Dirty "Pitcher" and Internet "Penetration" in India

The movie was quite a "jugful" - wouldn't you say?

Moving on to a serious note, can this be used to demonstrate how the Internet is penetrating (sorry, couldn't help the double entendre :) ) the tier 2 & tier 3 cities. Places where English is probably a poor cousin.

Good times for the Internet in India, I say. Except the rampant censorship on the rise. That, is pretty sad.

10 Wishes for a Digital 2012

Q: What's better than kickstarting a new year with a new post?

A: Kickstarting with a list post!

Here are 10 wishes for the digital space in the year 2012:

1. May we find something better than advertising to monetize content on the Internet. (Flattr?). That, or, may ads become less annoying and unobtrusive.
2. May everyone and their uncle STOP making mobile apps, because, it's the in-thing, you know. Mobile optimized websites will work as well, thank you.
3. May we fix the mobile payment ecosystem [1].
4. May e-Commerce websites stop bleeding cash.
5. May daily deal sites graduate from hair/tattoo/nail-art/massage spas... and NOT get into the regular e-Commerce category.
6. May we get a payment aggregator that doesn't suck. Serious, the bar is that low! (Zaakpay?)
7. May we get a some digital marketing agencies that don't suck. Again, the bar is that low!
8. May Google stop screwing advertisers and users over. Seriously, how many 'organic search results' do you see these days? [2]
9. May telecom operators & TRAI figure out a way to stop SMS spam that actually works. Without crippling the SMS system completely.
10. And finally, may we preserve and extend freedom on the Internet. And not get snooped/monitored in everything we do online. [3]

Amen.

[1] It's very easy to bring up-to-speed with the desktop Internet ecosystem. Hint: Mobile optimized 3D-Secure & Netbanking. At least http://m.hdfcbank.com seems to be moving in the right direction

[2] Tell me where to stop: hiding referrer information for free/organic traffic, but NOT paid traffic. Ad sitelinks & umpteen other 'ad extensions'. Flight meta-search widget. Hotel meta-search widget. Stuffing hotel related searches with place results. Media ads

[3] SOPA. Protect-IP. Internet censorship (or 'pre-screening'). Sec 69 of Indian IT Act 2008.

Interesting outdoor advertising & signage

I really love Blackberry Playbook's outdoor campaign. They're all over the airports and communication at each spot has been designed according to the context. I spotted this sign at the Delhi airport departure terminal - as soon as you walk out from the plane, into the terminal. Brilliant message for the context!

The message reads - "That laptop bag. Heavy, isn't it?"

Close on its heels was this outdoor ad by Google. Bang above the luggage conveyor belt. The baggage that Google is referring to is the tech infrastructure required to keep your business running. Lose it & move to hosted Google apps. Brilliant, yet again! Unless you've actually lost your bags - either case, hard to forget this ad :-)

"Some baggage is worth losing" - An ad by Google for its hosted business solutions

This outdoor spot by Gorbatschow Vodka is as bizarre as they come. What was the brand/marketing manager thinking? "Pole dancer by night. Mother by day. Whoever you are, be pure." Seriously?

"Pole dancer by night. Mother by day" - WTF!

This one was spotted at Laxmi Nagar, Delhi. "Good Looks Beauty Parlour. A Female Stoppage" 'Nuff said!

"A Female Stoppage" 

And this one take the cake. From the Lucknow airport. I've been to many airports in India, but have never, ever come across this sign anywhere else! "Please don't put your kids on baggage conveyor" Imagine what a shock the baggage handlers on the other side must be getting :) It happens only in UP!

"Papa, papa - jhoola ghumao!"

Back to school from Thailand

Back from a long-ish (11 day) trip to Thailand. Didn't want to come back only :( Thinking of going to office tomorrow feels like going back to school after 10weeks of summer vacations!

Gotta write some SEO'd posts about my travel tales now...

Two must-have features in Google Blogger & Reader

Two features that I wish Google Blogger & Reader had:

1. Google Reader should show me ONE consolidated news item if it appears multiple times in my news feed. For example if a particular post has been shared by one or more of my friends and/or is also part of my news feed it should show up just once. Bonus feature would be to display each user's note/comment in a usable fashion.
2. Google Blogger should have the ability to reply to a comment via email. While you can be notified via email with every comment to a particular post, you can't simply hit the reply button and continue the discussion. Pull up your socks Google, it has been ages since Facebook released this feature for all comment threads on its platform.

What do you think?

Aside, if you haven't already read why I think Google Blogger + Reader can beat the shit out of Twitter, do it now. I mean now!

8 types of bad creative critics

I hope I'm none of them. Or better yet - have evolved through each of them already :-)

[Via Indigo Consulting, which is originally via SkydeCartoons.com as indicated on the image]

At Goa, priorities are straightforward

Pehle duvva, aur fir daaroo. Nothing in between.

[Spotted at a beach shack at Ozran beach, Goa]

Main ZINDO balm hui...

...darling tere liye!

Move over Zandu balm, the new & improved Zindo balm is here :)

[Spotted at a general store in Goa.]

I'm sure you would've seen your share of candies & chocolates, which look same-same, but different. 'Much' instead of 'Munch'. 'Ecloors' instead of 'Eclairs'. 'Beamer' instead of 'Boomer'.

How does this work? How much extra money would the retailer be making to agree to such scams?

Who says offline advertising can't be contextual?

Spotted at a Delhi Metro station - bang opposite an escalator exit. Brilliant use of tying context with a campaign message.

Angry Birds Released for a New Platform...

...Real life!

Spotted over a weekend at the Phoenix 'Mela' for a Nokia E-series
marketing event :-)

Is Domino's Pizza the favorite Indian festival food?

Seriously! Take a look at this...

While you were celebrating new year's, the rest of the country was busy ordering Domino's pizza! Facts for your perusal:

Hottest searches in India on 30-Dec-2010 (via Google) – No Domino's
Hottest searches in India on 31-Dec-2010 (via Google) – "Domino's India" on #13
Hottest searches in India on 01-Jan-2011 (via Google) – "Domino's India" on #13
Hottest searches in India on 02-Jan-2011 (via Google) – No Domino's

(That most of the country was also searching for SMS spam to send on New Year is a separate story!)

Now take a look at the weeks for which "Domino's" related searches have peaked – correlates pretty well with major Indian festivals.

A cursory glance at other fast food chains, like McDonald's, Pizza Hut, & KFC also reveals a peak around the new year. However, nothing seems to rock the Indian palette on a festival as Domino's pizza! I, too, had ordered Domino's pizza on Christmas eve last year. What about you? Hungry kya?

Update: And the trend continues. Check out the huge spike in search volume for "dominos india" on Google Insights in the week of Holi (20-26 March, 2011)

"Frandship" requests - finally an explanation!

As a collective people, either we Indians are way ahead in the relationship curve or completely messed up! The top 5 "how to" queries via Google's India Zeitgeist are either highly insightful or very, very worrying!

• People want to impress girls first, then they think about improving their English. Wanting to make frandship with you, anyone?
• So people want to know how to get pregnant before they kiss. That explains the 1.3% population growth rate, twice that of China and higher than the world average.
• More people want to learn how to kiss before they impress the girl. An explanation for the rising crime rate against women?
• And reducing weight is at the very end of the relationship priority. Explains the omnipresence of pot-bellies around the nation.

There are more gems hidden there. What can you spot?

Ads on Google homepage ?!

Just noticed this link on the Google India home page It's some dumb contest in association with LiveHindustan.com about "sharing your thoughts in Hindi". Wonder how much they paid for Google to do this.

Another cute error message

Firefox seems to be getting a personality too! This error message, which I saw the first thing after starting up my laptop, made me smile :-)


So, it's not only web applications that have cute error messages, now.

A post I made earlier about Flickr's "down for maintenance" message.

Capitalism and the environment

Sadly, this is not a joke - it's the truth. All large-scale projects see "environmental concerns" just as a nuisance they have to put up with it. Something that will eventually have to yield, because, well, you just can't stop "development", can you?

Why aren't existing trees part of "beautification drives"? Why does beautification always mean pouring massive amounts of concrete on the ground and building railings and felling of trees?

On that note, I would recommend 'Small is Beautiful: Economic as if People Mattered' by E.F. Schumacher as compulsory reading to everyone studying the pseudo-science of economics. And to everyone who thinks growth is good - perpetually.

Directi Ads on Facebook

Nice :-) This must be resonating with the uber-geeks really well. Check out the careers page as well -- "Open Techie Positions"

ICICI Bank -- Email shy?

Has anyone ever been able to successfully email ICICI Bank? I've tried twice and failed. Today was my second attempt. After being asked a series of questions (four, I think) I finally get this form.

Even after asking my account number (which will give them instant access to all my contact details -- KYC, remember) they still want me to type out my email address, phone number (along with STD code -- mobile numbers don't work), and complete contact address.

And finally, the damn thing doesn't work!

What's wrong with just giving an email address? Saves them from the development and maintenance cost of developing this stupid tool. Isn't customer support on email cheaper than doing it over the phone?

Update: A friend tell me that the form works on IE and not on Firefox. Irks me even more!

Overestimating users of technology

Most software products assume too much about their users. After reading Alan Cooper's "The Inmates Are Running The Asylum" (at Amazon and at IndiaPlaza) I realized how much I used to presume about a user's comfort level with technology while designing products. I now consciously switch off the developer/geek side of my brain while writing product specs or mocking up UI prototypes.

Here's a post by David Pogue on what everyone assumes that everyone else knows but is wrong. I thought I would know every single thing on the list but was surprised to find a keyboard shortcut that was new to me - using shift + space to scroll up in a web page.

You can tap the Space bar to scroll down on a Web page one screenful. Add the Shift key to scroll back up.

Yahoo! recently released their research findings about an OpenID usability report. They were not surprising:

None of the users had heard of OpenID before, and none of them even noticed the OpenID sign-in box displayed below the traditional email/password login form on the site. [...] Observing these tests was more than a bit frustrating for the Yahoo! OpenID team, and the test subjects may have been distracted by the sounds of the groans and head-pounding coming from the other side of the one-way mirror. Certainly there is a lot of work to be done on the OpenID UX (user experience) front.

(At the risk of over-simplification, OpenID is a common username/password using which you can login to multiple websites without creating individual username/passwords for each.)

FM

BMC aur Dharmendra mein ab zyaada farak nahin hai bacha, kutton ka khoon peene mein dono ko aata hai maza!

That's Mallishka on Red FM! Absolutely hilarious.

I'm hooked onto FM these days. Especially Rainbow FM in the mornings and late nights - they play amazing English music. The RJs mostly suck, but the music rocks.

Why do the other stations play the same songs over and over and over again? They haven't yet gotten over Jab We Met. I'm sick of listening to those songs. Get a new playlist guys!

Impulse Purchase

I've seen people purchase clothes on an impulse. Shoes, deodorants, shades, food, whatever. But I don't think I've seen anyone purchase a domain name on impulse!

A few days ago I was following a truck on my bike and saw the ubiquitous "Horn OK Please" written on the back. And suddenly out of nowhere I thought of "horny" please. What a cool domain name to have! I came to the office, and purchases it for Rs 599 at Net4Domains.

What the fuck do I do with it now? Any ideas?

Saurabh Nanda. Proud (confused?) owner of www.hornyplease.com!