MySpace advances with Indian Entertainment Content

Joining the league of hosting official online communities for Indian movies / reality shows is now MySpace India. Social networking site MySpace will be hosting the official community of Star Plus dance reality Show, Nach Baliye – 4. MySpace is aggressively promoting this program so much so that most of the home page estate of Myspace has been allocated to Nach Baliye promos and content. The “Nach Baliye online community” is offering official content like photos, vidoes, inside stories, behind the scene scoop, wallpapers etc. Apart from these, viewers can vote for jodis (couples) as well as read the official blog giving all updates about the show. It’s also expected to have an online game based on Nach Baliye jodis but as of now I don’t see this feature up on the page.

 

 

Well, this trend of having an official community has picked up pretty fast in India. Now every other Bollywood release is having an official community on popular networking sites like Orkut or Facebook, to add to that there are these budding websites who have grabbed some interesting opportunities of being the official online community partner for entertainment properties. We saw some successful examples like Rock On community on Bigadda or Bigg Boss – season 2 community on In.com and not so successful examples like recent release Karzzzz community again on Bigadda. Social media is definitely a great medium to reach the larger mass in a very cost effective way and has been beneficial for some of the movies / entertainment programs. But if the site hosting such communities is a new one or one with lesser traffic then it’s more beneficial for that site as most of these programs are heavily promoted on television as well as online medium with repeated mention of the site thereby leading to more eyeballs and increased traffic. If news of increased traffic and pageviews of Bigadda has to be believed then this strategy of hosting official community has definitely worked for Bigadda, now let’s see if it works for other players like In or MySpace as well who are entering / have entered the same arena.

Changing with times: Amar Chitra Katha

Recently while doing some grocery shopping in one of the retail stores, I glanced on TINKLE digest which was kept on the billing counter itself…and well, as usual I couldn’t refrain myself from buying it (Pssst…Shhh with a hidden face I am accepting that though I’m in my late 20s but I still can’t resist comics like Archies, Tintin, Tinkle etc… ). Anyways, the comic was as interesting as ever but something which caught my immediate attention was the back cover page of the book. The page was heavily promoting online shopping of Tinkle comics as well as e-comics and contest on their website www.amarchitrkatha.com . Hmmm, looks like they have also revamped their website now and that’s why aggressively promoting their e-content.

Curious enough I clicked their URL and the first impression was WOW! Well, lots of changes as compared to their earlier website. Being a Tinkle fan, I had checked their old website once or twice earlier but there was nothing much for me to go back again. But new UI definitely gave an impression that even this 42 year old Indian Comic giant is changing with times. Not only they have changed the look and feel but they have introduced some other interesting features as well which is giving the website overall a modern outlook. I spent quite some time in navigating through the new website and here are some of the things which I personally liked about it:

• Homepage looks neat and nice. Navigation is quite easy now.

• Focus is not only on promoting its own content but rather creating user generated content as well. One section clearly focuses on inviting story as well as illustrations from users. Another section is focusing on contests. Very interesting features from customer engagement point of view.

• Online shop with free delivery anywhere in India. Also offers and promotions depending upon the seasonality. As of today, one can see a Diwali gifting banner there.

• ACK Pedia which is going to be a user-generated repository of information pertaining to people, places and culture of the India. Considering their credibility in offline medium for Indian legends, folktales and parables, if they do it rightly I’m sure they can become the authority in online space as well.

• Recommendation Section which they are planning to launch in which they will not only review their own books rather other books as well as other edutainment related products. Good feature as per me.

Well, lots of good things but there are definitely some other things which have got some scope for improvement, like:

• The home page loads very slow. I have tried it on high speed connections as well but not much luck. They need to look into their performance.

• I think comic illustrations need bit of revamp. While it’s good to see our good old characters but to suit the taste of today’s generation kids and compete with likes of western ones like Tintin and all, definitely some new character and new content needs to be introduced with a bit modern kinda illustrations.

• I know the world has moved towards complete English comics but still I think a section of Hindi comics can give them bit of edge in Indian market.

• The content needs to be refreshed bit more on their homepage, I think as of now major changes are happening once a week, but in today’s fast changing times it would be good if they can manage to change some content daily.

• It would be a good idea to launch a weekly contest instead of one generic contest with prominent highlighting of weekly winners.

• I think there is a huge scope of improvement in their edutainment content in digital forms like DVDs, VCDs, video gallery on their own website.

But overall I liked this initiative of Amar Chitra Katha and yes, now I do have reasons to go back to their website again and again. Hope they manage to impress their actual TG i.e., kids and teenagers and they also feel the same about this revamped website .

BigB’s blog statistics – Bigadda or BigBadda?

I had written earlier about BigB blogging on www.bigadda.com and initially I had read some of his posts as well but then in due course of time I stopped visiting his blog. But today I dropped into his blog again mainly because of some noise in media about his recent posts and oh the look and feel has changed completely from what it used to be during its initial days but nevertheless this new look is quite impressive! And the first quote by Harivansh Rai Bachchan is as always soooo good! But what caught my attention was the fact the current post is of day 151 and almost everyday there is atleast one post posted on that blog. Wow, this is really regular and good! As I said in my earlier post if it is BigB genuinely writing these posts then it is praiseworthy. Even if he is narrating and some content writer from BigAdda is writing it on his behalf then too I think its commendable, though because of so much of personal touch I am forced to think that its BigB who is writing all these posts. What caught my next attention was the post of day 140 which mentions the traffic of his blog since April’08, here is a snapshot of some of the important figures available on his blog:

• Unique visitors since April08 – 1,05,0,520
• Unique visitor for Sept 08 – 37,509
• Average number of visits per day – 16,000 +
• Total number of visits since April08 – 2,37,0,000
• Total page views since April – 1,14,00,000
• Average page views per day – 100,000

For once I think Bigadda has not hyped up this figure much. Considering the number of comments which any post is receiving on this blog (on an average each post receives somewhere between 700-1000 comments), I am sure 16000+ daily visitors is sort of a real figure. And 11.4 million pageviews is a very striking figure considering its hardly a six month old blog. Not many websites also achieve this kind of figures in such a short span. Good for Bigadda, atleast they have one differentiator now which can bring more traffic to their website. Otherwise there was hardly anything on their website (apart from those “lets catch up” ads on which they wasted few crores to get some one time visitors, LOL ) which can make anyone visit their site again. With a 16,000+ daily visitor count, I am sure BigB’s blog is contributing to a major % of their daily traffic. Infact recently bigadda has changed their UI, considering the % contribution and the fact that this is Bigadda’s only strong point, I am wondering if apart from UI, Bigadda should have gone for a re-branding exercise as well and change it to BigBadda

Overall very remarkable statistics considering its just a blog, but afterall its BigB’s blog!

Mash smashed!

Last year I had written about Yahoo launching its social networking site “Mash” and it’s not even an year now when I get this mailer that Yahoo is closing down Mash! Curious enough to know the reason I landed up on Yahoo blog and here is the official statement from Yahoo mentioned in their blog:

“Dear Mash users,

You may have received an email recently regarding the shut-down of Mash on September 29, 2008. To provide more information about what will happen to your Mash profile, and how you can save your profile information, please see the list of FAQs below.

Thank you for trying out our Mash Beta service. We hope you had fun with it!

Matt Warburton

Yahoo! Community Manager”

When Mash was launched last year in September, I remember the membership was through invitation only and curious enough to try it out, I requested one of my friends to send me the invite. Think “join only through invite” was introduced to keep that exclusivity as compared to any other networking site but well just that exclusivity doesn’t make any user to stick to any site esp. when users have hoards of other options to cater to their needs. It can definitely instigate one to register immediately but then you need to have some content or reasons to keep users engaged to any site. I had some hopes with Mash as this was a Yahoo product but well we all know the fate and doomed performance of Yahoo products these days, be it the new mail, yahoo search or their social networking sites, all are not able to compete against their giant competitor Google! After joining Mash, I hardly visited it for maybe 5-6 times and so it doesn’t come to me as a surprise now that Yahoo had decided to shut it down. Frankly speaking there was nothing in it for me as a user to go to that site again and again. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who felt the same and Mash traffic slope has been on downside ever since its launch last year. Infact quantcast graph for Yahoo Mash shows estimated monthly page view count around 2,000 only!!! Well, if that’s the embarrassing pageview count for Mash then it means that its being used by almost none! Considering the reviews and performance I think it makes sense for Yahoo to shut the product down. Sad that yet another social networking site and that too from Yahoo reaches extinction!

Shelfari acquired by Amazon

Ah another acquisition of a web 2.0 startup by a larger player and I must say this is an interesting acquisition. Read it today on news sites as well as on Shelfari’s official blog that Shelfari which is a social networking site for book-lovers has been acquired by online giant Amazon. While surfing amazon.com today I didn’t see any direct link or connection to shelfari whereas shelfari.com already shows linking to amazon.com now. Maybe it will happen on amazon also pretty soon.

I have been a member of Shelfari for quite some time now and I have always found this site to be very interesting. They have always been innovative and engaging enough and their mailer communication makes you click the URL atleast once. Though I don’t have many friends on shelfari simply because it’s a niche site and not all of my friends on other social networking sites are book lovers so to say. Also unlike Orkut or Facebook, the purpose of my visit to this site is not interacting with friends but the content of the site which matches with my taste. I love reading books and hence sites like these help me being updated about what to read by its release and user-generated reviews section. This site was already having small associations with Amazon like their “buy” option leading to Amazon’s website on their own website as well as their Facebook app but an acquisition like this has definitely given Shelfari a huge edge over all its existing and potential competitors. Start-up book lovers’ networking sites competing with each other was ok but now start-ups competing with Amazon.com? Very- very tough!!!

Well, as is the case with most of the vertical-specific social networking sites, I don’t think even Shelfari was having huge number of registrations / large community which would have made Amazon acquire this site. For Amazon which is the obvious leader as far as books recommendations and transactions are concerned, it’s a natural progression to have a social networking site around books and what better option than to acquire a budding but promising site instead of starting its own! I will say it’s a good move for both these sites, for Shelfari things could not have turned out to be better than this and for Amazon another feather in its cap. Knowing Amazon’s capabilities (their recommendation engine is my personal favorite and I think they have the best recommendation engine globally) and Shelfari’s commitment, I’m sure bibliophiles like me will have a more engaged and pleasant user experience.

Enough of friends, movies & music, now its turn for ghosts!

I still can’t believe this , quite interesting I must say. Initially when I had read this news in March, I just couldn’t believe that someone was actually thinking on this line and I was almost sure that it would be some sort of media rumor, but no I was wrong. It actually is true that now there will be a social networking site for ghosts and aliens! Oh yes, Steven Spielberg is actually launching a ghost / UFO centric social networking website which will be for people who would like to share and discuss paranormal and extraterrestrial experiences.

Speculations are still on about the name of the portal. Some say it will be called “Ghosts”, some call it as “Ghost Town”, latest update being that the site is perhaps going to be called “The Rising” or “Rising”. Apart from networking angle, the site will also have original video content focusing on alleged ghost and UFO stories. Now we all know the connection between Steven Spielberg and paranormal experiences. Who can forget movies like E.T The Extra Terrestrial, Close Encounter of the third world, Jurrasic Park etc which are one of the highest grosser of all times at box office! Steven at many occasions has also narrated some real life chilling experiences about his encounter with ghosts and supernatural forces. Well, don’t know to what extent his experiences are real but he definitely claims that ghosts and aliens do exist and because of some real life experiences, he got inspired to make movies on this subject.

After general networking, vertical specific networking was definitely slated to be the next big trend in community industry but being niche to this level following a specific vertical is definitely some disruption I must say. And though I don’t believe in such phenomenon (rather I don’t want to believe I guess ) but still there is a large chunk of people who believe in such clairvoyant experiences. And for such TG this kind of open forum will be definitely great wherein they can discuss and share their views with like minded people and know more about it. Hmmm, so looks like enough of networking sites for friends, dating, movies, music, college reunion etc etc, well now it’s the turn of ghosts and bhoooot!

Education in 2.0 world

Be it my love for maths as a subject or my strong conviction about need for education / tutoring portals in India, one site which I have always closely followed up since its inception is www.mathguru.com. This site was launched somehwere in July last year & the recent metamorphosis which this site has undergone is a lovely change I must say J. The site has evolved as a very interesting online tutorial portal & as per the industry sources, the site has got 15,000 registered users till now & is expected to grow to 25,000 users by March 2008 (Source: Hindustan Times) 

Well, as a kid I remember how many of my friends used to hate maths as a subject & considering the phobia of maths in many students till date I think it’s an excellent move to have a portal like this to make the life of students simpler & easier. Oh how I wish such portals would have existed when we were kids!!! Life would have been so simpler for many students in our generation as well J

However, why only maths, I think there is a need for many such portals in India who can offer education to students in an easier and cost – effective ways. Such portals are a win-win situation for all in a country like India, where curriculum based education is being given the highest priority as compared to any other country, where teachers in normal schools and colleges are one of the lowest paid salaried individuals & where accessibility to good education in most of the states is still a burning issue. With such cost effective portals students can get access to quality education in an easier way & at the same time even teachers can make more money as compared to their low salary being paid in most of the schools/colleges. Considering the need & potential of education as a category, I’m all eager to see the developments in this category in future & I’m sure this category will also see a huge boom like travel, job, matrimony & entertainment.

Here comes Mash

Looks like a carnival of social network sites is on… now joining the bandwagon is yet another big player – MASH which is the new social networking site from Yahoo. Yahoo announced its new venture MASH on Friday & currently beta version of it is on, wherein people are invited for mashing on this site. I tried visiting the site but currently it says only by invitation.

So, whats you first reaction? Atleast I reacted like eh… yet, another social networking site! How is it going to be different from the current ones? When there is already an Orkut, why do I need to move to another site unless & until there is something really different and interesting over there. Anyways apart from Orkut, there are currently n number of general social networking sites like, fropper.com, minglebox.com, facebook.com, yaari.com, zhoom.com & many such similar x, y, z.coms & not to forget those professional networking sites like linkedin.com, ryze.com etc. Well, every such new site during launch claims that its different & something really new but alas the end product is pretty much same with no innovation at all. Classical example of this is bigadda.com! They spent such huge money on advertising this site but the end product? Well, its really sad…forget about being different, bigadda is not having even those very much required social networking features also. So, gimme one good reason as to why I should migrate to some other similar site when I am already settled & happy with my friends networking on Orkut or with my professional acquaintances on linkedin?

Despite it being a very general statement, most of the site launchers are failing to understand one very basic rule – user needs some real good reason for migrating & getting hooked on to some new site. Something different, something new & something persuasive enough! All those wannabe sites who think that by just changing the UI color or the font design, they will become yet another orkut are just dreaming something near to impossible. Huh, so let’s wait & watch what Yahoo has got in store for us now. However the kind of Yahoo fan I am, I would surely expect something cool coming out of them… Hope Mash is mashing enough like other cool tools like yahoo messenger & mails J.