Yet another morning, and yet another piece of M&A news.

Twitter informed me early today morning, that professional networking platform, Linkedin had acquired the professional content sharing platform, Slideshare for a consideration of $119 million.

As two very critical platforms in the world of Social Media, this news was of a lot of interest to us.

While there is the world of Facebook and Twitter out there, especially for the consumer space, the names to reckon with in the professional or B2B space, clearly have been LinkedIn and Slideshare. When we talk to any of our B2B clients, these are almost certainly the first two platforms that come up in conversation. And in that respect, this union of sorts, is heartening in many ways.

Why did LinkedIn acquire Slideshare? What are the synergies now? How will it impact users? Some of my thoughts shared here:

1. Why did LinkedIn acquire Slideshare? Well, I think, because “it simply could“! Post IPO, LinkedIn has a warchest of cash and an appetite for acceleration. And from the point of adding more value to it’s large target group of professionals, the addition of Slideshare makes the most sense.

2. The other critical reason is the whole content play that Slideshare brings in. LinkedIn has been extremely strong on professional people data. It also has extensions of interest like Groups and Company Pages and Q&A sections, but all of these are either company promotional content (company pages) or short term, transactional content (Groups and Answers). What LinkedIn sorely lacked was a large pool of archival and valuable content. And Slideshare as a content sharing platform fills that void perfectly.

3. This content play enables LinkedIn to offer that much more to it’s users. How they will integrate Slideshare content inside the LinkedIn platform, whether they will or not, are all questions for the future. Just having that pool of content, that is of high value to the target audience of LinkedIn, is a big plus, from a point of view of providing that additional value.

4. Then, think of the advertising opportunities that content throws up. So far LinkedIn offers some fabulous advertising options for targeting individuals, based on their professional status. So, for example, one can target mid-level HR professionals in large India IT corporates, via targeted advertising on LinkedIn, if one wanted to. And this targeting was absolutely brilliant. But now there is an additional opportunity that LinkedIn can offer to the same advertiser. That of offering targeted advertising to “those who come and read HR related content on Slideshare”. This make the advertising reach just so much more powerful.

5. A closer integration of slideshare content on to LinkedIn and a deeper integration of LinkedIn on the Slideshare platform are no-brainers. This will help. There has always been a decent integration of Slideshare into LinkedIn. So one could integrate one’s slideshare decks, on one’s LinkedIn profile, for example. And some more. And now you could potentially integrate your LinkedIn profile access, or your LinkedIn company page link, next to your Slideshare deck, on Slideshare. So when someone sees and likes your content there, and wants to quickly contact you, or know more about your company, it is only a click away, right there. These moves will be interesting, quick to do, and should spell good value for both, Slideshare and LinkedIn users.

6. There will be some more benefits that I can see coming. A pro-account on LinkedIn or on Slideshare gave us some value so far. Now, there could be combination pro accounts that give you benefits across the two platforms together. Which again, is good stuff for the user.

These are some of the quick reactions I have, looking to a positive outcome, both for the two brands, as well as for the users of the two brands, going ahead.

What I HOPE is that they do not make it tougher for the user. Like an increase in pro-account fees or more expensive advertising packages, etc.

From my side, I can state that I love both of these brands, and I hope this union of the two will make them even dearer..

Cheers to the brilliant M&A move!!

While speaking at the India Social Summit recently, on a power panel on Social Media and the Entertainment Business, I had briefly remarked on the concept of “Saturdays becoming the new Fridays” and ideas around “Dramatic Crashes” and “Late Revivals” of films, as a result of Social Media.

Here’s a video slice of my talk explaining this concept.

Here are the key thoughts in this context:

1. Since the multiplex culture hit few years back and films released large number of prints simultaneously, the fate of the film was decided largely, on the first weekend of the release.

2. The extent of expectation that was raised (aka pre-release hype), to that extent, the “initial” was commanded. Or in other words, the initial curiosity and intrigue that drove people into the cinema houses.

3. The first weekend was the biggest and depending on how big it went, it took a next few days or perhaps a couple of weeks of waning period of interest. The film made perhaps, 60-70% (sometimes even more) in that first weekend, and the rest, over the next several days.

4. So it was imperative for those film marketers who had the budgets, to generate maximum hype, and draw the largest initial, and then bank on the long tail of the waning period, to make their box office revenues.

All this was largely a pre-social media impact period.

To a fair extent, this behavior has been impacted by the advent of social media. And it has a HUGE say in a film’s fortunes.

The impact can be both, positive and negative, depending, as it should be, on the quality of the film, finally.

So I refer to these two potential consequences as The Nosedive and Late Revival (or Second Coming).

Let me explain The Nosedive:

1. From the earlier, above mentioned marketing method, a film tries and generates massive hype pre-release.

2. Manages to drive “some of the people” into the theatre on Friday.

3. They do not like the film at all. They come out and post on Facebook, tweet and generally, get word out that say, “stay away”.

4. And the rest of us folks “stay away”.

5. So what was supposed to be a big initial and then a useful waning period of box office earnings, actually turns out to be The Nosedive. Like a failed missile / rocket launch. A sad and early demise.

Huge case in point: Ra.One. More recent one: Agent Vinod.

So what then, is the Late Revival or the Second Coming:

1. This happens where the film, either on account of limited marketing budget, or on account of not having enough “draw power” (stars, etc.), has a relatively quiet release.

2. What that means is fewer cinemas, fewer shows, not a lot of publicity.

3. And yet, some of the keen diehards of cinema, discover the release, and manage to find their way into the cinema, over the first weekend, and the week after. A slow start for sure.

4. The rest of the mass audience do not even have the film in their horizon, or have any plans to see the movie.

5. But the film is actually good. And those initial viewers are happy. And perhaps surprised happy!

6. And due to this reason, they come out and enthusiastically write about the film. On Facebook, on Twitter and everywhere.

7. And some of us who had no plans to even consider the film, cannot ignore these posts creeping into our timelines and on our FB walls.

8. And then on the second weekend, or sometimes even after, many of us are now curious to get into the theatre, to catch the film.

And so happens the Late Revival or Second Coming.

Cases in point: Kahani and Paan Singh Tomar, in recent days.

While a lot of this thought process is empirical in nature, I would be very curious to see data of BO collections for films like Kahani and Paan Singh Tomar, especially comparing its first week vs its second and third ones. It may make for interesting reading!

I was prompted to write this seeing yet another Second Coming.

At this time, I am sensing Vicky Donor going through a Second Coming (pun totally unintended!!).

Have you sensed this kind of a development? My film buff friends, do you agree?

While the social media space has matured a lot in the last couple of years, we are far from claiming any kind of established norms or proven best practices in the use of social media.

So the experiment continues.

And some are getting it better than others.

Let’s examine the fundamentals of social media ownership, if at all, there is any relevance to a word of that kind.

If you are a brand, and you run a Facebook page, who “owns” that page? I presume, you can say, you, the brand, own it. And if you own it, you decide what kind of content goes up and what doesn’t. But does that mean, you disallow content that can be damaging to you? For example, complaints, etc.?

Different brands have different sensitivities on these matters.

Many brands are concerned enough to not allow such mentions at all. They want to delete them all.

Some permit a little negative, but as soon as competition or a strong negativism comes in, they want to pull it out.

And there are but a few who believe that the medium is truly open, and all content should be allowed to be up there, and responded to.

This is where brands are concerned and where there is a genuine ownership of the brand at one level.

What if the social media presence is of a community or a group or a society? Should it be far more liberal, at least to its members? Should it have a character or a bulletin board with very loose moderation?

This idea was taken to a very different level by one account. In fact, I would term it as one of the bravest and most interesting social media experiments!

This is the official Twitter account of the country, Sweden. The Twitter handle is @sweden.

The ‘owners’ of the account, the tourism board of Sweden, term this as “the world’s most democratic Twitter account”. What that actually means, is that the Twitter account @sweden is actually managed by a different, average Swedish citizen, each week!

The account declares WHO it is, that is running the account each week. And certainly, these are different, and ordinary citizens.

For example, the few people who have run the account for @sweden include:

1. A Christian Minister
2. An organic sheep farmer
3. An immigrant blogger
4. An “average lesbian truck driver”

The people who are picked to tweet for Sweden are free to write what they feel. The account is not really ‘moderated’. Each person who is assigned to run the account has a contract, which stops him from using the account to put out racist comments, personal attacks, advertising or tweets that affect national security. Other than these, the citizens managing the account can tweet about anything!

So there have been cases where the person running @sweden has criticized the foreign minister, and there have been other tweets which are not exactly always flattering about things in Sweden.

And which is how they intended to be. In the words of Tommy Sollen, the social media manager of VisitSweden, “In this age of internet and transparency, if you want to be credible, you have to let go of control and empower the people. We want to be seen as progressive, open, credible and truthful”.

Now this activity is clearly a double-edged sword. While it clearly generates a lot of hype and interest, and brings curious traffic to see what is happening on the Twitter account, there are some not-so-good aspects of Sweden which also get shared out. Will it worry potential tourists? Will it attract potential tourists?

The jury is clearly out. One thing is clear though, that uniqueness gets noticed and attracts followers / fans. In this case, the @sweden account has generated global interest. Which would have been hard to do, if it was one more simple average tourism twitter handle.

So have you noticed anything very unique in social media recently?

What is your new social media experiment all about?

So you think Google Plus has it’s set of challenges, as it ambitiously takes on Facebook?? Well, I am not even talking about that.

My worry is about Google’s core product and cash earner, Google Search!

Let’s do a quick dipstick here:

-       When you search on Google for information, how fast do you get to the right information that you need? That is, IF you ever get to it?!

-       If the information that you are looking for is not something as basic as “what is the current time in San Francisco?” or “temperature in New Delhi”, there is every chance that information search is a frustrating experience on Google. Do you agree?

THIS is the reason I am concerned about Google.

While Google has been doing a fair amount of innovation in search, and for certain types of enquiries, you can get to the information faster, there are a whole host of search queries that do not lead to good results, and where as a user, you look out for alternative options!

Let’s understand the overall Google revenue model on search.

The revenue model is largely an advertising model. An advertiser takes ads on Google, while mapping search words.

In other words, if I am a florist, I will like to buy Google ads, for keywords like “florists in Mumbai” or “Valentine’s day flowers” etc. In short, when someone is searching for words or phrases of these kinds, then I would like them to see my advertisement on Google, on the right side of the page there. Because, then I would have the best chance of finding a connect to the particular user, and tempting him to click my ad, and come to my website.

So there are advertiser brands that may be offering anything from a pin to an airplane, and trying to reach the user who is searching for related words.

The other key thing to know and understand is that an advertiser typically pays only when someone clicks on their ad and not otherwise. Also that all advertisers do NOT pay the same amount. The amount that an advertiser pays per click depends on the budget or rate that he has chosen, and it is based on a dynamic demand-supply situation of advertisers and searchers, for that particular word or phrase.

But from the point of view of the advertiser, whatever rate he has agreed to pay, per click, is his “cost of acquisition” or the cost to get an interested user, to visit his website.

So who would spend how much on advertising on Google?

If your business is of transportation of very large sized goods, you may still use Google advertising, to get across to people who are looking for such services. But for you then, this is a marketing campaign, and you want a certain visibility amongst your target group.

So you would put money here in campaign bursts, and leave it at that.

On the other hand, if you are an e-commerce company, selling online, whether it is travel services or products or whatever, for you, the Google ad is a direct customer acquisition cost, and all the traffic that you pull in, from these ads, you have a chance to get them to buy from you, right away. Since there is a way to map conversion from such clicks also, an e-commerce company can quickly calculate the equivalent cost of acquisition of not just a visitor to the site, but an actual buyer.

For those who don’t get this, let me explain with an example.

Say, a hotel booking company advertises on Google and spends Rs. 50 per click.

Say, 100 people click the ad. So his cost is Rs. 5,000.

Mapping for conversions from these 100 clicks, he finds out that 20 of those actually went and made a booking.

So to acquire those 20 customers, he has spent Rs. 5,000 or his per customer acquisition becomes Rs. 250. Now if his average booking transaction is Rs. 10,000, he may have no issues in this kind of spend, and may keep doing the spend forever.

Unlike the advertiser who spends on marketing campaigns, in bursts, and then goes away.

Now here is where the challenge for Google comes in.

All of the transaction oriented e-commerce businesses, are starting to get their own specialized search engines, which do a tremendous job of the search, and far better than what Google does.

To emphasize the challenge:

-       Larger and regular monies are spent on Google ads, by companies who have a quick transaction engine on the web; for them, it is direct customer acquisition,

-       However, for most of such needs, users are finding better options to go and search at; over time, users will move away from Google to search for their needs of hotels, flights, products to purchase, movie tickets, etc.

-       If the searcher moves away from Google, so will the advertiser who is looking for that searcher. What constitutes the larger spends on Google ads, will take flight and move to more relevant locations to get better returns for their money.

You don’t buy this argument? Let’s take the spin.

1. Say, you are searching for tickets from Mumbai to Chicago. And you are looking to find options. What do you get?

What I get on Google.com are a LOT of ads, on the top and on the right, and in the main search, I get a few clearly SEO doctored links, and then a few links to travel websites. So yes, if I play around these links, I will get the information that I am looking for, in a few clicks.

But I go to any of the leading travel sites instead and punch the same request, I get a quick response in terms of flight options for Mumbai to Chicago.

And then I go to a travel comparison site like say, ixigo.com, and I get the same search results from several travel sites, simultaneously. Flight options, prices, all at a quick glance, together on the same page.

So why would I go via Google at all?

1. If I was looking similarly for ‘hotel options in Jodhpur’, the experience will be identical to the above.

Question again will be that, if I were looking for hotel options, why would I go to Google at all?

1. Let’s consider products. Say I was looking for a book, “The Maverick” by Ricardo Semler. What will be my experience?

Searching on Google gives me stuff about the book, about Semler, reviews, and 1-2 links to Amazon.com.

Instead I go to junglee.com (the killer app on Indian e-commerce, I reckon), and I get a bunch of options for purchase of the book, with price details, and seller information. Bang on! Exactly what I need.

Repeat this for most e-commerce or transaction oriented categories, and you will find a similar challenge. That Google does NOT give you what you want. There IS a specialist platform that gives you perfect results.

1. Think location hunting. Try searching for car garage in Bandra, Mumbai. This is again likely to be an immediate transaction oriented opportunity, as you are looking for a service provider, due to a need!

Again, Google gets all generic and will take a while to get you to your desired results. And you go to justdial.com, and zero in on your requirement in less than 15 seconds! Where will you go for your local search next time?!

So the bottom line is that people may NOT start at Google when they are searching for such transaction-oriented information. And this is where the cheese may be moving away for Google!

This is where the old time Internet service providers and portals went wrong. Time was when AOL and Prodigy and others were the starting point for anyone in the US, wanting to get information from the Internet.

Then came portals and search engines. And the game shifted. Sites like Yahoo and Lycos became the default starting points for people, as they offered best recommendations for news, education, entertainments, science, sports, or whatever.

Then came specialist sites for finance and matrimony and recruitment, and people went there directly, instead of going via portals.

I am seeing a similar movement, away from search engines, or rather, away from Google.

And considering that search is the main money earner for Google, if they do not correct, this could be the beginning of the southward movement on the revenue front. And THAT will hurt Google far more than their experiments with social networks (Wave, Buzz, Google Plus, Orkut, etc.) not taking off!

I worry for Google.

A lot of people have been busy pouring over the documents filed by Facebook, for their IPO. Finally, it seems there is enlightenment about this magical land called Facebook!

Amongst the various Facebook facets that people have commented upon then, is also this one take – that Facebook’s reported numbers of Daily Active Users, may not be an accurate number!

These reported numbers have been questioned for accuracy, also here and here.

The key point that all of these articles make is that Facebook counts as a daily active user, someone who clicks a Facebook like button, on a third party site, without even visiting Facebook.com, either on the web or on the mobile.  And which these authors feel, is an inaccurate way to measure the daily user. Their main argument, it would appear, is that the particular daily user, is someone who cannot then be targeted for advertising, since he does not even come to the Facebook property.

Okay, so before I jump in to my views on the subject, let me explain this third party business, for those who may not quite get it.

If you are a Facebook user, the one obvious type of usage you can do, is when you go to your Facebook profile, say on your wall, as under:

You could also access Facebook similarly on your phone, say:

The authors of the articles mentioned above reckon, that such type of access to Facebook is the only kind that should really count, as being an active usage.

So what other ways CAN you be using Facebook?

Well, there are many web pages all over the Internet, which have plugged in what is known as the ‘Facebook like’ button, on their own pages. It would look something like this below:

What you are seeing here (and which you’d see on many web pages) is an article on a website, with a ‘Facebook Like’ button next to it.

So if you were on this website, and you actually enjoyed this article, you might just click this Facebook Like button next to it.

Now Facebook is counting SUCH clicks to also be a daily active usage of Facebook. And these authors who are questioning the number, are questioning exactly this factor!

Personally, I believe that it is perfectly okay for Facebook to count this as a daily usage number.

And I will give my reasons below.

First of all, let’s understand WHAT happens when a user clicks this particular link.

It is not just about a self-acknowledgment that “I liked this article”! What it does simultaneously is that, it sends out a status update on behalf of that reader, on his Facebook profile, to the effect that “I liked this article”, and with a link to the article.

Something as under:

Liking this page will result in a Facebook update of this kind:

In fact, this article explains this point in detail.

So as you can see, first of all, on account of having clicked that ‘like’ on the web article, there is amplification of the article, and it has a chance to be seen by many OTHERS (the reader’s friends, who may see his update on their walls). This then has a chance, to increase their engagement on Facebook, and also of course, increase traffic to the concerned website.

Note that, EVEN IF the web article did not carry the “Facebook Like” button, there are ways in which you can “Facebook Like” anything that you see on your browser. Thanks to “Facebook Like” browser plug-ins. I have one installed on my Chrome browser, as you can see below:

So anytime someone clicks such a Facebook Like button:

1. They are acknowledging that they are Facebook users
2. That they are logged in to Facebook at that time
3. That they want their Facebook friends to know that they liked a particular Web URL

And on account of this, many of their friends may ALSO engage via Facebook to that particular web article.

So why should this NOT be a legitimate Facebook usage?

The observers who are questioning this count worry about Facebook not being able to reach this user, via its’ ads. And hence, they feel, that such usage should not be counted as daily active usage.

Well, from a pure earnings’ standpoint (and which is of interest at IPO times, I guess), this may be a fact. For now at least. I presume, theoretically, there may be ways for reaching this user for some form of advertising or the other, later on. And I will not put this beyond the ingenious engineers at Facebook.

But from all other, non-revenue aspects, I believe that participation, even via third party, external sites, IS a perfectly legitimate use of Facebook, and cannot be questioned.

At this point, I may also emphasize another key element that people should think about, when they think of Facebook, especially in context of its comparison to most other web properties.

There has to be a recognition that the web is changing, and that content is getting mobile!

Time was when Amazon’s reach was the number of people who logged in to Amazon.com.

Then Amazon got affiliates. And allowed other websites to carry Amazon shopping options. Now if I were on a gardening blog, and saw a gardening book offered by Amazon, there was a chance that Amazon could have reached me, without my having gone to Amazon.com.

Think Google and Google search ads.

Earlier, you’d see Google ads on the Google search engine, when you searched for some topic. The ads would appear on the right side.

And then Google enabled other content providers to also carry Google ads. So again, if I went to a gardening blog, and the blogger had enabled Google ads, those ads would appear on the blog as well.

So if a gardening tools advertiser had picked some gardening related keywords to advertise on, his ad would be seen by a user reaching that blog, and who did not even go to Google to search!

And the feature of Facebook like buttons on external websites, is a part of this dynamic web 2.0 world. Especially in the case of Facebook, which is a Social Utility (being different things to different people at different times!), the important part is about creating a Facebook ecosystem.

And it has clearly created that in a big way!

Then, for a Facebook ecosystem, measuring the usage by considering how many people came to the website, Facebook.com, would in fact, be an inaccurate estimate of the impact that Facebook has on people’s lives, on a daily basis!

I believe if 450-odd million people connect with a Facebook property or link, one or the other way, that’s clearly more power to Facebook. And irrespective of the reach of advertising to these folks, these guys count!

Now, if it was about the little +1 on the corner that I see when I access Gmail, and which I do nothing about, and if Google were to treat THAT as active Google+ usage, then that would indeed be wrong. No matter what changes Google does to the user agreement!

It is often misunderstood that managing social media is easy for brands. I mean, we all do Facebook. So what can be the big deal about managing a brand presence on Social Media.

Well, for one, going from a comfortable, many times edited broadcast mode communication, to a real time, interactive space, where responses go out on the fly, is a huge bridge to cross. That is where the challenge begins. And then, it can get bigger!

Let’s look at this example, where perhaps, on behalf of the brand, someone with lack of understanding, lack of language skills, or both, decided to respond to comments on a Facebook post:

The disaster that can happen is for all to see.

Maybe English was not the primary language for the person replying. And she did not get the word ‘shameful’. What if it was a one-time unfortunate accident. But by the fact that this screen shot has gone around the world, many times over, the damage to the brand has been done. And badly.

Let’s look at another example. This was in fact, a well-intentioned effort, from a global leader and a household name, McDonald’s.

They’re been very active on social media, have done interesting activations, and have engaged their fans.

So it was not surprising that they initiated a hashtag #McDStories, where they hoped and expected that customers may share fun stories linked with McDonald’s.

But the campaign backfired and how.

Check out the detailed story which shows how the #McDStories hashtag became instead a bashtag. While there may have been consumers who had genuine, interesting McDonald’s stories to share, there were others who used the opportunity to bring out the horror stories of their McDonald’s experiences, from unhealthy food, to poor working conditions, and everything else in between.

Clearly a well intentioned effort that went horribly wrong.

There have been other cases where brands have had trouble, while engaging with consumers on social media. A case closer to home in India was about Cafe Coffee Day, when a fairly active social media brand had a trending hashtag in the form of #ccdsucks.

All of these cases show that:

1. Social media is clearly a double-edged sword for brands.

2. There is extreme participation of consumers around brands. Good and bad experiences can get quickly amplified. Whether the brands like it or not.

3. Brands need to have a sense of preparation, for things that could go wrong. While a #CCDSucks or a #McDStories cannot be necessarily foreseen, a fundamental awareness that things can go wrong, and a broad strategic approach for such situations, is something that brands need to have in place. Typically, before an incident occurs.

4. Often the understanding to manage such crisis is not internal, within organizations. This is due to a lack of experience in real time interactive spaces, and the eagerness to be “in control” always. The latter eagerness can often get brands to take impulsive steps that may not be the wisest ones after all! The Vodafone case when the brand tried to sue a consumer who was complaining about their services on social media, is an example of this.

Simple pointers for brands at this point are:

1. Your consumers are present and talking on social media. Whether the brand is present there or not. So just because there are challenges, to not be present on social media, is not even an option for brands.

2. Brands need to prepare themselves well. They cannot trivialize social media and relegate it to a lower level, in the corporate hierarchy. Senior management must participate in decisions related to social media.

3. Being prepared for eventualities helps in not being totally surprised.

4. Adequate budgets need to be apportioned. Just because Facebook or Twitter are free to use does not mean that brand budgets for social media should be peanuts!

5. And brands should really engage with agencies or consultants who “get” the medium. There are cheap ad film makers, but brands still go for the best in the business. Because stakes are high. The same kind of thought must prevail while making choices in selection of a social media agency!

With all that, social media’s an exciting space. One just needs to work harder, on a 24×7 basis!

I have received more than my share of “critical feedback” suggesting that my blog posts are often a little too long. The feedback has come first, from my teenage daughters (I am glad for their candidness!). Unfortunately, there is a risk that this post may also not be “short”.

But then, for this, I have to blame Mrs. Hansotia. Who Mrs. Hansotia? Oh, she was my English teacher from class VI to X. And like most English schools, ours too suffered from the now-exasperating British legacy of being extremely verbose.

Till today’s teenagers do not go and completely take over all English language teaching in schools, we may still suffer this excess for some more time. The rest of us have too much of a hangover from our school times, and end up being flowery length by default!

Then there is the radio legacy.

Back when live TV had not come, we had to depend on the adjectives of our poetic commentators (think Suresh Saraiya, for example) to visualize how the ground was, and how exquisitely Vishwanath had cut the ball to the cover fence for four (before getting out the next ball), and things of that nature.

Live television came, and we did not need to be “told” many of these things, as we could see them. And yet, our commentators, brought up in radio days, continued to tell us what we could plainly see!

So you get the point? I am talking about the long, long text that we write and speak. Instead of cutting to the chase. And instead of sometimes, cutting out the crap!

My grouse is not just about the longer blog post or the verbal diarrhea of our commentators, but in general, about the legacy to write too many words, and which even shows up on Facebook at times. Thankfully, Twitter does not give you that option at all.

At a recent event where I was a speaker, the topic of my talk was ‘How to be relevant to your audience in 140 characters’.

Before the event, once the organizers announced the topic, there was a whole lot of interest seen in Twitter, etc. I have not seen so much buzz around a speech topic. While part of this may be attributed to the organizers promoting the talk and the event, that the topic fascinated and intrigued a lot of people, was undeniable. In fact, there was a lot of questions post the talk and many of the folks also came and chatted individually, later.

So where are the real challenges in our habits, and especially in context of social media updates for brands?

You want to make a product update.

You have written brochures of web content for the product before this.

You are greedy. You want to get all of your details out, in that one update itself!

You want to use the opportunity of having to make a Facebook post about the product, to cover more or less everything about the product!

So your post could well read like:

“This exciting new <product> from <brand>, model number <abc> comes with it’s own remote control and a child proof lock as well. Made of stainless steel, you could see your own reflection on the <product>, and it is lightweight as well. So you can enjoy your day, with this <product> even as you bask in the sunshine.”

Or words of this kind.

This is clearly brochure-ware, and not good for a Facebook post.

If I had to constrain the writer to write the same post for Twitter, she’d find a way, wouldn’t she?

She’d probably write this as “Our new <product> <model> has a child proof lock, so your kid will not get accidentally hurt. Check it out at bit.ly/abc.”

Why could this not have been done on Facebook as well? Just because Facebook gave her more characters to post, she let her flowery language loose?

Here’s another example from recent times.

I had this really weird experience at a recent pitch where 6-7 people from the client’s end were sitting and my colleague was presenting. And at a point where he was explaining a point in depth, the client (almost) rudely interrupted him and said, “Yes, we get it. It’s a good idea. Now let’s move on!”

Whoa! That took us by surprise, although the client meant well.

We are all busy. Our attention spans are low. So get to the point. And get there fast. ANY word that does not add real value ought not to be present. If I can say it in one word, I don’t want to use two.

In a twitter conversation, often a single word tweet can have impact, e.g. “Epic!” or “OMG”. And if you want to give the liberty of an additional word, then there could be “Life sucks!”, or “Go Federer..”, etc. The story is told. In those 1-2 words!

So guys, as the title to the post suggests, “Cut the crap. And cut to the chase!”

Here’s an ad, that drives home the point..

For some reason, December gets your mind working in this manner. Thinking about what went by, thinking about what’s coming up. Though this is something you can potentially do any time of the year, there are these December triggers.

You’ll take this kind of a stock for yourself, and then perhaps larger issues, like the world at large!!

So I got afflicted too. And rather than look backward (more of an analysis and research task), I choose to look ahead. Crystal ball gazing on where the digital space in India is going, in 2012.

The good part about this effort is that you can only prove me wrong, after 12 months, by which time, if I have gone horribly wrong, you’ll not remember, and if I have struck gold with my predictions, I will ensure that you don’t forget that ‘I told you so’! So it is a win-win for me, and hence, here goes.. my 10 predictions for the digital space in India, in 2012:

1. E-commerce or more specifically, online retail of goods, will continue to show fabulous growth: the hockey stick curve has started, perhaps 12 months back. This will continue on a sharp, upward trajectory, right through 2012. The growth is on account of various factors:

• Internet user base growth
• Better bandwidths
• Mobile penetration
• More focused online stores doing awesome job of merchandising, logistics, etc.
• COD and other easy payment options

But besides all of these, I believe that there is one very significant factor here. I believe that a new consumer generation has come into the marketplace at this time, and they are shopping online. And they are digital natives. And not digital migrants. Like the folks who shopped before.

Those who are 20-21 now, on their first jobs, earning their first salaries, and having disposable incomes, these guys never wrote letters, only emailed. They used computers at schools and shared homework with their friends on email. For them, texting and tweeting are like air and water. They were just there. They did not migrate into these from some other planet of letters or faxes! So for this new consumer generation, shopping online’s also as natural a step.

It is my belief that the coming of this new generation has been the biggest contributor in this significant upward swing in online retail. And that being the case, this will only continue to grow, in 2012.

Because Flipkart and Infibeam and few others, are investing so well into logistics and other fundamentals, they will continue to establish themselves as leaders here. But the space is very very young still. These are no permanent leadership positions. You could see challenges, especially in specific categories, emerge in 2012. Perhaps a different brand for lifestyle products, another for household items, something else for motherhood, and a different one for kids maybe.. watch the space. It is about to change!

Amazon should be entering India for sure, in 2012. And even while they are building their own team, and deny rumors of acquisition plans, they WILL acquire. But it may not be Flipkart. Flipkart on the other hand, will use the large sums of money it has raised to make 1-2 niche acquisitions of its own. And most certainly, amongst the rest of the pack, some consolidation will happen. Perhaps driven by the common VC investor!

India’s retail majors will NOT acquire yet. They will continue to be in huge debt burden, and FDI will only reduce their debt, but the economy will not allow them to venture into online retail via acquisition routes, especially at a time, when VCs have driven up the valuation of online retail, and they will not sell cheap. At least not so soon!

2. The Group Buying / Daily Deals space will crack: Yes, while e-commerce / online retail will be hot, some of the ventures which have pretended to be e-retail, but were actually deals’ sites only, will have challenges to face. I have been a verbal critic of the group buying model. I have been a believer that group buying is good for certain categories only, and for certain times (like for liquidating perishable / excess inventory), but the direction that the industry took, and the way everything was being sold at deep discounts, was a dangerous trend. And not sustainable, in any case. And the valuations that these sites have commanded have been a function of numbers, that are unsustainable too. So we will see the model crack. We will see some Deals Snap, and some Groups On fire.

3. Media Buy Spends for digital will increase: Well, the marketers have been talking the talk for a while now. Check out one marketing conference after another, and all they want to talk about is, how digital is becoming big and exciting. And yet, on the ground, the talk has not been walked. Enough. And we still see fat cheques written out to television, and loose change dropping the digital way. Multiple things are happening that will make for big shifts here.

First of all, a lot of marketing is getting integrated now. So while the bulk money may be spent on traditional media, because a contest or some call to action is integrated into digital, there is digital spend too (perhaps an application on Facebook, say). Then again, due to the slow economy, larger mainline budgets may be hard to come by. And yet, the brand has to reach the consumer, and at a lower outlay, digital may be the way for a brand to do so. And the marketer can finally walk his talk then, no matter if it was forced to him, due to his budget constraints.

One way or the other, digital agencies will see increased billings as a consequence.

4. Marketing will get more integrated: We are already seeing a lot of this. Like a TVC having a call to action that goes to a Facebook link. Or when bloggers are invited to brand events, along with press, and there is amplification of the communication sought to happen on social media spaces too. Some of these are already here. 2012 will see a lot more of these happening, and in fact, integrated marketing will become commonplace.

So if there is an iconic TVC campaign, and you have run out your television media budgets, you could create a set of sequele, to continue to ride the popularity, on YouTube maybe. Or where more and more flash mobs are seen (God help us.. !) just to create content that a brand may expect (“hope”?) to viral thereafter. Live tweeting of your on-ground event, a story that begins on Twitter and takes wings on mainline media, etc. are all examples of media merging. So from media spaces like television, print, digital, social, mobile, to Above-the-line, Below-the-line, etc. all combining, are realities that we will see more in 2012.

As Nikesh Arora of Google said, there is no online or offline, now there in just the one line!!

5. Brand Pages on Facebook will have to fight clutter: A Facebook page for my business, then one for my housing society, and then one for my Walking Group, and one also for my pet dog, and oh, one for my bonsai plant, etc. etc. Just because these are so easy to make, there will be tons of brand pages on Facebook. Everyone and their uncle will have one. And names will be misleading. Confusing. And brands that got excited by a Facebook presence, will now realize that the presence is only a starting point, and means nothing by itself.

Creativity will be at a huge premium, and brand pages that stand out for creativity, a unique approach, will emerge victorious.

6. Google+ will get an honorable mention in history: After Orkut, Wave, Buzz, Google+ was yet another effort by Google, to get into Social Networking. Perhaps Google’s best effort till date. Got a lot of initial buzz, many diehard Google fans swore by it, were happy to see competition to a dominating giant. But after a few months, we are already seeing a larger registered user base for G+ (curiosity got people to register) but very little traction in terms of usage. Yes, some of the geeks are there, and love their own private network. There are also some interesting features, like Hangouts, for example.

But it is no challenge to Facebook. Not now, and unlikely to get there. And because people only have so much time in a day, their ‘social media hours’ will most likely go to Facebook and LinkedIn, and not shift to G+ anytime soon. And that’s the reality, like it or not.

So while the fizz has already gone down, 2012 will see Google+ take its rightful place in history, as another commendable effort in the space, by Google. But an effort that was at best, a good also-ran!

7. Social Media embarrassments will happen: Inspired by Anand Mahindra and Ratan Tata, CEOs and other top management are getting tempted by Twitter. Except that they don’t always spend so much time to ‘get’ the medium. And they could make costly mistakes! Likewise there would be others in the organization, who could make some boo-boos. There are organizations who like to keep their social media efforts lean and mean in costs. “An intern could take care of this”, they figure. And they hand over their brand worth thousands of crores to that intern. And yes, they’d save a few thousand bucks each month. Except the intern could also mess up one day. Or for that matter, the social media agency could make a mistake too.

We have not heard so far, terribly embarrassing situations, but I suspect one will happen, in 2012. And the sooner we have it, the better, so that it draws everyone’s attention, and everyone gets a little more careful from that point onwards! Nothing like an incident to make people acknowledge the risk! Oh, and by the way, I hope that the embarrassment is not with any of OUR clients.. lol. I don’t mind learning this with someone ELSE’s experience, rather than mine!!

8. Online Reputation Management will be part of a brand’s budgets: People will cuss brands on social media. Why? Because brands are there, and because social media is there! And cribbing and cussing is so easy to do. Then there will be some mean competitors who think it is easy to use fake accounts and malign a competitor’s brand. OR a disgruntled employee wanting to run down his ex-company. Only because he reckons that he can do it, and get away with it.

So all this was already happening, and so how will 2012 be different? Well, for one, more people will discover how easy it is to malign brands. Secondly, as the base of users increases, and more people use the web and take decisions based on the inputs got from these media, the impact of such negativisms about a brand, will be larger.

For few brands it could be loss of market share. For others it could mean a loss of market cap! And for yet others, it could mean the filing of legal suits and / or a large PR budget to clean up the mess.

The later in the reputation loss that repair is initiated, the more difficult and more expensive it gets. Which is where Online Reputation Management (ORM) comes in. While ORM will also NOT prevent from bad news showing up for a brand, ORM will detect, and enable a fix faster, before more damage has happened.

With that consideration, I’d expect more and more companies to make ORM a nORM in their business!

9. A killer case study will happen, on Social Media, in India: While India has got some brands with very large Facebook fan bases, and there have been some moderate YouTube views, we have not yet seen a thunderous success, like an Old Spice or a Blendtech or something of that level. I think we have come close now. The year 2012 should see a few large Social Media successes in India as well. It will give a well deserved respect for Social Media, amongst marketers.

And yes, in this aspect, I would hope that it is one of our client campaigns, which makes the cut ‘from good to great’

10. We should see some M&A in the agency space: We have many agencies in digital and social media spaces, that are either boutique or small enough, and not part of any big agency group. Between all of these smaller and independent agencies, they manage a large part of the digital and social media businesses. And ad and PR agencies, much bigger than these independent agencies, often do not get a share of that business.

As explained in an earlier prediction, the spends on digital wil increase, and there will be more number of integrated campaigns, too, where the mainline agency and the respective digital agency would probably work together.

It would be time where the larger agencies start thinking of ‘owning’ this piece, and not just renting it. And while ‘build’ is always an option for them, some will look at a ‘buy’. Here is where before end of 2012, we will see some M&A activity amongst the agencies.

We may also see some smaller agencies consolidating in parallel, which wil add steam to the M&A movement in the industry.

So those are my ten predictions. What do you think?

Agree with few, disagree with others? You have any other predictions? Share them as comments. Love to do the discussion.

Meanwhile, here’s wishing everyone in the digital industry, and then everyone else also, a Very Happy and Prosperous 2012.

What do you think? Are advertisers and ad agencies not “walking their talk”??

By the way, I refer to the following blog post that I had don earlier, on the subject of views of Nitin Paranajpe (CEO and MD of Hindustan Unilever Ltd): http://blog.socialwavelength.com/2011/07/thought-provoking-words-from-nitin-paranjpe-ceo-and-md-of-hindustan-unilever-ltd/

The debate continues. Unabated. Nay, I should say, the cacophony. About whether Google+ is finally the one challenge for Facebook, in it’s dominating Social Networking presence.

If you think the noise will die down, rest assured, it would not. At least not for a while.  And perhaps, this piece is only adding to the various views already submitted on the subject.

At the very outset, I am glad that there is a challenger to Facebook. My views on what extent it can trouble Facebook follow later in this piece. But it is always good to have a challenge. That way, the leader is on alert, and is motivated to deliver even better innovation and value offerings to its consumer base.

But how much of an impact is Google+ really having, or how much will it have?

My observations on the subject are based more from the consumer behavior pattern, and less from the technology point of view here.

Let’s be clear. Facebook, Google, Ebay, Amazon or even a GroupOn, Rediff or others are now, as much of a consumer product and a consumer brand, than being technology plays. Technolgy is what’s behind the making of these, but to the consumer, they may as well be experiencing an LG television, as they are experiencing Facebook, or perhaps enjoying a movie in a PVR cinema.

So the way to look at the Social Networking space and this current market battle, is to understand the consumption pattern of social networks, and the characteristics of the same, and how, and if, will market share change.

So we have Facebook with it’s gigantic user base, an absolute dominating market leader, having got there in a few years, but on the back of providing amazing value to it’s users, and constantly “being more and more” and “to more and more” people.

Being more and more is in terms of value propositions that Facebook kept offering over time. From a social network, which could help connect students at a University with each other, to being a platform to connect to almost everyone you ever knew, to gently peak at the goings-on in your friends’ lives, to share your own, and while doing so, also share pictures, videos, play some games, keep tab on birthdays, chat, form groups of interest, follow your favorite brands, etc., Facebook kept becoming more than just another social network. That all of these activities had a lot to do with sharing and being with friends and groups, made it a logical reason to evolve around a social network. I mean, there were obviously better photo sharing sites, for example, but Facebook ended up having a multiple of photos shared than the biggest specialist photo-sharing site, Flickr. The reason of course, was that when you share photos, you want to show them to your loved ones – your friends and family, colleagues and classmates. And what better place to do so, than Facebook, where they all were anyway!

Your friends’ presence pulled you into Facebook, and then your presence, pulled in your other friends, and so on. It was a viral movement like none other. And which is at the heart of it all, more than technology. Yes, there is some sleek technology that makes all of this happen easily, but that is behind the scenes.

It is the occupation of the position of being a unique “social utility” that has given Facebook the position of domination that it enjoys today.

In the journey to domination, Facebook went past earlier leaders like Orkut (in India), MySpace and others. Some of the reasons why this shift happened was that, while Facebook kept innovating its range of offerings, and doing more and more, for more and more people, platforms like Orkut stopped innovating, and MySpace remained constrained in terms of it’s areas of focus. Leaving the space open for a better player like Facebook, to catch up and then move ahead!

And then comes Google+.

No wait, prior to Google+, Google came with earlier attempts like Buzz and Wave. Launched with nearly as much fanfare as Google+ has been launched this time. But both of those did not go too far.

So what is the difference this time around?

Well, with Buzz and Wave, Google was attempting to change the way people will experience social networking. While both had social networking fundamentals in place, they were asking users to experience social networks, much differently than they were used to doing. If Wave or Buzz had come in pre-Facebook era, perhaps, consumers might have got used to those structures. It is like someone introducing a cell phone, which is spherical in structure. Where perhaps you have to open up the sphere to dial, and then hold the ball to your ear, etc. As an innovation, it may generate intrigue but people are just too used to, and too comfortable, with the flat rectangular piece. If the first phones were spherical, then maybe, the world might have been moving around with balls next to their ears, rather than flat squares!

This was the challenge that Wave and Buzz faced. And perhaps due to which reason, they did not go far. Technology or merit of the platform apart.

And now comes Google+. Is it different this time?

Yes, the one clear difference that Google+ makes is that it stays closer to what people are already used to. While we will talk of specific features that Google+ offers, if you see past the names, it is clear that Google+ is similar in structure to Facebook, and in particular, attempts to address the few perceived gaps in Facebook. For example, the ability to share selectively with groups of friends, rather than with all of them together. It also innovates in the faster and easier photo sharing, and few other features.

But at the core, this time, Google has stayed closer to social networking features that users are already comfortable with. And then tried to fill the gaps, or do some of those things, better.

If anything, this is their best chance to succeed.

If like Wave or Buzz, they needed to get people to do something different, they should not even call it a social network. Or let anyone call it that. Yes, get into a completely different Blue Ocean, in that case.

Facebook got into a blue ocean. So did Twitter. And so did Foursquare. All of them, more or less occupied different spaces to begin with. After they all got some critical volume of usage, we find a lot of things common across the space. If however, Foursquare had come out saying, “we are a microblogging site that also allows you to put your location data”, they would have not got traction against Twitter.

Google+ though, goes into more or less, direct competition. It’s like one more soap to take on Lux, or a new butter to compete with Amul. Yes, the soap may leave a slightly better feel on your skin, or the butter may have a salty taste, or whatever. But at its core, it does not pretend to be something different!

So then what does it take to compete head-on with a market dominator?

In the world of soaps or butter, it can happen. It takes doing, but it can happen. Because in that physical world, due to issues like distribution network and geography, multiple brands can survive together.

The challenge is bigger online. Everyone’s a click away. If Ebay is one click away, do I need an upstart auction site, with lesser traction, to try out? No, I don’t!

So how does that explain the huge initial that Google+ has got, and the fan boys shouting themselves hoarse??

For one, Google being Google, whatever it does, generates a lot of interest. Yes, it has been the poster boy of the Internet era (okay, ONE of the poster boys, lest the Apple fan boys feel betrayed). Just for that reason, when Google talks of the new, new social networking initiative, and plays hard to get with limited invites, there is genuine intrigue. And there is a virtual stampede to get the invites, and try things out. That clearly explains the large initial.

The questions though are:

1. How many of those initial registered users continue to use it longer, beyond the first day / week?
2. How many have updates other than “someone or the other followed them” on Google+?
3. And most importantly, how many have reduced their usage of Facebook, or God forbid, STOPPED their usage of Facebook, and are spending more time on Google+?

Without adequate answers to these questions, it is inconclusive. Just yet.

I spend a lot of time online (my family thinks I spend ALL my time online!), and I have some observations. Yes, a lot of my friends have signed up for Google+. Of course, I have signed up too. And every day, I do keep getting the few new sign ups or follower updates.

However, except for 1-2 regulars who post a lot of updates on Google+ (like one would do Facebook status updates), I do not see any other ‘action’ on Google+.

And gradually I have started spending less and less attention to the red number at the top of the screen, when I am checking Gmail. I allow it to pile up and clear it once in 4-5 days.

As against, looking at similar red numerals on top of the Facebook screen, few times a day.

Meanwhile status updates, friends’ requests, photos and videos continue to keep coming and increasing, on Facebook. So no perceptible slowdown there.

So what’s happening here? Let’s look at the consumer behavior analogy. Just because it is tech, things don’t change, in terms of consumer preferences.

Think of it this way. You have your favorite pub, where you hang out. And whenever you go, there are always friends. Like the famous Cheers bar, this is the place where “everybody knows your name”. And then one day, a new pub opens up nearby. Puts out flyers with your newspaper, puts some hoardings out there, offers a better brew of beer. So like many others, you walk in one day. Don’t see any familiar faces. There are smiles, but not very personal, since they don’t really know you. You have a beer. It’s good too. And then you leave. Next evening when you are ready to hit the pub again, you think. For a moment. Okay, new or old. And then you reckon, “let me go where everyone knows my name”. And you go there, meet your pals, do a few high-fives, hug a few, and settle down and gulp away your old favorite brew. Even as the folks keep coming by and greeting you, your favorite music keeps playing, and in short, “life’s good”. So who cares much about the new place anyway? And since all your friends think the same, life continues like before.

That’s your Google+ vs Facebook situation. Now, in case your old pub had changed, stopped playing your favorite music, charged you extra for the chips, or something like that, THEN you might be tempted to give the new place another try. But otherwise, you stay put. Yes, that is what’s happening here too.

Let’s look at one of the big features that Google+ has. Circles. The idea is that, unlike Facebook where all your friends are clubbed as one (well, there IS the groups feature, but not many people use it much), Google+ says that you may like to share things selectively. Different stuff with your school buddies, something else with your neighbors, and likewise, with your relatives, wives’ relatives, colleagues, etc. etc.

Correct. Makes sense. Except for the effort to maintain those various groups!

It’s a different world we live in. The number of “connections” that a person has today is a multiple of what one typically had, say, 10 years back. Work, school, college, neighbors, relatives, twitter friends, Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, and folks you meet at events, etc. etc. The list is large.

Maybe a lot of these kinds of connections were always there, earlier too. But when the world was not so small, some of the people you knew disappeared over the horizon, due to lack of contact for a long time. When people were at a distance, and they did not travel as much, again, the physical meetings did not happen. Again, the connections got irrelevant, after a point. And there were no “pure virtual” friends like we have today. People you have never met, but who become great Twitter pals, or some you connect with, on LinkedIn, etc.

So in this scenario of a very large number of connections, sometimes we wish to meet some of these people. And the utopian wish list is to meet the individual set of friends separately. In smaller groups maybe. But with maybe 20-odd “groups” that you may have, across your different slices of life, you would need a lot of time, to manage meeting these different people separately. So what happens then? When the urge to meet these folks becomes a bit too much, you finally throw a nice party, and invite all of them. And then just walk around, chatting with smaller groups. But the conversations are open enough, and the rest of the folks there, can also overhear. But you are fine with it. Because at least you managed to meet all of them.

THIS is the reality!

What is the Twitter thing? You broadcast your thoughts. Let the whole world know. You know some folks; they may listen to your tweets. Others are not. You don’t care. This is today.

So is there no need to do private communication? Sure, there is. But that part is handled by Direct Messages on Twitter, or Messages on Facebook, or via good old emails or phones, or even a face-to-face.

For the rest, we are good with the broadcast mode. Let whoever is interested “hear” what we have to share, and we will pick up things we need to know, from the various activities that our friends share. That is the ONLY kind of time we have. Imagine, looking at 10-12 different sets of groups, to check what people are saying and doing, and also going and posting different messages there. We just do not have the time for something like that!

We have seen brands lose out from dominating positions, online.

The search engine story. From Yahoo and AltaVista and others, to Google now.

The email game. From Hotmail and Yahoo and others, to Gmail now.

The reducing relevance of the portals. How dependent are you really, on Yahoo and Rediff, as a starting point now?

And then, you see the continuing dominance of Ebay and Amazon, in their respective categories.

If at all Groupon is looming large for an Ebay, it’s by doing a ‘blue ocean’. By not competing in traditional auctions or areas of Ebay’s dominance, but creating a new category altogether, in Group Buying.

So where does Google+ vs Facebook fit in?

In the cases of search engines and email, it was fundamentally ONE service. That had to be bettered. Like a better brew of beer. You get that. And you are one up.

So a search engine that delivered better results, an email service that worked little better. All of these were enough to upstage a leader. Sure, there was huge technology behind building that better mousetrap, but to the user, it was another mousetrap. A better one. Period.

In the case of the portals, it was different.

They had their legacies in the AOLs and the Prodigys of the world. Where they were the gateway to the World Wide Web, in a sense. And when people needed that hand holding to their ultimate goal. Of finding interesting things for themselves on the web.

Those days are gone. People have matured on the Internet; know what they want, and how they can get there. This is the reason for the reduced relevance of portals as portals. Rediff email may still have relevance, or Yahoo Finance may do too. But their relevance as portals has gone down.

So where a Facebook offers multiple things, does it face irrelevance like portals? No, I do not think so. Facebook is not just a motley combination of unconnected stuff put together, for each person to help himself. In a way, it is. But on the other hand, most of the stuff there, HAS a connection to connecting / sharing with others. And which is the key to a social network. The various features of a social network ‘live’ together, and work together. Quite like the way, one lives with one’s many relationships, many equations and interactions in society.

A social network, which helps me best to complete in the virtual world, what I am unable to do in the real world – keep up with my relationships – is valuable to me. And that is the preeminent position that Facebook has occupied in our lives.

As you can see, from a consumer behavior point of view, I do believe, it is a huge and uphill climb for Google+, no matter the initial registration base it has built. As a user, I am happy to see options, I am happy to see the leader challenged. And yet, in this particular battle, I do not see the challenger making much of an impact. I would be happy to be proven wrong, in the long run!