What happens in the social media scene

Something cool I did when I got some time.

I know there are spelling errors – came to know of it later. I was a little too enthu I guess!

forgive and forget

“Multi – role” guy

I was having a conversation with an old school Fauji and suddenly this idea popped into my brain.

Any person in the online medium calls himself a word – marketeer, developer, designer, search engine optimizer etc. based on how they spend their time at their agencies / startups. And a lot of pro startup blogs and people keep throwing this idea of sporting different “hats” – the idea is to be a master of few and a jack of lot of trades. So, it would be better to call a true blue startup dude in a “multi-role” way.

You could be a 50% marketeer, 20% developer and a 30% designer – all in one. Meaning at a particular point in time, you are best at marketing (SEM, SEO, Biz Dev, Client Servicing etc.), not so good at design and yet attempt at making some and pull up your sleeves and open up the code and fuck around with the syntax – could range from changing your Div padding to hierarchy in C++.

“Overqualified” web structure – worth a look

A lot of Web comic writers and other bloggers dream of writing books one day and most have a couple of books running in the market. How do they market it though?

A Softer World has come out with a really powerful tool for that. They have a section called “Overqualified“. Here, they write letters to blue chip firms telling them precisely why they suck!

This is the wireframe of how they present each letter. I think this is one of the coolest wireframes I have seen. (And Amzon book link is called “The book” and About section is called “Joey”)

Overqualified wireframe

After reading a few articles you would feel like owning the book (if you are an American that is) and might Amazon it and buy it too. Very neat! Thumbs up

Bondsurance – viral video – Bond, Hema Malini, bad ass bike and unshaven villains

A new viral has come out for IDBI Bonds. This one comes from Contests2win.

The idea is pretty cool. The execution is neat and very Bombay.

Yet, is viral the real way?
Could bonds be sold though humour?

1. Bonds are known for their less return and serious target audience. One may laugh at the ad, think about the hawaldar joke and then move on. Good from an awareness perspective. (We have the coconut dealer with the thick Tamil accent talking about the returns and riches at the end).

2. Ideal solution for selling products which require more thought and research from the audience should be some other form of advertising rather than a viral. Makemytrip virals by Webchutney have clicked as buying air tickets involves opening a few tabs and then booking it. FTW! FTW!

3. Looking at the viral from the contests2win perspective, this is a complete win. They get the eyeballs, they get the creative appreciation and maybe a few awards to put up as testimonials for their competence. However, as an ad agency, they should really look for other means of selling the bonds. Get down to the basics – get more people to buy their client’s stuff.

Awesome effort though. Guess its time to move on from Tamil accent bashing. It ceases to be funny after 25 years!

Utopian User Experience

“A Complete User Experience”

A clause so common that I barely these words now on the web. But complete user experience – hell not yet. Not even the “GOD of UX” has come up with the complete user experience yet.

1. Experience is for the five (may be six) senses.
2. Now we have conquered the sight and the hearing.
3. Smell, Taste, Feel and the “sixth sense” still pretty much remains to be dealt with.

Just like speakers, we could have “smellers” or “tasters” or whatever those things could be called with some sort of volume control. I am sure all the cookery sites would get the boost then.

Call to action

I read somewhere that if you are an online business, you need to explain your verbs properly. Ebay can call its business as “buy” / “sell”. If on the other hand, your business is “subscribe to our posts” and stuffing it with ads, it can get a little difficult for you.

Well, not all publishers can be Techcrunch or even a Rediff. Get your call to action ready Maan!

Interview for a web developer

I hate interviews which tells you – “Hey dumb ass. We need a dumb ass to run our dumb ass company. So how fucking dumb are you? Oh cool. You are as dumb as me and I could still pretend to be your smart boss. We will keep the dumb part between us. Oh hell! Lets be open. We are all dumb”

Courtesy: Ink Tank Comics

How to crack the million dollar dot coms!!!

It is completely on the back end!

Keep an eye on the serial businesses that run these days. I would stick to my focus on the online field. Assume that it is natural to extrapolate this hypothesis into the offline (“mainline” if you would like to call it that way) field too.

For instance take a look at People Interactive, Info Edge and Consim Info.

The deal looks massive. Auto, Matrimony, Jobs, Real Estate etc. Reach is the holy idea here. The wants are plenty and so are the solutions.

Now how do they crack it?

Statuary Warning: I am not an expert. Yet I comment. Thank you BLOGS!!!

1. Listings – Get your listings out no matter what. Get the database of people who wish to get married in a year’s time. Get the list of people who would like to rent out or sell their houses. Get the list of people who wish to buy these houses or take them for rent. Get a list of the folks who wish to buy / sell a vehicle. Get a list of people who wish to hire / get hired. Get a list of this, get a list of that.

The common factor – listings. In bulk. The more the merrier.

2. Sales – Massive sales in the online and offline spaces. Should be reading this as SEM, PPC, Contextual advertising, Display ads, Social Media Optimization and sales personnel pursuing other people for the listings. Print, TV and other mainline forms of advertising is a must here. We are not targeting the power users here. It is more of an “Email + Job site + Matrimonial site” formula for the masses.

3. UI – Create a massive appeal UI. UI sells. The message on your homepage sells. You could have the best of listings, the most consistent and rigorous quality checks ever, the fastest servers and all that jazz. But if it does not look good, I am not interested!

4. Back end! Back end! – The listings which should throw up with the best of algorithms possible. Get your keywords done properly. I don’t want a flat throwing up in Kolkata when I search for a bungalow in Delhi (that would be the biggest of blunders).

Of all the three, UI is the only thing that is different! Six months max for the most killer UI and front end development can get you the target audience fixed on your site. Make sure you are smart enough with your social media monitoring and other online marketing techniques. Focus on your sales team too. YOu would need your presence out in the market. Fortunately or unfortunately, the “face of the company” concept still seems to hold value. (More about that later)

Get your teams done. One team would look at the listings. Jobs, Matrimony, Flats – all same. Only the approach and type of words used. Another team for the ASP / PHP coding, sales guys who speak similar languages at different places and a killer b-plan for your B!!!

Processes in a Web development Project – II

There are quite a few angles in which Web Development completion processes could be approached.

“Process – really?” would be the first one to trip on!

It is not very uncommon for web development agencies working out a whole blueprint and road-map for a project, which possibly can never go wrong and finish off in two weeks straight.

“It’s a small, simple HTML site. The UI is simple and content is ready. I can finish it off in two weeks. Alright – troubles in the form of back-and-forth with the client might take a week more. THREE WEEKS! Final!!!”

Wrong my friend. Six months and 90% of the project over. In fact 90% of the project got over in two weeks straight. The ‘back-and-forth’ just seems to breathe down heavily on your nerves. Meetings, Strategies, ‘Push-up’, ‘Push-down’ – days; weeks and months seems to pass by till the domain name starts working.

“Release a beta version first. Let’s work on the live site and make it look better till we reach the benchmarks set for ourselves – in terms of quality, content, design, icons, background color (for God’s sake) etc.” – An agency model where accounting is dependent on delivery of websites – in a full and final form with ‘0% error’ in terms of copy, content, banners, links, ads etc., time can play a major factor. Deliveries do take major hits here.

Optimizing Deliveries

1. Staging server -

Any agency in the online business should have tie ups with Linux based and Windows based servers to host their codes. The URLs could be shared with clients, friends, critics, enemies, old crushes etc. for opinions on usability, mood, color, look & feel, click throughs, text, design, pictures, borders, icons etc.

2. Opinions -

Social Science aspect of internet can make anyone and everyone have an idea on the website. Pure psycho analysis at play.

“Hey this looks cool. I like the activity on the page. The flash was nice”

“What the f*** is up with the flash? The images are distracting me from reading the text”

“The font is just too cool! I am able to read through the content at 420 w.p.m”

“The font – bloody makes you rush through the page. Ever thought of stickiness factors”

OPINIONS. They never matter really in the face value of affairs. Yet, it opens up a huge window of possibilities and angles of looking at the same website. Quite a trip

3. Brainstorming

A little whiteboard activity. Take a repository of all opinions. Put the stuff up on sticky notes. The focus should be on collecting the opinions. The thinking hats could wait for a while here. The more the merrier!

Break down the opinions into pieces – call them “look and feel”, “content”, “usability”, “speed”, “creativity”, “size”, “Browser compatibility” etc. The same sticky note could appear in more than one bracket also. No harm.

Make sure this is a group activity for optimal results. Different human perspectives could bring out a lot of ideas.

4. Thinking Hats

Edward de- Bono! Six thinking hats. May sound a little formal HR training session here. But a try won’t be bad. Another white-board with the results. Lot of work – still worth it.

5. Screening

Once the ideas are in, screen the ideas out – at this phase, this won’t be much of a pain. We know the reasons, we know the game plans, we have tripped on the angles. We know the game now!!! Off to war! Lets sell the idea.

6. Sell Sell Sell

We should hard sell the ideas to the client now. Giving them too much time to look at the work and admire the same might just end up in weird results (read elongated, extended projects, tired people, boredom, de-motivation etc.)

Online advertising @ chutney – generally!

1. Leave your baggage and your past behind you.

Oh, so you have climbed Mount fucking Everest. Good shit.Get your stuff ready for what you gonna do now! Stay low! Stay focussed!

2. Imbibe in the culture changes.

It is important to have an identity of your own – whatever ways you may like to project it though.

3. Trip on the ideas and the intellectual stimulation.

Major intellectual masturbation leads to ideas in general and things to go about in day to day work. Brainfood – the only reason to try things!

4. People

Different kinds – different types – different destinations – same circle though!

5.Things and places

Its not just Broadband connection that matters. So many smaller trips leading to a massive BANG – thats online!

6. Have a goddam interest that necessarily does not involve computers or internet.

Generally ONLINE!!!

Thats what it is baby!