Technology Capsules

Technology Aided Marketing

Ever since Mass Media has become cluttered, Businessmen all over the world are trying to find new better way of delivering business messages to the customers. And what new way to market to the customers than through mobiles. Indian Mobile Advertising market is still at a nascent stage and is currently valued at a paltry sum of 40 Crores but is soon expected to reach 500 Crores.

Marketing means creating brand recall and stimulating purchase, in addition to educating customers about the possible use of the product or service. Advertising through the internet added the much needed interactivity and customization parameters of the advertisement but not reach. As India still has abysmal internet penetration it is very difficult to reach the target audience. So mobiles provide the reach, in addition the mobile always with users creates an ever present customer.

Affle a UK based company provides SMS 2.0 advertising solutions in India and is pioneering in the space of alternate advertising medium.

The future of Mobile Advertisements remains lucrative, as with more and more high end models and 3G or 4G enabled cell phones it will soon be possible to deliver video advertisements over the mobile and that may even get the customers hooked. But that looks like good 2-3 years down the line.

Pepsi Youngistan has successfully used mobile as a platform to create a Buzz around its product with users sharing its experiences with other communities.

The results of all these competitions and votes could be compiled and published in web communities and traditional print runs to create a buzz among other users of the product. Hence mobile is proving to be an ultimate tool in the hands of the marketers to create customer engagement to level hitherto unseen in the history of marketing.

Will The US Trend of Dying Print in Technology Journalism Replicate in India

Well India is a slow take off in technology adoption, but US is seeing many well run print versions going off print and taking online avatars.

IDG the world’s largest producer of Technology magazines and news papers made its InfoWorld totally online and is now generating more revenues through online advertising supported model than it was doing in print business. It has a revenue of 1.6 million dollars a month with operating profit margin of 37%.

But would the same model be successful in India. India has low penetration of Internet and profusely low adoption of technology products. We lag behind in adoption of technology, be it 3G or broadband connections, or for that matter E-Books. Hence I see that India will continue with its Paper Bound editions of newspapers and Technology Magazines for quite some time to come. Although most magazines have an online presence but most have a subscription model which is further likely to make and covert even lesser readers.

iPhone To be Available in India from Dussera

To be priced at 23,000 Rs, Apple has tied with two partners to sell its iPhone in India. It has tied with Airtel and Vodaphone where as Vodaphone is its global partner. But Airtel in India has vast reach of 1 lakh retail outlets and apple plans to tap this outreach of Bharti to reach out to the potential customers.

I-Phone has failed to become a blockbuster product for Apple and only contributed 5% to the total revenues of the giant. The main reason for which is the more featured phones being launched every month by other telecom players with out much fanfare and ado and with much more technological innovations built into the phones.

Take for example the LG Viewty phone which even won a technological award. Samsung and Motorola are also introducing phones at a faster pace although they are aimed at the lower end of the market mostly.

Apple needs to innovate faster and invest in product R&D to gain a foothold in the global telecom arena where most telecom companies are more alert, nimble and customer responsive.

The least apple could do would be to introduce variants of iPhone to woo different customer segments, with features like Cameras of different capabilities and different storage capabilities and a multitude of designs. The formula of selling what is available in the stable is gone and rationed products do not work even in India.

Most customers are educated and want better service if not always value for money product as the Indian market was traditionally touted by the westerners.

Finding a Job now made Easy with Social Networking

Social networks are fast evolving to keep their users fixed on a ongoing basis and make their business an ongoing concern. In that line Facebook did its best innovation by adding job applications to its Network.

Facebook has Jobster which has 26,000 members . Now last month it added the application of CareerBuilder.com to its users. Now social networking sites are also being used to network and find jobs than just lurking for fun. With more and more commercial applications making rounds the coffers of the site also jingles and obviously with more services on the block the life was never so good for the users of the networks.