Happy Diwali Facebook Style

Someone back in Silicon valley California, is doing a smart job. Given that Facebook does not have a dedicated team in India, it is amazing to see how they are using cultural and social events to build their user base in India.  Not surprising given that the brand has grown over 150 per-cent in India in the last one year.

So what is the latest innovation? A Facebook app which lets you create a private group just for the occasion of Diwali, where you can post your diwali pictures, diwali stories and tag your friends whom you met for Diwali.

Pretty neat huh!

The viral potential of such an app is enormous given the enormous popularity of this Indian festival across diaspora. And it’s heartening to see that sitting in California, Zuckerberg’s men  investing the time to study cultures and creating little innovations to connect with them. This is classic example of how to localize a global brand in a seamless manner.

So while today we get ready to light the diyas and burst those crackers and click those frozen moments for posterity, here’s wishing you all a happy diwali “facebook style”

Facebook's user-tagging’ feature in the status updates for wishing friends and family members on Diwali

The Facebook app on Diwali

Auschwitz downs shutter on its Facebook page

It was launched just like that. It gained a record 2000 fans in just 2 days. And just like that, inexplicably, it shut shop today. I am talking about Auschwitz’s Facebook Page. Launched by the Polish Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum a couple of days ago, it was taken down today without explanation. Last known status update as of today morning as per fellow “twitterers”  is as such:

“65 years ago (on Oct 15, 1944) the number of female prisoners at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau was 34317.”

The now non-existent Auschwitz page on Facebook

The Auschwitz museum, set up in 1947 as the official memorial to the camp in which more than 1 million people died, has been active on the internet for more than 10 years and opening a Facebook page might have seemed like a wonderful way to stay in touch with today’s web savvy, twitter happy, youth, but as of now we are all in the dark regarding why exactly this page was pulled down in just 2 days.

For the two days that it was operational,  the Auschwitz Facebook page was more of an interactive extension of the museum’s website with the  status field being used to recall important historical events.

While am sure that the museum authorities will release an official statement explaining why exactly the page was pulled down, for now the Facebook frenzied youth will have to do without the Facebook version of Auschwitz.

Googling around for more info on this I came across this wonderful story on The Guardian on the same.

The Gates of Auschwitz

Airtel ties up with twitter: Sound business acumen or error in judgement?

The new ad on Airtel with Shah Rukh Khan, drives a bold statement. A statement that this is one of the largest mobile networks of the world with 110 million users. This in a country where mobile phone subscriptions are supposed to cross 500 million by next year. It does not take Einstein or Rocket Science to figure out that Bharti Airtel is growing. And it is a matter of pride for every Indian.

So when the news of Airtel tying up exclusively with Twitter came across through a friendly tweet, the excitement was definitely high and  I could barely contain my curiosity to find out more, given that Twitter has been gaining cult following in India following the Mumbai terror attacks. Here was a cellular network tying up for the first time in India with Twitter, giving Indians the freedom to tweet and receive tweets right from their mobile phones.

As I surfed through Airtel’s newly constructed Twitter web page I read more about the terms of this value added service ( VAS). It’s simple. Airtel will launch tweetSMS, a third-party application  that will enable you to receive Twitter SMS updates charged at INR 1.00 directly to one’s phone on 53000 short code.

Airtel's Twitter Page

This marks a change in strategy with Twitter who had stopped SMS service in India (and few other countries) owing to outbound SMS cost. I believe that this marks a clear departure in Twitter’s marketing strategy and that it would be safe to assume that Twitter is looking at more ways to increase it’s revenue share, especially in markets where  Internet and mobile telephony is growing exponentially.

While this is exciting news for Indian’s “tweeterians”, I cannot but have a few queries on whether Airtel got it completely right in their  strategy. Sure Twitter would keep them connected to the youth and there would be huge excitement and hype around this in the initial phase. But if we think about how Twitter works and for what it is exactly used there is minor niggle of a concern in my mind.

• While smartphone enabled users on the Airtel network would benefit from this hugely, what happens to the majority of Indian mobile phones users who phones are not WAP enabled. How can they benefit from this service ? Do users really need a twitter to send SMS’s when under several post paid plans, sms’s cost INR o.50 and Twitter on Airtel costs INR1.00 (double cost)

• The biggest asset of Twitter lies in its viral effect. In the way it can disseminate real time information and make it go viral. The most effective tweets are those which pass on interesting information, either through posting shortlinks of blog posts or retweeting interesting articles from the web or other tweets. With a normal phone neither of this is possible. And without witnessing the viral effect, users may lose interest.

• While I can understand that users might in the beginning use Twitter to pass updates on what they are doing through the day, but without passing any interesting information they would loose the interest of their followers in due course of time.

• And finally the cost element. Any successful “twitterer” knows that he would have to post at least 6-10 tweets a day to make his channel popular. Following simple mathematics that means an additional cost of INR 180 to INR300 per month. Wouldn’t that be too much of a price point barrier for normal users?

* (He may of course use both the web and phone and that way costs would be low)

Well these are just my queries. But having said that, it is definitely a historic moment! For users like me, it is wonderful because I can now tweet/retweet right from my Iphone and dont really need my computer. It is a first in the history of Indian telecommunication and a wonderful feather in the cap for Airtel for having pulled off this coup. By making this an exclusive deal for the first 4 weeks Airtel will definitely capture mind share among the populace and a lot of newsprint. It also gives an indication that more Indian cellular network providers are looking to join suit after the first 4 weeks.

But having said that, I have just one caveat. Was it really necessary to write this on the official website?

” This period of exclusivity is something that we want to take advantage of and make sure that Brand Airtel can own the property Twitter in consumer mind space.”

This is popular marketing/ ad parlance best discussed during closed door brainstorm sessions before a campaign launch.  Couldn’t it have been just left just for the consumers to decide?

China ups-the-ante on the Arunachal border dispute with India

India these days is all about LOC’s. First we have the disputed territory in Kashmir on which every now and then we engage in political volleyball with Pakistan and more recently it has been about the Chinese love affair with Arunachal Pradesh. From recurrent reports on incursion by the Chinese into sovereign Indian territory around the Arunachal border , to Google maps showing parts of Arunachal Pradesh in Chinese, the Indian media has been talking about the “Chinese” controversy for a while now.

Google India Map Controversy - Arunachal Pradesh in Chinese Language

India says China is illegally occupying 43,180 sq kms area of Jammu and Kashmir. On the other hand, China accuses India of possessing some 90,000 sq kms of Chinese territory, mostly in Arunachal Pradesh.

The latest in this cross border political speak has been China’s unexpectedly strong reaction to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh today – a day when Arunachal went to the polls for the state assembly. Commenting on the PMs visit, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said that “China is strongly dissatisfied with the visit to the disputed region by the Indian leader disregarding China’s serious concerns.”

The strong language of this comment coupled with the strategic date on which it was delivered ( election day) has raised many an eyebrow in Indian political circles and the Ministry of External Affairs has not been late in coming back with an adequate response in which it has said, ” Such a comment by China does not help the process of ongoing negotiations between the two governments on the boundary question. Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and inalienable part of India,  and the people of the state are citizens of India, who are proud participants in the mainstream of India’s vibrant democracy. The Chinese side is well aware of this position of the Government of India.”

Given that India and China are two of the largest Asian economies who share a common border, the cross border dialogue has been on from 1965 when both the countries engaged in the Indo-China war. But today’s perspective is different, and South Block’s concern on the Chinese making such a comment on a date when Arunachal went to the polls in understandable, because it was uncalled for. The PM of a sovereign state has every right to visit any of his constituencies on election day. No doubt the PMs visit was also a strategic move in Indian Public Diplomacy to reaffirm how Arunachal is an integral part of India’s democratic firmament, but from the political point of view it was required, to send a clear message to the Chinese government.

The MEA’s strong response, has again started a verbal volley of political speak across the border among the two nations. What waits to be seen is whether Beijing plays this down, or responds to this and sends the political temperatures soaring in New Delhi.

As of now score’s deuce.

How much benefit will Bhuvan derive over Google Earth ?

It’s been a while since ISRO launched Bhuvan,

(Sanskrit for Earth) India’s answer to Google Earth and technical glitches notwithstanding it has had a fair smount of success with 289418 registered users at the time this post was going to press. Technically now ISRO has enabled Bhuvan to be downloaded using Firefox, something that was not there in August when it was launched. However, the continued dependence on Microsoft Direct X, robs Bhuvan of many users who might not be Microsoft users.

From the technical perspective Bhuvan has three  elements which are superior to Google Earth at least on Paper.

The most interested feature for users will be the ability of Bhuvan to zoom far closer than the aerial view from a chopper. While Google Earth restricts zooming to 200 metres and Wikimapia goes up to 50 metres, ISRO’s new technology will be able to render images from up to 10 metres, which means you can easily see details up to a three-floor high building and also add information.

The other important feature is that Bhuvan uses seven satellites (including ISRO’s Resourcesat-1, Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2) to provide images, as well as time-stamping them for multiple views from the same satellite. This provides images from different angles apart from the default top-down perpendicular view, thus enriching the user experience.

Another significant aspect of Bhuvan is that due to its focus on the Indian sub-continent, it will be able to offer better updates of the images. ISRO will update images for the program once every year, as compared to Google’s 4-year updates. As it keeps updating its database with more recent and higher resolution images, Bhuvan eventually promises to offer real-time data and images.

Bhuvan’s wiki page gives a comprehesive overview of the kind of system requirements you require to install Bhuvan into your computer.

However,  in my personal experience I have found the Bhuvan experience not extremely different from using Google Earth. Also I have found it a little bit difficult to operate given that you need administrator abilities to make it work. And I have not been able to use the 1o meter zoom capability constructively in the sense that I did not get to see any close ups of three storey tall buildings, something I should be able to do at 10 metres zoom-in capability. But from the Indian perspective, Bhuvan offers a better response than Google Earth.  Simply because ISRO has been able to use better satellite imagery of Indian states than Google did. However at 256 kbps it was slower than Google Earth and a bit clumsy to operate.

As far as the question of how much benefit it will derive over Google Earth depends on how fast ISRO can work on the  technical glitches and make it a bit easier to operate on for the mass . But for Indian’s especially those in the rural sectors, with a 10 metre zoom -in capability, this software can help to analyse crop patterns or land usage. Indians  can also use the maps on Bhuvan and then embed information from Bhoo Sampada, a repository of land use and land cover data of the country and the national natural resources management system, also created by ISRO. At present this feature is not functional yet and undergoing testing but ISRO claims that it will soon be.  Also since ISRO is using 7 dedicated satellites at least if you want to search for places in India, this will give a far more accurate response.

For now Bhuvan has made a successful entry into a space previously owned by google and done well. But it will take time for all of us to know, how ISRO plans to make this software more attractive to a global populace ( Currently you can use it to search for global locations but Indian locations work better). On a larger scale Google Earth finally has some competition!

You can download Bhuvan here

The Bhuvan Home Page

NREGA goes Facebooking

The National Rural Guarantee Employment Act ( NREGA) has been the Congress Party’s active political mandate to which many attribute  its winning the 2009 elections. While the media has written enough and more about this unque scheme by which the Indian Government aims to provide employment in the rural sector, this post is about how the government has taken the ambitious step of connecting this national campaign with the youth of the country using Facebook. While it is still very early days, this Facebook page shows a lot of activity and freshness of content.

This is definitely a very heartening step for social media enthusiasts like me. While the page not only successfuly integrates all media stories on NREGA by providing hyperlinks of the articles on the Status Updates/ Wall it is even gaining some fair amount of responses by people specially if we consider that in India even last year , Facebook was a non-entity.

True 483 fans does not seem a very large number in a country of 1.16 billion. But it’s a very heartening effort and in the right direction. And even if in a very very miniscule way, it has been able to generate conversations among people.

So let us now see what are the salient points of the NREGA Scheme:

1.  Every household has the right to demand 100 days employment (unskilled manual work) from the Govt
2.  Employment (with Job Card) will be given within 15 days of application for work. Job Card (with photograph) should be with you. No one has the right to take it away. In case of lose you can apply for a new one.
3. If employment is not given within 15 days, daily unemployment allowance in cash will be paid by the State Govt.
4. Employment within 5 km radius of the village or beyond 5 km, extra wages of 10 per cent.
5. At least 1/3 of the employment will be given to the women.
6. Villagers themselves, not officials, will decide the works to be done.
7. There will be complete transparency and wages will be paid in full public view on weekly basis and not beyond a fortnight in any case.
8. No contractors and machineries are allowed under the scheme.
9. Working facilities like free medical treatment in case of injury and compensation in case of death or permanent disability of the laborers will be provided by the State Govt.
10. Social audit shall be conducted in full public view.
11. All accounts and records relating to the scheme will be available for public scrutiny.

The NREGA is a noble scheme and will need far more than the current 400 odd fans it has to make it’s presence on Facebook worthwhile. But it is interesting to see the Indian Government test the waters of e-governance. While a lot more can be done do create more awareness and hence more participation through creation of a NREGA blog which has an RSS feed of all media stories on it and connecting it to this Facebook page, the reach of social media can be used to make more youth be aware of this kind of an initiative, create volunteers, build donation drives  and  create more advocates.

The greatest challenge will however will be adapting such e-drives for the rural populace where internet penetrativity  is just at 5 per-cent. But that’s for the future. Here we have the first seedlings of an e-governance initiative by a government which realises that to reach out to the youth it has to adapt to newer means of communication and is willing to try out new things, even if it means like stepping on egg shells.

The NREGA page on Facebook

UID verification via mobile- a few queries!

Nandan Nilekani has been making a lot of news recently, more so since his taking over as Chairman of the ( Unique Identification)  UID project, one of the most ambitious plans of the Indian government. So what is the plan all about? Giving India’s  whopping 1.16 billion people a unique identification number. Yes we can draw parallels with the American Social Security Number or the British National Insurance Number, but in terms of sheer population they were no match to what the Indian government plans to do.  So the excitement and curiosity is naturally high.

Well reams have already been dedicated to UID and what is it about and how feasible it is, so this post is not about that. This post is regarding a few thoughts i have on Nilekani’s comments about using mobile phones to verify people’s identities in this ambitious project.

In a public speech made at the Foundation Day ceremony of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Nilekani said, “We will be issuing a number to every Indian resident. These numbers will be stored in one central database.  We also propose to offer mobile phone authentication of identity against this database. Authorities who want to confirm a resident’s identity will be able to take the resident’s fingerprint, send it via mobile phone to the database, and receive a confirmation of the resident’s identity.”

My queries on this particular point are very simple.

a:  Will the fingerprints be sent across mobile phones via MMS or email?

b: If that be the technology used, will authorities everywhere be given smart phones which have email and MMS in-built in them?

Having said that,I must confess that mobile phones provide a very sound platform for such verification given that these numbers are already verified by TRAI ( Telecom regulatory Authority of India). With over 427 million users  among which 1oo million are rural subscribers, this would be a wonderful way for the government to actually implement the UID.

But having said that I have a few more queries:

a: Mobile connections of 427 million, however, do not mean subscribers. Some subscribers have more than one connection. Research firm Gartner estimates that 10 percent of connections fall in this category. Can we successfully de-duplicate those accounts without error? (Imagine add on connections/ corporate connections/ group connections et all)

b: What happens if  a user falls outside coverage area? Or his mobile is stolen?

c: Will a users data be linked to his UID and by extension to his mobile number? If so how will the government ensure data security in case of mobile theft?

While these are merely queries, the idea of doing something like this is completely laudable and  with Mr Nilekani’s impressive record so far, it is safe to assume that these questions will have robust solutions before the first batch of UIDs roll out

But for now these are important questions that India is asking without having any concrete answers.

Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, UIDAI