Dataquest published my article 'Back to the Future' in their last issue, on Social Media trends to expect in 2010 for India. Reproducing the content here:

Back to the Future
Ten trends that will drive social media in 2010

The year 2010 will be about social media coming of age, albeit in select ways. Some relevant trends:

1. Social Media For the Enterprise: 2010 will be the year where the enterprise looks towards social media for providing internal solutions for interaction, learning, fun! By 2010 end, internal e-mails should be passe, with people/ organizations sharing news, information, and updates through their internal social networks
2. Search Will Open Up: If Facebook opens itself to search, that in itself would be the single most revolutionary development in the social media environment for the year 2010. Google may also bring its social search out of the labs as a service, which again would shift the paradigm back in favor of Google as the enduring, preferred search mechanism. Real-time search will gain ground
3. Greater Focus On Tracking and Monitoring: Rigorous social media monitoring will emerge as one of the key focus areas for brands and organizations, in addition to their outreach and engagement initiatives over the social web, a symptom of maturing digital campaigns. While social media monitoring has relevance for several other sectors like governance, e-journalism, etc., it will be interesting to see if its potential gets tapped in 2010
4. The Year of the Mobile, Finally: While for the last two consecutive years, we've been beckoning the arrival of the mobile as the next big thing, 2010 looks like the year that mobile will get third-time lucky. While it is already a ubiquitous device, the mobile itself is increasingly becoming the first tool for social media consumption, making it seamless and instantaneous. People would publish, consume, and share on the go!
5. Collaboration Among Social Media Stakeholders: One of the crucial trends that 2010 will see materialize is the coming together of the various stakeholders within the social media landscape for sharing, learning, collaboration as well as fun. (There are immense possibilities of this vibrant coming together - to name a few, mutual notes-exchange, enhanced business value, cross-sector partnerships, global alliances, et al. One such step has been initiated by Blogworks in IndiaSocial™, with a case-studies series, the India Social wiki and a large-format flagship event in the current pipeline.) 2010 will see this coming of age of the Indian social media scene through such collaborative initiatives




6. Convergence Across Media: Increasingly, all media are coming together - textual, audio, visual. Google Wave is one such example - a cross between chat, wiki, and email. Convergence would gain credence and adoption across platforms, and even in social advertising!
7. Augmented Reality: The much touted phenomenon of augmented reality, only witnessed in science fiction, may not entirely materialize, but will surely develop further. While we already rely on LinkedIn and Facebook to profile/ sample people before we meet them, or meet over Twitter before a real-life face-off, extensive social profiling is something to look forward to. For instance, foursquare is a well known location-based network. This is also convergence in the sense that offline and online identities eventually come together, where the hitherto separate persona and the person come together as one
8. Social Gaming: Farmville and Mafia Wars have only shown the tip of the iceberg in 2009, and this potential of purely fun-based engagement on the social web will be tapped further this year
9. Interest Based Tribes Mature: Just like anything that comes of age, social media would also become boring in general. However, there's respite in the fact that specific interest groups, as they mature, could become even more intensely active. However, these enhanced tastes imply that while 2009 was the year of un-friending, well gradually move to the year where people will un-join communities and un-fan pages that lie dormant on their social circuit. Brands will have to provide value to be on peoples social radars
10. Revenue For Twitter: Twitter, the shiny object having lost its sheen by now, would be relevant for its use-value, and not just its glamor quotient. This in turn also means that 2010 is the one for Twitters growth as a business offering, it having fared well at the numbers growth in 2009


What are your thoughts? Would love to hear if you agree or otherwise.

Twitter, the fastest growing social network in the world (it grew 1448 percent y-o-y between May 2008 and May 2009), invariably comes up in every conversation about communication or new-media. Vice-versa, every event of any consequence (or otherwise) makes its way onto the Twitter-sphere. Something that was developed to send out short status messages (status was, in fact, the working title of the product) has found itself such differentiated value.

Much of it is due to its simplicity, but equally the result of the variegated effect that many of the services built around its core offer. Here are some of the applications and services enhancing the Twitter experience that you may want to try out as well:

Twitter Clients - Using Twitter's API, these clients let you access the service the way you want. Multiple iterations allow you to choose the interface and the functions you prefer:

1. TwitterFox runs as an extension on the Firefox window itself, with Twitter updates from friends popping up at set regular intervals
2. TweetDeck is still in beta, but hugely popular, for, it lets you see all you need to on one page, for faster and easier twittering
3. Destroy Twitter allows you to operate multiple accounts, and runs on Adobe AIR, with great functionality making it a one-stop web application for Twitter
4. Dabr often called Twitter on steroids, is the most-loved Twitter application for the mobile. Being an application that incorporates user-feedback at the bat of an eyelid, this isn't surprising at all!

Finding followers & friends - You can build your Twitter-stream based on various criteria, like people who match your interest levels, those who live near you, thought-leaders from your sphere, etc.:

1. WhoShouldIFollow helps you find people with interests similar to yours as showcased in your respective tweets
2. Twellow and WeFollow are two self-serve twitter directories where people list themselves based on their interests and can so be found accordingly. Each interest tag lists out all the people in that category, charted popularity-wise
3. Twubble adds to your social-graph by listing out people who many of your existing friends may be following. It also has a locality filter to better the sorting process
4. TwitDir is a Twitter directory that simply gives you the top 100 people at any given point

Search & Track - Track and listen in on conversations happening around current events & happenings, your brand or simply your favorite music-genre:

1. Hash-Tags make your keywords search-friendly and allow you to track keywords of your choice, while TweetScan charts all conversations happening on Twitter live, which can then be further segmented by hash-tags/keywords
2. Other than the classic Twitter-Search, TweetActive and Twibuzz graph the activity on your keywords in real-time, which can then be compared with other keywords over time as well
3. Twistori tells you (quite literally) what people are loving and hating, thinking or feeling in real time!
4. Happn is a localized search which shows you what people of your city are tweeting about. It only covers Mumbai as of now from India, but it's a cool application anyhow!

Share - Share photos, audio/video, files and links with friends:

1. AutoPostr shares your Flickr photos every time they are uploaded if 'autopostr' is added as a photo-tag photo, whereas Twitpic lets you post pictures directly on Twitter, along with a message, while also keeping track of how many views and responses it receives
2. Bit.ly and Tweetburner shorten and share links and tracks views. They also let you customize links.
3. Twitsay shares audio clips, and Twitddeo is for video-sharing. Twitcam and Qik let you live-stream videos
4. TweetCube and FileSocial allow you to upload and share several kinds of files on Twitter, like mp3, avi, ppt, doc, zip files, plug-ins, pictures, etc.

Analyze - Interpret your activity and see where you're going, to understand the service and its potential better, or just to have some fun!

1. TwitGraph gives a visual progression of your statistics, while TweetStats shows bar-graphs of your ongoing weekly activity
2. Tweet Beep tracks your specific tags, etc. on a regular basis whereas Twemes tracks all active tags in one place
3. To judge volume of conversation on Twitter, Tweet-Volume tracks and compares volume for different keywords
4. Twitter-Grader and Twinfluence grade your influence based on your power, reach and authority. They employ several logarithms including factors like number of followers, follower/following ratio, power of followers, frequency of updates, engagement, etc. to reach their conclusions
5. Twitter-Friends analyses all the above, and more, and presents your engagement in a visual, interpretative manner for you to compare and analyze

Twitter Plus - There are several of these innovative services that let you do more in the same old 140 characters:

1. GroupTweet and TweetKnot are services that allow you to create Twitter groups where friends can be invited for sharing messages in a more focused manner
2. With Twitchat and Tinychat, you can create your own chat-rooms of your twitter friends for exclusive discussions that you may not want spilling over to your entire stream :P
3. AutoDMer and TwitResponse send an auto-response to every new follower, or even set updates at a regular frequency
4. Twitter backgrounds has a whole array of backgrounds to pick for your Twitter account, and also offers specific paid customization
5. Write-up lets you share longer text through a link in a Tweet, while LinkBunch clubs multiple links for you to share at one go

This list is not exhaustive, merely a selection that as a combination, works best for most of my needs, and hopefully will help you too. There are several places that link to exhaustive listings of tools and applications, like Mashable, Twitdom, et al. Which Twitter-tools have you found useful? Do add them to the list!


Happy Tweeting!

Susan Boyle, one of the contestants of the British reality show "Britain's Got Talent", gave a dramatic performance on stage mesmerizing the audience and judges with her marvelous voice. Immediately after the performance, her viral video circulated the internet and got a whooping 186 million views online in less than a month as per Visible Measures and also made it to the top five '100 Million Views Club'. Interestingly, Susan's performance has landed her in fifth most viewed slot along with Mariah Carey's music video 'Touch my body'. Wow! The video is worth watching.

Brands all over the world have been using viral videos to promote their products for some years now. Take for instance our home grown viral videos, which was first initiated by companies like MakeMyTrip, Desimartini, Wrigley's Orbit and many more. These videos were a rage and in fact are quite popular in the digital space even today.

However, it is only in the past couple of years with the advent and popularity of social media networks like Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, and the likes that viral videos are having a spiralling effect. Take the much talked about Vodafone ZooZoo ads for instance, the ads were created for consumption off the TV screens but the impact of the videos online has been phenomenon - fans of Zoozoo are flocking on social networks just to view the Zoozoo characters.

However, at the same time all this sounds easy to do but in reality you simply just can't expect to post your video and have them go viral on their own, even if you think you have the best videos ever. These days, achieving the 'viral effect' takes serious creativity, hard work and some luck.

If you haven't heard of Divesh Mishra, here is his story. Divesh is a taxi driver based out Varnasi, he has uploaded a video of himself on YouTube talking about his taxi service. The video is simple, it gives out all the information that one would require along with contact details. The video has over 25,000 views in about 18 months, not much for it to reach the viral video charts but surely enough for a man located in a town in India trying to reach out to a global audience via a free online tool.

A really viral video making the rounds of the digital space is 'Jone's Good Ass BBQ and foot massage', a root taken by an entrepreneur in the times of recession.

However, one wrong move, and the spiralling effect can cause severe damage. Take for instance the Domino pizza video on YouTube, the video was caught by viewers so fast, that before Dominoes could even realise the severity of the situation, the video was all over the internet, making it one of the most viewed videos in the online space at the time, till it was finally pulled down by Dominos. The impact of the video - over one million disgusted viewers and a huge blow to the image of the brand. However, brand Dominoes was on top of the situation within 48 hours. Interestingly, Domino's President, Patrick Doyle responded to the situation not by issuing a typical press release but via a YouTube video.

There is enough content online that will list down ways to get 50000 viewers, how to maximise the viral effect, what to do when a viral video goes wrong, managing crisis through viral videos and so on and so forth. Undoubtedly, the best tool would be not to repeat the same mistakes made by others and learn-as-you-go.

Tiger Wood's PGA Tour is taking a step further and is hosting a Viral Video Challenge where the top five winners will be posted on the site for public voting. The effect of such a viral video could be phenomenon. Will keep you updated.

So what's you viral idea?

Many a big brands are re-incarnating this season. But the top grosser in terms of eye-balls and adoration are Vodafone's semi-alien, semi-ghostly & cartoon-like white bodied creatures called the Zoozoos.

While they were launched to co-ordinate with the second season of IPL and push the Value Added Services (VAS) offered by Vodafone, the happiest news is that with Zoozoo, Vodafone has finally found the antidote to the Hutch pug.

The egg-head, as its being lovingly called in many circles, are not even animated characters. Instead, it's humans wearing specialized body suits, shot in creatively adjusted environs. The simplicity of the icon is actually what gave it the edge. With 10 creatives already on air, and 15 more en-route, the team had obviously expected this as well.

The most interesting bit, however, is that the name Zoozoo isn't even mentioned in any of the ads/print campaigns. The popularity of the phenomenon is a result instead, of their attempts on the digital media. See, for instance:

1. The Official Zoozoo fan page - collating their entire online presence on to one, and alongside giving live IPL match updates.
2. What kind of a Zoozoo are you? A quiz, on their website! A temporal & catchy move, Quizzes are the new phase with Facebook flooding up with them anyway. Three questions and they give you an answer. The answer can then be shared with friends on one's blog, through e-mail, on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, FriendFeed, et al!



3. Less than two weeks into the campaign, the Facebook page has over 68,000 fans. Not just that, the much loved Zoozoo who falls into the perils of a crocodile, has a fan page to himself!



4. On Twitter - Well, it's not trending ;), but it sure is invoking a lot of interest. Don't you wonder why the Zoozoos aren't tweeting? ;)
5. An Orkut community, initiated by fans, running polls, forums around the phenomenon.
6. On YouTube, a channel has been set up. People are demanding more videos, and as a result, the making of the Zoozoo is now doing the rounds as well.
7. A Zoozoo community toolbar.

That's more than sufficient buzz. However, a lot of conversations are happening on these fora. What people like - or don't like - from how they feel it reflects on the brand, how it compares to the earlier ads and what they think of the transformation, to even complaints in the VAS offered by Vodafone.

Not just are fans engaging, they are even giving suggestions on Zoozoo merchandise, and what all that should be! Not just the egg-head, the customers are trying to interact with Vodafone as well. Hope someone's listening in to that.

A mix of simplicity, stupidity and hence, the charm, in both the figure and the nomenclature is what's driving the fan-wave for now. That the Zoozoo, like a star-campaigner, may just overshadow the brand, or come to define it in inextricable ways, much like the pug, remains to be seen; but for now, it's generating oodles of revelry.

Do share your Zoozoo thoughts with us :)

According to the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service, the number of people who use the internet (15 years and above from home and work computers) has crossed the 1 billion mark in December 2008.

Key findings of the comScore study showed:

1. The Asia-Pacific region accounted for the highest share of global internet users at 41 per cent, followed by Europe (28 percent share), North America (18 per cent share), Latin-America (7 per cent share) and the Middle East & Africa (5 per cent share)




2. India has the seventh highest number of internet users with a share of 3.2 percent of the worldwide audience and as many as 32 million unique visitors in December 2008
3. Meanwhile, China tops the charts in term of number of internet audience with 1,79,710 users in December constituting over 17.8 percent of the global traffic. Following China is United States and Japan whose internet visiting population is about 16.2 percent and 6 percent respectively
4. The other countries that follow in the descending order of internet usage are Germany, UK, France, India, Russia, Brazil South Korea, Canada, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Netherlands
5. comScore’s study also reveals Google sites as one of the most popular in the web terrain in December 2008. The site had about 777.9 million visitors, followed by Microsoft sites which had about 647.9 million visitors. Yahoo! sites had 562.6 million visitors and Facebook had about 222 million visitors
6. In another comScore study conducted between September and November 2008 showcasing the top ten Indian Websites revealed that Google sites and Yahoo! sites had about 19.9 million and 19.1 million visitors respectively. Orkut came in at third place with over 12 million visitors followed by Rediff, Blogger, YouTube, Wikipedia, Microsoft and Live. Interestingly, Facebook did not figure in the top ten websites in India

A frantic call from a friend seeking advice on credible blogs/ forums/ community sites where one could source an insider’s view of a future employer led to this post. She was recently offered a plum job in a leading technology company based out of Bangalore. Though the company in question boasts of being amongst the top 10 tech companies in the world, a shadow of doubt has remained over its Human Resource policies- scope for career development, work culture, remuneration, etc. Window dressing attempts by HR further fueled suspicion. She wanted the ‘real picture’ and in this time and era, that’s never too difficult to get.

This is not a case in isolation. The environment today is radically different from what it was, even a year ago. Engagement tactics between employers, employees, customers, investors and dealers have undergone an overhaul. Strict hierarchies, top to down communication, chains of command are passé and have made way for a more open and transparent work culture. Business functions like management, marketing, customer care, HR and Internal communication are heavily interlinked, taking away the silos of before.

The role of Human Resources and Internal communications in this viral environment has undergone a complete overhaul. Business challenges have changed and so have the dynamics of employee retention and engagement. HR is struggling hard to be seen separate from the voice of the boardroom and adopting a culture, more in sync with people. Adoption of Web2.0 tools by existing and prospective employees is on the rise and managers would do well to heed to the trend.

1. Sites like Vault, Payscale, get strong traction. Employee surveys, salary comparison, growth statistics, company reports – its all there
2. Blogs; Employees are sharing opinions and experiences via anonymous or public blogs. The Mini Microsoft blog is a fairly formidable force to reckon with. Firms like Nokia, Sun Microsystems, IBM have large number of employees maintaining blogs
3. Social communities such as Orkut have niche communities discussing companies, their policies, employee experiences etc.
4. And of course, grapevine sites such as Truemors, Internalmemos, and Twitter could prove to be damaging for an organization, if it is caught on the wrong side of the fence.

These sites indicate the clear demand for third party endorsements, thought to be unbiased and closer to the truth, when making his career choices. People are looking for real stories and are using the Internet to get exactly what they want.

A couple of times now, my Google Talk status has said 'link love'. All my contacts have at least once pinged me to know whom am I linking up with ;) With equal jest I punch vague answers that blur all possibilities of any further topical discussion. But I smile to myself. For I have just seen the first signs of - what a lot of us are very skeptical about- a Community!

I could build a case for virtual communities and cite several examples even from our very own Orkut. But I’d rather share a live instance that may help validate.

We were recently approached by our friends who run Radio Schizoid, an India based Internet music station that plays trance, for a possible assignment.

Just as an experiment one morning, we linked Schizoid to our respective Google talk status. Consequently, even my Orkut profile was happily advocating- 'Trance @ Radio Schizoid'. Add to that my love for psychedelic art- my profile could have well been of someone from Goa. In a couple of days I get this curiously casual email from Anirudh (no-one I knew then) who called himself a ‘trance addict'. At first I junked the email as yet another random friend request, but I did make a note of the trance bit and checked his profile when next on Orkut.

Word-of-Mouth Marketing is fascinating, as it is intriguing, and Namita debuts on this blog with a piece on trends that we are witnessing. Consumers beget consumers, she says! Interesting, I think - what do you say? Do join the conversation.

1. Consumers beget consumers!

Are the days of celebrity endorsers counted? In the age of reference, it is a peer’s word that seems to matter – the individual and his opinion seem to count for more. There is probably no greater endorsement for Nike than the feet that wear it? and in that respect the consumer has also become the marketer.

The Internet too has done its job in connecting people. Platforms such as blogs, wikis, social communities and forums have provided the Individual opportunities to amplify his voice and reach a large audience.

On the other hand, the marketer continues to face multiple challenges - there is the question of finding the customer in a scattered environment; having found him, retain his attention and critically… stay relevant. If the marketer is able to establish the same level of trust that the user enjoys with his peer group, then that’s a battle won.

Engaging the audience, build presence in forums and communities, act upon feedback are perhaps acts that will add long term value to brands. In essence, nurturing relevant relationships may hold the key to crafting a niche for the brand in this networked era.

Values of transparency, participation and collaboration will improve the overall brand experience. Consumers will naturally be inclined to evangelise the brand – sharing experiences, feedback, posting comments and reviews etc.

Early adopters of this trend have made smooth advances, while many others are just beginning to shake the dust off the shelves.

For example Bzz Agent, specialises in word-of-mouth marketing programs. Based on the premise that consumers with to be heard and can be the most important links for product promotion, the firm has built a substantial database of consumers, tagged as ‘BzzAgents’.

Even as more of us from 'Team Blogworks' get ready to launch our respective, purposeful, blogs, I have been encouraging them to start contributing here. So here we are, Bidisha shares her conversation with a younger cousin, regarding social networking. Enjoy! Do share inputs and your own experiences.

1. Happy Conversations!

They say the proof of the pudding is in its taste - read on...

Social networking is one element of the Web 2.0 environment that sure has the Indian youth hooked. Even though detractors have been predicting the tempo to fizzle out, but a look at the latest statistics may suggest otherwise. Infact, I think social networking is not restricted to just the big cities and metros, a good chunk of profiles from the tier- II cities and small towns. And I state this not on the basis of some third party research, but based on several conversations that I have had on such sites.

Just the other day, during one of my Orkut sessions, I had an interesting conversation with my cousin in Allahabad: Tanay has just been promoted to the 11th standard. Right now he is enjoying his post-board exam break and his favorite hobby these days is not a sport or films or even spending time with his girlfriend… but 'Orkutting' and spending time on several such sites like – Tagged, Desimartini, Hi 5 and Facebook. His peers are there (and so am I) constantly exchanging notes, following each-other. To be denied entry into a 'group' is the worst affront anyone can show you (being dumped is Passé).

Just how much are the youth into social networking? Judge yourself from the fact that many don't exchange telephone numbers or email ids, they ask instead... Are you on Orkut? (or Facebook etc.). They live these networks.