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Zoom TV Ties Up With LiveJounal - Exclusive Interview With Both LiveJournal & ZoomTv On The Tie Up & More.. Ibibo Launches Adwinks - Ashish Kashyap, Ibibo CEO says “This is an Experimental Initiative at this stage” DoT Allows Foreign Players To Bid For 3G License Without An Indian Partner More Recent Articles Search WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India There are 3 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India" Zoom TV Ties Up With LiveJounal - Exclusive Interview With Both LiveJournal & ZoomTv On The Tie Up & More.. ZoomTv’s latest offering the reality show around bollywood i.e. Bollywood Club has ventured into social media marketing by tying up with the latest entrant in the blogging space Livejournal.com and launching a blog on Livejournal around the reality show.  Zoom is known to be platform agnostic and in some cases competitor agnostic as well when it comes to distributing their content so this tie up isn’t suprising but for that the fact that Liveournal has just launched recently in India with a flash fiction contest and may not still have sizeable Indian traction for mainstream entertainment content. So inorder to find out more we spoke to Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, Director of Corporate Development, SUP and Sameer Pitalwalla Head - Digital  at Zoom Entertainment Network on the tie up and their future plans. We spoke to Benjamin from live journal who threw light on the tie up and their future plans for live journal. Objective behind the tie up with zoom tv - bollywood club? This is a marketing partnership, livejournal is able to offer a platform and audience and bollywood club is offering great content and insights into a popular tv show.  Livejournal is working across the globe on these sort of partnerships  and to deliver one is India with a partner like zoom is a great opportunity Future Tie ups in pipeline? We also have established a partnerhsip with caferati to cover creative writing, we will be looking for similar partnerships in the future in areas like travel, sport and news Target Audience? Bloggers or Corporates? We are targetting anyone who has an interest in self publishing, be they people who want to write and express themselves or people who are looking for content which is outside of mainstream media - livejournal has a reputation across the globe for being a home for challenging and interesting writing and artwork, we want to build on that in India too. Monetization Model for India? Advertising - we are signed up with a global advertising exchange which has many local advertisers in india, that is our approach for the while. We will see how our work goes with the exchange and then look to engage with advertisers once we have started to deliver for them We also spoke to Sameer Pitalwalla -Head Digital Zoom TV on the tie up and their strategy moving forward with respect to social media. Reason to Tie Up With Livejournal? LiveJournal has a very specific focus on the Indian blogosphere and creating indigenous communities around content. Our strength lies in creating great, engaging, Bollywood content in multiple formats. This opportunity offered a perfect blend of both our core competencies. Why a blog? The format of the show revolves around strugglers with individual stories to tell. Their stories, via blog entries, video and images will be powered by Zoom on the LiveJournal Idea Bollywood Club partner channel. Why not host the community on Zoomtv.in? A community is not formed in a limbo, it requires an established user base. Zoomtv.in has a set of extremely loyal readers who visit the site to read and watch our content. However, the demands that Bollywood Club exerted required a different blend of users, users who are active contributors and not mere readers. As with Zoom our strategy has always been to be platform agnostic, with 11 million views per month, we are the largest video content brand in India today as well as the most consumed brand across the platforms where we are available. Regardless of where the content is consumed, as long as we have control over monetization opportunities and branding, it doesn’t matter where it resides. We don’t have a platform ego. How will this partnership help the show? LiveJournal will be promoting the Idea Bollywood Club community across their verticals as well as engaging existing Bollywood communities to engage with the vertical. Secondly, this is not a show, its an overarching concept. Bollywood Club is a physical place, anyone can go to the club and audition in front of Bollywood luminaries. Unlike reality shows, there is no ‘winner’ at the end of it and TV is not the only showcase for this concept. When you are looking at 6 month activation, you stop thinking about TRP’s and start looking at engagement. Does Social Media Marketing have an impact on TV Viewership? Social media is a buzzword, all media is intrinsically social. Just because a certain media causes audience engagement in front of a water-cooler instead of an online  bulletin board, doesn’t mean it can’t ellicit engagement. Cross media rarely has any spill-over effect, what it does have is an amplification of concept, unfortunately, the effect is intangible, since it can’t be measured using existing data measurement tools. Each medium begets consumption on the same medium. Related Posts Social Networks Bend Towards A Branding Strategy - Will It Rake In The Revenues? Exclusive Interview with ACK Media COO - Ashish Goel On Amar Chitra Katha Future Plans Why Are Publishers Creating Their Own Ad Networks? And Which Publishers In India Can Join The AdNetwork Game? Exclusive Interview With Morpheus Venture Partners On Their Model, Startups & Their Upcoming Fund! Exclusive: Tushar Burman Joins Infomedia India SIP As Head -Internet - To Relaunch CHIP & Other Magazine Sites Also check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • • Ibibo Launches Adwinks - Ashish Kashyap, Ibibo CEO says “This is an Experimental Initiative at this stage” Ibibo’s venture into the adnetwork space under the name adwinks was known about in april itself but finally ibibo has launched Adwinks.in and its current avatar it looks like any other ad network. We spoke to Ashish Kashyap, CEO of Ibibo.com who stated that it was too early to talk about Adwinks. Currently he termed the initiative as an “experimental initiative” to test the waters and the response in the ad network space. Currently Adwinks only shows the Ibibo sites as clients and given the large number of traffic they have on their network of sites itself they have enough inventory to attract advertisers but the crucial question is will publishers sign up? As mentioned in our earlier post they already have branding centric advertisers on board and it will be interesting to see how this ad network initiative progresses given that it currently promises pay for performance model. There are atleast a dozen adnetworks in India now and here is a non-exhaustive list: Tonictag By Ishir Digital, Divanation & GoSinbad By Webchutney, Admagnet By Interactive Avenues, Adchakra By Percept Knorigin, DGM (affiliate network) By DGM India, Komli, Ozone Media, Tyroo By SITG, Paypod, Sulekha Ad Network and AdsforIndians. As you can see from the list above most of these adnetworks are by digital agencies or by standalone startups except for Sulekha Adnetwork. The launch of Adwinks hints at the trend that we blogged about a few days back on Publishers launching their own ad networks. We shall be tracking this space closely to see if other publishers launch their adnetworks too. Related Posts Why Are Publishers Creating Their Own Ad Networks? And Which Publishers In India Can Join The AdNetwork Game? @IAMAI Digital Marketing: How to Fight Web Wariness? - Can a billion Indians get connected digitally? 2008 The Webrising: Aamir Khan Leads the Bolly Brigade with Internet Only Promotion for Ghajini Percept Knorigin Is Online Agency For NoBrokerage.in - A No Broker Listings Oriented Property Site In-Game Advertising, The Next Biggest Gold Mine in Town! Also check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • • DoT Allows Foreign Players To Bid For 3G License Without An Indian Partner In a landmark decision, the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has decided to allow the foreign companies, interested in offering telecom services in India to bid for 3G license in India, without partnering with an Indian player, reports The Hindu. However, the said company will have to partner with an Indian company before starting the operations, as is required by Indian law. The law says that a foreign company can offer services in India, but they should form a joint venture with an Indian company in which they could not hold more than 74% equity. What this will do is speed up the process of 3G deployment in India. A foreign company can bid for the license, in the meanwhile scouting for a partner. Its been a while, and the DoT seems almost as efficient as Apple, in managing a PR around 3G. Not a week goes by when there is no news abot DoT and the 3G. And then we are told that its still 6-12 months away. I am happy that the steps to speed it up are taken. However, the real delight will come only after 3G is deployed. This, of course, is subject to the pricing by the Telcos.     Related Posts Pune Slated to be The First 3G Enabled Indian City while DoT Delays the Bidding Indian Telecom Markets Heat Up as 3G Roll Out Date Nears Telecom Italia bags 49% Stake in Unitech Wireless DoT Makes Player Specific Changes To The 3G Policy ? UAE’s Telecom Giant Etisalat Eyes Majority Stake in Mumbai’s Swan Telecom Also check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • • More Recent Articles Social Networks Bend Towards A Branding Strategy - Will It Rake In The Revenues? India Wakes Up To Securing the Wifi connections. Thank You, Mr. Terrorist ? Telecom Italia bags 49% Stake in Unitech Wireless Shoppers Stop Opens Up Online Store Industry Movements: Mandar Natekar Joins BigAdda While Hemant Sachdev Heads To Microsoft (Via WATJob)

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WATBlog Update There are 5 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

Here are the WATBlog email updates for watblogna@gmail.com

Social Networks Bend Towards A Branding Strategy - Will It Rake In The Revenues? India Wakes Up To Securing the Wifi connections. Thank You, Mr. Terrorist ? Telecom Italia bags 49% Stake in Unitech Wireless Shoppers Stop Opens Up Online Store Industry Movements: Mandar Natekar Joins BigAdda While Hemant Sachdev Heads To Microsoft (Via WATJob) More Recent Articles Search WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India There are 5 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India" Social Networks Bend Towards A Branding Strategy - Will It Rake In The Revenues? More and more social networks are announcing what I would call a social media branding bouquet of products for advertisers. Advertisers who have got used to using the digital medium as a lead and sometimes even a conversion generating medium are now being approached by leading social networks of India with a branding based model. So Which Networks Are Moving Into Social Media Branding? BigAdda.com - BigAdda stated in a report today said that it would be looking at making the BigAdda a branding centric platform. Mandar Natekar the newly appointed National Head of BigAdda.com said “We will position our platform as a branding solution provider and pitch advertisers to use BigAdda.com for brand building activities, rather than just carrying out lead generation and returns on investment (ROI) driven campaigns. We are targeting FMCG, telecom, lifestyle and automobile brands as advertisers on our site." Recently another blog reported that 25% of BigAdda’s traction comes from the BigB Blog who offlate has been in the middle a lot of controversy which has had a direct impact on his blog traffic. I would like to believe that the BigB blog is the hottest destination on BigAdda as on date and given that they haven’t still built engagement with users I think the same wouldn’t be as easy to build as well. Ibibo.com - Ibibo.com has already initiated a social media branding exercise on their website which is quite apparent from the way they have been showcasing brand. Check the screenshot below of the idea campaign integrated as a feature on Ibibo: And this feature for Nokia on profiles at Ibibo: Also they seem to be running a contest for TataSky on their video site here. Ibibo (MIH India) seems to have taken the branding route pretty seriously though they would need much more of this if they have to meet their losses that they seem to be incurring. Will It Rake in the Moolah? If Yes What Is Required To Make It Happen? Long Term Play - Branding is a long term strategy and its not something that will churn out the dollars on the first day itself. The Social Networking Platforms would have to create unique properties that allow ongoing brand engagement with users without making it too intrusive which may put them off. Also campaigns would need to be longterm in nature and this realization would have to be driven down marketers. Requires Offline Push - One needs to have good connections with the media planners and brands which are primarily offline advertisers or atleast are not the kinds which would look for ROI. For example FMCG and Clothing brands. User Engagement Key - Most sites even today judge their traffic by number of visitors and not by engagement centric metrics like apps interacted with or actions taken like groups joined, scraps sent, messages sent etc. These metric will become more and more important as time goes on and brands which will look to engage with these social networking platforms will look at such statistics. What do you think? Social Networks will earn enough revenue via branding? Related Posts BidAdda Attracts Women users from Asian Countries Indian Social Networks Pursuing Social Ads on Facebook Industry Movements: Mandar Natekar Joins BigAdda While Hemant Sachdev Heads To Microsoft (Via WATJob) Exclusive Interview with ACK Media COO - Ashish Goel On Amar Chitra Katha Future Plans Why Are Publishers Creating Their Own Ad Networks? And Which Publishers In India Can Join The AdNetwork Game? Also check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • • India Wakes Up To Securing the Wifi connections. Thank You, Mr. Terrorist ? So, all the recent terrorists have been tracked to Mumbai. Also, it was made clear than the terrorists were smarter than the average Indians. The terrorists used others Wi-Fi networks to carry out their communication. The terrorists were smart enough. The Indians were not. I cannot help but remember the tag line of the recent Hind film, “Phoonk”. It said - it’s superstition until it happens to you. Translated to this episode, it becomes “security is just a technical buzzword, unless you become the victim‘. Ok, now the news, ET reports that TRAI has taken it upon itself to make it mandatory for the ISPs to make sure that the customers secure their Wifi networks with passwords. The news says TRAI started studying Wi-Fi network after the Ahmedabad blasts and will soon come p with the guidelines for the ISPs. TRAI will be consulting with DoT and DIT for this. TRAI told DoT , “All ISPs may be instructed to ensure that their subscribers using wireless devices must use effective authentication mechanisms and permit access to internet to only authorized persons using wireless devices,” Interesting (and expectedly) ISPs say that it’s the customers who is to be blamed. Have a look at what Rajesh Chharia Internet Service Providers Association of India president have to say - “Internet service providers are taking steps on their own to secure WiFi connections. All ISPs are installing AAA servers and firewalls. But, if you look at the terror mails, they were sent from hacked or open WiFi accounts - there is nothing we can do about this. When people take a broadband connection and routers to make their homes and offices WiFi enabled and then leave it open when they are not in use, there is nothing ISPs can do about it” Wonderful, isn’t it ? Actually, why put the onus on anyone. We should be putting passwords to a Wifi network. The way we are afraid of people reading our emails and using the information to hurt our personal/professional interest, we should be afraid of our Wi-Fi being misused. And its much more than just our privacy that’s at stake this time. Any thoughts ? Related Posts Citywide WiFi Planned by BMC in a 50-Crore Plan For Mumbai Malicious Websites on the Rise, Google’s Blogger the Top Target GMail Introduces New Privacy Settings - Remote Log Out, Logged In Stats & IP Address! 637 Million Insecure Web Surfers - Microsoft Forced to Launch SmartScreen Filter Starbucks Ties Up With AT&T - A Suggested Business Model For Free Wi-Fi Connections in India Also check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • • Telecom Italia bags 49% Stake in Unitech Wireless Real estate major Unitech’s telecom arm, Unitech Wireless has just sold a 49% minority stake in the company to Telecom Italia, Italy’s largest telecom company. Unitech Wireless has managed to win licenses to operate in all 22 circles in the country and were on the look out for partners. We’d reported about Norwegian telecom giant, Telenor, who was eyeing a 26% stake in the company for $500m. Today, ET reports that instead of Telenor, Telecom Italia has managed to grab a 49% stake in the company for $2bn. The two firms are close to reaching an agreement, whereby a new company will be formed for Unitech’s telecom business in which Telecom Italia will have a 49% stake while the rest will be held by Unitech. Back in the earlier report, the MD of Unitech, Mr. Sanjay Chandra had denied that a partner was finalized by his firm and that they were still negotiating with various parties. The deal would only be closed only after they analyzed all opportunities. It was also reported that the firm was eyeing for an evaluation of atleast $3bn As per Industry Sources, Unitech has been in talks with several foreign telcos for a partnership since the beginning of the year. While the firm has been valued currently at $2bn, the promoters are hoping for a valuation of at least $3bn and seeing that 49% was given away for $2bn, they pretty much hit the arrow on the target. Unitech, will play the role of contributing its pan-india license and initial groundwork. The company has already acquired spectrum in six of the 22 circles and is expected to launch it’s operations by April next year. On the other hand, Telecom Italia’s funds will be used for rolling out the network and operations. The company is also planning to bid for the 3G spectrum. The company is preparing in full force for the roll out, and has already employed a force of 250 people. The firm also plans to invest Rs. 20,000 crores over the next three years. Executives from both these firms are said to be in talks with equipment vendors, including Nokia and HP. It seems that the country is expected to see a party of launches next year, and Unitech is making sure it does not fall behind in the race. Related Posts UAE’s Telecom Giant Etisalat Eyes Majority Stake in Mumbai’s Swan Telecom Telenor may pick up 26% stake in Unitech Wireless for $500m; DoCoMo eyes Minority Stake in Tata Teleservices BSNL’s Rs. 400 Crore Project Up for Grabs, To Invest Another Rs. 499 Crore in Kolkata Global Telcos Come Calling as Indian Mobile Market Grows India’s Telecom Market to Soon Get Virtual Network Operators Also check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • • Shoppers Stop Opens Up Online Store Shoppers Stop is going online, reports Afaqs. The idea is not to create an alternative revenue-source to the offline stores, but to develop an extension to the present business. On this, Vivek Mathur, customer care associate and vice-president, corporate planning and e-commerce, said, “We are not looking at the site as a separate business. It is an extension of our brand, which has a strong presence in the physical retail segment. We want to create the same experience for our customers online.” The focus will be more on the existing customers. As Vivek Mathur puts it, the idea is to create an experience for their customers. Indian customer already has a large number of online shopping stores. Indiaplaza.com, Futurebazaar.com are some prominent players in this space. Futurebazaar.com is owned by Pantaloons, the company that owns Big Bazaar. It recently got funded by Sherpalo Ventures and KPCB. The amount might be in the range of $20-30m. In that case, they will paying a good deal of attention to the various aspects of the business. Even a good number spent in marketing. The choice for the customer will be plenty. However, these two are positioned differently offline. Big Bazaar has always been about the daily need goods. Whereas, Shoppers Stop is more like a place which people go to on weekends, to have some good, expensive stuff (clothes etc.). They have stalls for the likes of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. I would expect a store like Shoppers Stop to have its online presence much before someone like Big Bazaar does that. However whether the online extensions reflect on the offline business positioning, completely, will be seen only once they have a sizeable number of people visiting their website and once they pay out their online strategies in the time to come. Related Posts FutureBazaar.com Raises Funding From Sherpalo Online Diwali Shopping To Reach Rs250cr Online Shopping to SkyRocket By 130% During Diwali! - Online Marketers Start Preparations!! Saturday Startups - Part Two - Storrz.com - Now Buy Tomatoes Online! Myntra To Offer Cricket Merchandise With Cricinfo Also check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • • Industry Movements: Mandar Natekar Joins BigAdda While Hemant Sachdev Heads To Microsoft (Via WATJob) Well shifting jobs seems to be the order of the day in the digital space. And there are two more people who seem to have quit their earlier jobs to find a new one. What’s heartening though is people are shifting from the TV medium to Online with their career moves. So here are the Industry Movements for today: Mandar Natekar Joins BigAdda.com as National Head Mandar Natekar who was previously with HBO as the North and West Regional Head has joined BigAdda as the National Head reports Alootechie. Mandar Natekar will be responsible for setting up the sales team and launching experiential and contextual advertising solutions for advertisers to use social networking as an effective medium for brand building. Given the fact that social networking in the International scene have a hard time monetizing their assets Mandar’s role in BigAdda could be crucial to BigAdda’s future. Hemant Sachdev Quits Bharti and Joins Microsoft Microsoft India has hired Hemant Sachdev as Joint Managing Director of Consumer and Online Business who was earlier with Bharti Airtel. He was a key member of the of Bharti chairman Sunil Mittal’s apex management team at a group level reports VCcircle. Sachdev would be heading a portfolio which  includes consumer software, windows mobile, MSN and the online services and search businesses. (Via WATJob.com) Follow Industry movements and Job Openings On WATJob.com Related Posts Social Networks Bend Towards A Branding Strategy - Will It Rake In The Revenues? BigAdda Sees Big Numbers: Targets Over US$ 4 Million in Revenue in The Next Year BigAdda.com Now On Mobile.. Invite Your Phonebook & Make Your Mobile Number Your Profile ID! How Can Brands Leverage Social Networking In India? - Answered By Social Networks BigAdda, Minglebox & Fropper Reliance Invests in US Social Networking Portal Whrrl.com – Looking Strongly at Location Based Services Also check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • • More Recent Articles Exclusive Interview with ACK Media COO - Ashish Goel On Amar Chitra Katha Future Plans WATBlog Recommends: Some Interesting Surveys That Bloggers and Our Readers Should Take Review : AmarChitraKatha.com Love is in The Air and on The Web: WATBlog's Mini Survey on Online Dating Sites & Users Conde Nast Brings GQ Magazine to India - Will it Vitalize the Online Media Market as Well?

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