Social Media News Stories 22nd March-2nd April
Posted on 06. Apr, 2010 by Hardeep Kaur Rai in Media, Reviews, Trends
News stories from 22nd March-2nd April:
1) The Times of India featured a story ‘India’s first You-Tube star’ by Javed Anwar on 22nd March that chronicled the rise of Wilbur Sargunaraj after his video ‘Love Marriage’ garnered indisputable fame. The 32 year old from Madurai has joined the ‘fame club’, with even the Digg community featuring him amongst its top stories and the article quoting celebrated movie critic Roger Ebert daring his followers on Twitter ‘not to like this Indian music video with its smiling bride’. However it seems this is not Wilbur’s first attempt with his first song ‘Blog Song’ uploading on You-Tube in July 2007 and numerous others after that.
Comment- YouTube is a rage in India and the above article is an instance supporting it. Whilst, it would be difficult to ascertain the exact geography of its audience, the fact that You-Tube is now a must medium for individuals and brands to communicate and explore is reason enough to watch it keenly.
2) An article ‘Facebookers more loyal to media than Google’ appeared in DNA on 22nd March that elaborated on the growing prowess of Facebook to pull in visitors to news and media websites than those brought in by Google News.
Social Media Stories 6-12th March
Posted on 17. Mar, 2010 by Hardeep Kaur Rai in Announcements, Media, Reviews, Trends
So another week passes us by and we bring to you a round up of news stories and happenings from the Indian social media sphere.
1) The Economic Times featured an article on the latest takers of social networking sites ‘Social Networking Bug bites’ by Sarah Jacob and Harsimran Julka on 6th March. The article states, ‘More than ever before seniors are finding themselves drawn online for the same reasons as young adults; to stay in touch with family and friends, meet new people from the comfort of home, bridge the generation gaps and even find jobs’.
Comment- It was only a matter of time before this would happen. Considering the popularity of social networking sites as well as the speed at which technology is becoming simpler and efficient, it makes sense for seniors to join in on the fun and build on interests while maintaining relationships and other parts of life.
Social Media News Stories 1st-5th March 2010
Posted on 08. Mar, 2010 by Hardeep Kaur Rai in Media, Reviews
News stories for the past last week-
1) Mail Today featured an article ‘Tata is the most trusted business brand in India’ on 3rd March quoting Ratan Tata as the most trusted business man in India, seconding President A.P.J Abdul Kalam, as per magazine Readers Digest. The list of the 100 most public figures in the country includes business leaders, politicians, journalists, film actors, sportspersons and names people such as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Infosys Narayan Murthy, Wipros Azeem Premji, Actor Amitabh Bachchan, Delhi Metro chief E Sreedharan, Ambani Brothers, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Gandhi, HDFC’s Deepak Parekh amongst other esteemed names. In addition to this, the article also reports Tata group firm Indian Hotels and auto major Mahindra & Mahindra as the only Indian brands in the list of 27 top ‘Great brands of Tomorrow’ by Credit Suisse. The article states, ‘According to the Credit Suisse Research Institute, the global brands figuring in the list would significantly outperform the market over the next three to five years as they build and leverage brand equity to grow in size, scale and equity’.
Social Media News Stories-Last Week of Feb
Posted on 03. Mar, 2010 by Hardeep Kaur Rai in Media, Reviews, Trends
To begin with, a belated Happy Holi to all of you.Quite an interesting mix of noise in the social media sphere in the last week ofFebruary.
1) Business Standard featured an article ‘Turning a Digital Page’ by Neha Bhatt elaborating on the rising trend of digital books and the consequent increasing sales of e-readers. The article quotes Gaurav Mishra, CEO, 2020Social and a Kindle user, ‘I bought the Kindle last year. I was willing to leave behind my collection of 2000 books, since the e-reader could hold over 300 books. What I really like about my e-reader is the audio feature. The fact that the device is so light and easy to carry is another motivation’. The article elaborates that the device works for those who care about portability or those who want to appear chic to strangers or associates. However comparing to US and UK, the article considers e-readers a relatively new concept in India due to lack of e-books, pricing issues and loss of wider entertainment options like blogging, gaming and e-magazines.
Comment- For sure, e-readers have a brighter future and can take the book market by storm if made available within the budget of the common man. And with increased entertainment options, the youth will take to it like fish to water.
How to make e-commerce a social activity
Posted on 26. Feb, 2010 by Achintya in Reviews
Background: Purchase has for long been considered a social activity and often leverages conversations. Recommendations and reviews by a friend or a third party are often very helpful in making purchase decisions. It is interesting to see how some online shopping and e-commerce platforms have leveraged social web into converting a whole shopping experience into a social activity.
Some of the interesting social features that I came upon can be categorized as below:
At the initial levels of these social engagements are websites having ratings & reviews features where users can review the product databases, rate the products which can be compared by the viewers using comparison engines. Then there are websites having comment sections for conversations regarding the products, other member’s review etc. People can also add products to their ‘wishlists’ so that they can remember and let other see what are they planning to buy next. Amazon makes very good use of these review and rating features for its vast product database.
Social Media Stories Last Week
Posted on 24. Feb, 2010 by Hardeep Kaur Rai in Media, Reviews, Trends
Social Media News Stories This Past Week
So another week passes by and we bring to you a wrap-up of all the interesting tit-bits fron the Indian social media space.
1) Business Line featued an article by Anjali Prayag and Swetha Kannan on how corporates understand that ‘Social Networking is a serious business’ on 14th Feb. The article states how companies such as IBM and EMC are ‘using employees urge to keep in touch with people to their advantage by also creating their own networking tools, which they believe are useful to businesses’. The article further mentions IBM’s LotusConnections and EMC’s EMC One as social collaboration tools which carry features similar to social networking sites such as blogs, groups, user profiles, wikis, file sharing, photos and forum capabilities that enhance project collaboration for employees.
Comment- While the above trend is increasingly being incorporated amongst corporates, it is still in an exploratory mode in India. Quite a number of Indian firms are still apprehensive and struggling with the concept of social media and perceive social networking as a ‘waste activity’ that slows down the productivity factor of employees. What they fail to understand is that social networking can actually transcend into a tool for honest communication between employees and the firm as well as the employees themselves. Iit is precisely this open communication which sets the foundation for a globally forward firm that will ultimately realize its vision.
Social Media News Stories Last Week
Posted on 17. Feb, 2010 by Hardeep Kaur Rai in Media, Reviews
Social Media News Stories
This past week has had its fair share of headlines. A quick wrap-up is given below.
1) Sakaal Times covered the launch of Buzz in its articele ‘Google takes on Facebook, Twitter with its new buzz’ on 9th Feb. Google in its attempt to match social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter launched Buzz that enables users to ‘quickly share messages, web links and photos with friends and colleagues directly from Gmail, the company’s popular email product’. The article also stated, ‘ status messages that users publish on Buzz and flag as viewable to everyone will be automatically indexed by Google’s search engine and available within Google’s recently launched real-time results. Users can also keep messages private by sharing only with customized groups of friends and colleagues and can share content from Google’s various online properties like Picasa and Youtube’.
Comment- Google has taken quite a leap forward by incorporating elements of social networking with its email product. With Orkut and now Buzz, Google exhibits it is prepared to battle it for the the popularity throne with any competition including Facebook and Twitter and other sites navigated via these social networking sites.Google demonstrates it is not content as the number one search engine. Rather, it aspires to be the one stop shop for everything online and this is evident in its move to incorporate Buzz into Gmail along with their mobile compatibility.
Book Review: The Social Media Marketing Book from O’Reily
Posted on 15. Feb, 2010 by Divya Uttam in Blog, Reviews
Dan Zarrella with his book “The Social Media Marketing Book” introduces social media and guides on how best to use this media for the marketing of your business. Almost anyone can practice the workable solutions provided in the book, and make sense of the complicated social media environment.
For anybody who is new to social media marketing Zarrella introduces each basic building blocks of social media, including blogs; multi-media; microblogging; social networking; social news and bookmarking, in different sections. Within each section, Zarrella introduces a tool, talks about its history, and describes the protocols, features and functionality with the help of screenshots, graphs, and visual explanations.
The book is lean and with 224 pages of which half of them are screenshots and images, it is indeed a highly-tactical guide of significant value to any individual or organization looking to get into social media. The book also does a good job of showing the difference between different social media sites, such as pure networking (LinkedIn, Facebook), media sharing (YouTube, Flickr), blogs, microblogging, and bookmarking (Reddit, Delicious, Digg) and more.
Social Media News Stories Last Week
Posted on 09. Feb, 2010 by Hardeep Kaur Rai in Media, Reports, Reviews
It’s been a super-busy first week of February in the Indian social media space. A wrap-up of the news stories that made headlines is given below.
1) Business Line carried an article ‘Websense unveils security application for Facebook users’ on 3rd Feb that brings a sigh of relief to Facebookers. The article quotes Mr Surendra Singh, Regional Director (SAARC and India), Websense, ‘While other security offerings are designed to clean users’ computer after it has been infected, we worked with Facebook to create Defensio so customers are protected from emerging threats and malicious content before they spread beyond the social Web and become a broader security concern’. The article describes the mechanics of the application, ‘Defensio would analyze the links on the social web before users try to access them and gather intelligence of the site as well as the content and embedded links on it.’
Comment- This is surely a good sign for all Facebookers. With more and more people using Facebook, the site is increasingly posing a security risk and the application helps protect Facebook users. The application would also lessen the occurrence of online crimes such as hacking, phishing, credit card frauds. Truly, it would prove to be a boon.
Social Media Last week
Posted on 04. Feb, 2010 by Hardeep Kaur Rai in Media, Reviews
News Stories covering social media space this past week
1) On 24th Jan 2010, DNA Mumbai carried an article by R.Krishna on the topic ’This social networking website helps you meet friends online’. The article talks about the utility and the growing popularity of Foursquare-a location-based networking site in India, starting with Mumbai. The article sums the benefits by quoting a Mumbai user, Shakti Salgaokar, using the Foursquare application on her iPhone, “The moment I start the application, Foursquare pinpoints my location using the GPS on my iPhone. Using my location, it tells me about various places nearby. It also gives me a to-do list recommended by other users. If I were in Dadar TT, it can list places like D Damodar, Pritam da Dhaba, or the Mumbai-Pune bus-stand. For someone new to the city, this can be of real help”. The article then wraps up prophesying Foursquare to be in 2010 what Twitter was in 2009.
Comment- While the site is a rage in the west, particularly the US, in India it is still in its nascent stage. Abroad the site has tied-up with restaurants, gyms and other establishments to offer deals and discounts to users, in India this is yet to happen. However, location-based networking has the potential to become a huge rage in a country like India,
2020 Social builds and nurtures online communities for Indian and international clients, connects their customers, partners and employees, and helps them achieve their business objectives.
Recent Comments