that consumers are gradually turning towards mobile advertising. Nearly one-fourth of all U.S. mobile subscribers, 23% to be exact, say they have viewed mobile advertising in the last 30 days.

The Nielsen study also found the number of mobile data users who recalled seeing advertising jumped 38%--from 42 million to 58 million between the second and fourth quarters of 2007.
Furthermore, more than half of mobile data subscribers, 51%, who saw an ad responded to it by sending a text-message, clicking on it, or calling a specific number. Nielsen estimates 199 million Americans use some type of non-voice mobile service from text-messaging to video streaming.

There is growing receptivity by consumers to mobile advertising. While only 10% of data users said they find mobile advertising acceptable everyone understands now that mobile content will become more robust if driven by an advertising model.

In short, data subscribers are more willing to accept advertising in exchange for lower costs or better content.

• 32% said they're open to mobile advertising if it lowers their overall bill
• 13% will welcome it if it boosts the quality of their mobile media offerings
• 23% expect to see more mobile advertising in the future--up from 15% at the start of 2007

You must have felt it in India too over last few months. The number of ads and msgs you receive on your mobile has almost tripled. Welcome to advertising on mobile. The bad part is that it is disturbing and intrusive. The good part is that the ads are personalized, relevant and practical.

What do you think? Is this good?