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Counter-intuitiveness: Instablogs Recession Mantra
In India, our financial year ends 31st March. This might sound a bit odd to our Americans friends, but remember we are more British than you.
Last academic year has been a roller coaster ride. We got funded, launched some cool new features, expanded our team, then had a 10-15% salaries cut in Q4 2008, also let go off few of our consultants and took the recession monster head on. But overall, I believe we managed to put on a great show. This would have been impossible without the great team we have, highly supportive investors, very energetic advisors and great friends in the industry.
Like any other media company, pageviews are our bread earner. We saw a plunge in CPM rates from November, but we compensated the low CPM rates and unsold inventory losses by nearly tripling our pageviews.
Here’s our page views graph from Statcounter.
Today we have over 50,000 registered members, 600 Citizen Journalists, 75 bloggers, 15 country editors, full time staff of over 40 people in 15 different countries and readership of around 6 million pageviews per month.
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Shout ‘em out louder!
(This post was born out of internal discussion that took place in MVP forums. Its jointly written by : Sameer, Ankit, Nandini and Indus)
Bharat Matrimony
Bharat Matrimony (BM) has launched its facial search feature that enables you to upload celebrity (you can also upload your ex-girlfriend’s pics) pictures and BM will find a look-alike.
Check it out hereThough the technology is imperfect the idea is so perfect on so many levels:
1. Viral nature
2. Engagement of users
3. Stickiness of the site
4. Differentiator from other sites
5. Users having fun, part of so many jokesIt totally rocks and its great to see an Indian company leading its way in innovation. On the other hand its disappointing to see so less buzz created by them in the Startup media.
AdaptiveAds
Glam Snaps Up AdaptiveAds. Mumbai based startup AdaptiveAds was acquired by Glam, a leading ad network based in US. This news was covered very well by Techcrunch and and other leading tech blogs of US about a month back, but again coverage in Indian Startup media left a lot wanted.
Adaptiveads, a mumbai based startup, clearly demonstrated that an Indian startup can target the global market very well and it makes a lot of sense for other Indian Companies to tap into borderless economy. When we can serve millions of western companies by being an outsourcing hub, by developing the core technology for them, why cant we guys put together our collectible brains to bring Indian products to whole world.
Startup Media
The current Startup Media in India consists of the leading startup blogs, some newspaper / magazine columns, couple of dedicated magazines and little bit of TV coverage. The main credit for creating the “Startup Media” goes out to the leading startup blogs, they have been at it for few years now and have done quite a good job of covering the news, sharing good practices, aggregating discussions around startups. They have built a strong and sticky community of readers / contributors around them.
Shout ‘em out louder
Though a lot has been done, there is a need to increase and provide regular coverage “towards celebrating / highlighting / sharing the Indian startup ecosystem triumphs”. This post is a request to Startup media to shout louder about the successes. Indian ecosystem is evolving and it definitely requires much needed boosts from media to encourage them. There are quite a few successful Indian startups, may not be to the tune of 10-100 million USD, but still doing pretty good. But, every mention will only encourage and boost the morale of the others to push the bar & succeed!
Some suggestions to the Indian Startup Media:
* Add regular weekly features that bring out startup success stories, backed by research. Bring out the reasons for the success and help others learn and get inspired. This can also be done with some guest writers contributing.
* Missed out on covering the news in time? - not a problem - write enough juice and they’ll quote you on their blog!
* Dig into the development of the startups you have already covered, ask them to keep you updated, monitor their blog feeds for news of successes - followup stories is always a welcome for a reader!
* A lot can happen over coffee - spend more time with startup founders (new & old), listen to their stories - can make for a good copy!
Communication channels are the most important for development of any eco-system (Even Hitler banked on it) - you have the power to influence and help startups imbibe good practices - make the most of it! This will go a long way to also help dispel India’s image “as only copycats, service-based companies and outsourcing hub”. It will encourage the ones who are on the edge and are evaluating doing a startup. Current and potential investors will see the successes and increase the financial participation towards Indian startups.
The day is not far when people will be bringing Garam chai and Samosas to your home (riff from people bringing donuts/coffee to Arrington to get covered) . While you make them the stars, they will make you the celebrity!
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Random Thoughts on Fragmentation and Decentralization of one’s identity on Social Media Sites
If you are an active user on social media scene, you must be having different accounts on various platforms; an account on Facebook or Orkut to connect with friends, an account on Flickr to share images, a Linkedin account to network with people in your profession, a Youtube account to share videos. In addition you must be having your blog running via wordpress, typepad, Instablogs or blogger, and would be using twitter for microblogging.
So you are essentially creating your different identities across so many networks, that it is increasingly becoming difficult and to some extent impossible to keep track of. It’s also very difficult to escape this fragmentation, since a part of your network (your friends, peers, colleagues etc) could be active on one social platform while the other part may be on another platform.
Some of the sites like Friendfeed are trying to solve this problem by centralizing all the activity stream of your friends on a single network. Other solutions like data portability can be looked as an attempt to allow users to access their friends and media across all the applications, and social networking into their own systems.
Some thoughts
1. A centralized network of activity stream has its benefits, but there are times when you would prefer decentralization according to your network. It won`t make much sense sharing your Halloween outfit with your business network, or your business presentation with your young cousins.
2. Today most of the sites are fast embracing decentralization. Any activity done on any site can be easily exported to your preferred social networks. For e.g. Instablogs is working on tools which will allow you to port articles or comments posted on Instablogs automatically to your Twitter or Facebook accounts if you desire. Similarly images uploaded can be ported to your Flickr account.
3. Conversations would be taking place across platforms. For e.g a content article you posted on Instablogs could be replied on your Facebook or Twitter networks by your friends, and you can reply them on Instablogs platform. This means conservations around content will become more fragmented in nature.
4. Different opinions, links, articles related to a certain news event can be collected together to increase the context of the news event. You can see how your network and your friends’ network is reacting to it in real time.
5. Many solutions have already been in work which would give users more control over the content they produce on different networks and interconnect them. For e.g Distributed Social Networking” (DiSO) is an idea to move, aggregate and integrate activities, data and social connections built up on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Twitter and personal blogs.
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The Art of Creating Evangelists network
In his 2000 book The Tipping Point, author Malcolm Gladwell describes what he calls “The Law of the Few.” According to Gladwell, not all people in a network are equal. He identifies three types of people who are important for the spreading of ideas: Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen.
a.) Connectors are people who know a lot of other people, have a huge acquaintance set, and actively build new connections between people.
b.) Mavens are people who live on information and have the power to influence other people. When they speak, others listen. When they recommend, others believe.
c.) Salesmen are the easiest group to understand. They are people who have the ability to persuade other people.
The ideal chain would then go something like this: Convince the mavens, make sure they talk to the connectors, and have the salesmen spread the idea beyond the initial few. Though Gladwell, didn`t call it, but these people are subsets of the larger group which can called as Evangelists.
Dictionary meaning: Evangelism is about sharing the love of Christ with everyone.
But for you, it’s about sharing the love of your product/site/portal/community with everyone.
How do you build a Network of Evangelists
Tell them a story, and make them a part of that story. A story which they want to share with their friend and peers. A story which they are proud to be a part of. A story they really believe in.
For e.g. Starbucks have build a story of its evangelist seeing it as a place where they can gather, get together, talk, chat and, yes, buy coffee as well. So think what your story would be.
Some steps.
1. Draw an outline of the story. Define a cause. You don`t need to figure out the middle or end.
2. Lose control. Be ready to let the community take over.
3. Set a direction not objectives. Twitter developer never thought that it would have used in its current way. They just laid down the initial rules of 140 characters per message, but the community around is using in all different way what its founders could have imagined. (Source)
4. Make tools which will help your community to spread the word easily, coach new members and invite their peers.
5. Reward and recognize your best evangelists.
6. Help them collaborate and co-produce. Working in a team is more fun.
7. Don’t be afraid to give challenges to your users.
8. Publicize the existence of your evangelist’s network. Your network of evangelists should be the most important part of your showcase.
9. Do realize that they own the effort and content produced. Let them take it anywhere they want.
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Providing right attention to your contributor’s effort
We all are social animals, and would love to share our opinion and thoughts. We also love to discover new things that would interest us. But a social gratification is only achieved if we have an audience who can hear us. Nobody wants their voice to be echoed in an empty chamber. Any kind of feedback is a motivation.
One of the key challenges for any social media website is to help the contributors get right attention for their efforts. In the era, where attention is touted as the new currency, more and more noise is gathered which is making it difficult to identify the right content for the right person. Within online communities attention and recognition are considered to be the most important motivators for participation and contribution. Generally it has been observed that those who get more attention are likely to contribute more, while those who don`t might decrease their productivity. Especially for a first time contributors, it has always been a challenge for any site to identify the true value of their efforts.
So the key to success for any online community is to provide right attention to its contributors. For high traffic sites like digg, youtube and stumbleupon it’s easier, since they already have huge traffic inflow. But for newer or smaller sites this has been the biggest rolling friction. If you can get attention to the contributors’ content – they will produce more content – this will get more traffic – hence more attention – and more content. So in this chicken-egg situation, one wonders where to begin with.
The answer lies in the fragmented nature of the internet.
Most of big social sites are realizing they have to open their gates, and let developers build applications on top of their platforms. Some of the big sites which haven`t done so or are resisting from it will be a thing of past very soon. You have to provide right plugs and tools for your contributors to share their contributions freely on different platforms seamlessly. Your community in future is not going to exist only on your platform, but will co-exits simultaneously on different places.One of the prime example is of “Circle of Moms“, who was able to emerge out of nowhere as huge community of 850,000 moms in just two months by utilizing Facebook platform efficiently. They were able to do so by understanding that building walls around their portal will restrict their ability to grow. And today it is one of the fastest growing mother’s communities on the web.
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Entrepreneurship Lessons: Right man for the right task
Yesterday I was discussing with one of my colleague the importance of understanding the team strength, and allotting right work to the right person to be the most important decision by the team leader. Mountaineering which has many similar traits of entrepreneurship, can be used as a good example.
I have been a trekker (in past) and have been fortunate enough to interact with many great mountaineers. Whenever you climb a mountain, you have to establish different camps at different heights. The team is divided into three major groups.
a.) Low Altitude Sherpas
b.) High Altitude Sherpas
c.) MountaineersThe low altitude sherpas are only allowed to carry 30kg of weight and operate below 4500 to 5000m height. Usually they establish the base camp, and don`t go any further. These sherpas transport tonnes of weight every day from the last motorable road to the base camp.
The high altitude porters establish Camp 2, Camp 3 and carry the equipments, food, ration and other things from the base camp to the respective camps. Neither they are not allowed to carry more than 20-25 kg of load and nor to go further than 6000-7000m.
The mountaineers establish the last camp or just scale the peak from Camp 3 or Camp 4.Though on few occasions low altitude sherpas are promoted or transferred to high altitude and high altitude sherpas as mountaineers. Tenzing Norgay who scaled Mt. Everest was a high altitude porter who was promoted by Hillary as a mountaineer. But it is best advisable that the team should stick to their job. A team leader using his low altitude sherpas as high altitude sherpas or mountaineers risk jeopardizing the whole mission.
Every job is important, and you can’t compromise on any team. A low quality “low altitude sherpa” team would be unable to carry tonnes of load to the base camp properly or in the right time frame. The expedition has to be completed before monsoon or winter snowfall otherwise it would be useless. So the low altitude team has to be very focussed and strong. While high altitude sherpas would be doing a little bit of mountaineering themselves, so they need to be intelligent, experienced and strong. And mountaineers have to be insane, very strong, agile and highly focussed. They are the ones who are at the highest risk.
No team can work properly without the other, and the team leader has to identify the right person for the right work.
As a team leader anywhere, it’s the main job to understand the potential and skill set of your team. Expecting a low altitude sherpa to scale the peak is bound to fail almost all the time. So, it’s not the fault of the sherpa but the team leader himself. And, yes if you can spot a Tenzing among your team, then you should not waste a single second promoting him as a mountaineer.
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The New Media Mantras
1. Conversation is the king, not Content.
Today your content is mashed, re-created, glanced over, or just summarised elsewhere. You might be the content creator, but someone remixing and reusing the content more intelligently is actually reaping more benefits out of it. Stumpleupon, Digg are just few examples. They link to your articles, and will receives hundreds of comments and may even send you a spike of traffic for a day or two, but the conversation remains just there.
It used to be the content, but now it’s the conversation. Do focus on content, but also think of new ways which can actually produce more conversations around your content.
2. Engagement is the new Marketing
An engaged user is more valuable than a passive user. He spends more time, is ready to try out more things and is more favourable to share his finds with his friends. Getting your message across one engaged user is more valuable than getting to dozens of passive users. The old metrics of TRP ratings, eyeballs and rankings are all going to die or won’t remain effective in calculating ROI of an ad campaign in very near future.
Today most of the marketing managers understand that the real value from a customer not only comes from money transactions but the way he can influence others in doing the same. Converting customers into your brand ambassadors can extend their relationships to their peers and friends.
It has been never easy before for companies to provide right tools, environment and engaging with the customers at every level. The traditional media is losing its effectiveness as more and more people are ignoring or plainly dismissing marketing messages.
3. Money follows Attention
Attention makes a brand big or small. You can manufacture anything but attention. You have to earn it. In today’s information overload world where user is bombarded with choices, he is growing impatient every moment. You are spending thousands of dollars for that prime spot on TV, but he is fast forwarding them on his TIVO and Tata Sky Plus. The remote is becoming a nightmare for sponsors and advertisers.
To get a user’s attention, you have to provide two things relevancy and engagement. Facebook might be losing millions at the moment, but in terms of getting attention it’s far ahead. All they have to figure out is how to make ads relevant so that they don’t interrupt user’s attention.
4. Participation not Consumption
Today a user can be more active than just consuming the content. He can participate in various ways from co-creating the content, adding his viewpoints, voting for the content, tagging and to sharing the content.
Today a user is becoming a content too. His social profile, thoughts, pictures, videos are not only created by his friends but by a set of new virtual peers. The whole meaning of content and copyright is changing.
Though the problem of Participation inequality (where only a fraction of all users participate) will always exist but sites which can find ways to increase participation will become even more important in the socially charged era.
5. Free, Piracy and Freemium as new business models
The biggest problem content producers face today is not about piracy or copy theft but obscurity. You no longer can build walls and still make money. You have to let the users come, consume your content for free and once they become your loyal users, you can make money through many different emerging revenue models. By giving users power to access, remix and share your content, you are gaining their loyalty and support.
Many start-ups have made loads of cash by giving away their basic services free, and only charging their loyal customers for value added or enhanced version of their services. Skype, Flickr, 37 Signals are some of its prime example.
The co-chair of Disney’s board has recognized piracy as a “business model” to be competed with, instead of a war to be fought on Disney’s customers:
New York Times who just made 10-12 million dollars from their paid archives where quick to recognize their mistake and made 100 million in just 2 quarters by making it freely accessible.
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The New Media Revolution
The Revolution is here; the New Media Revolution. And we are the ones who are not only witnessing it but fast shaping it. I, you ,my friends, our friends and their friends; everyone is a part of it.
Everything is in a whirlwind from traditional media outlets, to old school advertising, from big label companies, to artists and bands. The old media veterans who have been enjoying their unchallenged tyranny for many decades are either adapting themselves to the new rules of play or risk going completely out of the business. The old media advertising model of slapping and pasting ads on anything is seeing a significant fall in ROI, and will continue to see the same before they will perish in next few years. Music industry has already shrink to nearly 50% of their revenues in last few decades, while, ironically, the consumption has increased many folds.
Today is the age of Youtube and Myspace stars. Many amateurs with cheap handycams are enjoying bigger viewership in terms of eyeballs than many big names in the game. Wikipedia with its open source movement has already dethroned the big closed-intellectual encyclopedias.
I want to hear and share my thoughts as an spectator and contributor to this new media revolution on this blog. The title of this blog “InstaMedia” reflects the first rule of the play, the media which is instantly available to us.
