China's Poster Boy Jack Ma's intent to grab a chunk of the Indian ecommerce pie can make way for other biggies

The inevitable has happened. Finally Jack Ma has gone public with his intent of being seen and heard more in India (read more visits, more press interaction, hobnobbing with the e-railers, and greater presence in the indian ecommerce industry). Good for our retailers(small scale traders)...if Ma can tweak technology a bit, make things easy for Indian suppliers to sell products on Alibaba good..... rejoice. However is that all that meets the eye? Is he is planning to buy a stake in one of the Indian Ecommerce success stories. For one, our bigwigs need strategic alliance, expert knowhow and funds to remain afloat amid cut throat competition. We have been witnessing the big war between the biggies (read flipkart, snap deal, Amazon, and the likes). What can our ecommerce players learn from Alibaba? Well to start with they can learn: -How to stay ahead of competition -How to remain profitability year-on-year -How to innovate and realign with the exiting market conditions -How to make consumers feel like a king This list is endless. Following Jack Ma's lead, we may expect big announcements from other popular etailers across the globe as Indian consumers cannot be ignored anymore. However currently we are waiting to hear about movers and shakers in the ecommerce industry. Mergers and Acquisitions no more look like a distant dream. Last but not the least....don't forget, Alibaba is scouting for Indian talent. Soon we may hear some shaking news....

Indian Politicians should learn art of using social media from US Prez. Obama

Barack Obama’s successful networking on the social media space and his landslide win against Republican opponent, John McCain can teach a thing or two to Indian politicians raring to go on the election blitzkriegs slated early next year.

India has a handful of educated, technologically savvy third-generation politicians who can definitely take a leaf out of Obama’s book and benefit from it.

Barack Obama, the harbinger of change in the United States of America (USA) will go down in the history as not only the first African-American to lead USA that first brought Africans to its shores as slaves but also as the first president who aggressively used social media networks such as facebook, flickr, youtube among others to reachout and embrace social communities and raise astronomical sum for his election campaign.

However as social media sector in India is still in its infancy, the outcome may not measure up to the spectacular response Obama garnered during his two-year campaign period but as a networking tool it can still do wonders for our desi politicians.

Fundraising for elections in India is not as transparent as it is in the West hence raising funds within the social media space will serve as a difficult proposition; however social media can be used as a platform by Indian politicians to connect and initiate a two-way communication with technologically savvy young Indians.

One of the key constraints in India is that Internet connections are not growing as fast as we would like. Social media during the Indian elections can serve as just a channel of communication as internet penetration in India is minimal. Despite the low penetration, India already has 80 million Internet users which makes it the third largest Internet market in the world behind the United States and China. Total users are expected to grow by about 40 percent this year, according to Morgan Stanley, almost double the growth rate in other developing Internet markets like China and Brazil.

The opportunity for additional broadband penetration combined with a sizable middle class with tremendous spending power makes today’s investment landscape in India extremely attractive.

Social media during the Indian elections can serve as just a channel of communication; however Indian politicians should not be ignoring this tool as it surpasses all others in terms of bandwidth and reach and cost.

Now let’s see how social media helped Obama win election. What’s interesting in Obama case is that he used social media to his advantage by connecting with fellow Americans over a two-year period which helped his campaign find new audiences to engage with. During his campaign, Obama not only used the top networking sites but also made his presence felt in niche communities mainly targeting youths.

Obama’s campaign

In many ways, the story of Obama's campaign was the story of his supporters, whose creativity and enthusiasm manifested through multitudes of websites and YouTube videos online. It even saw volunteer contributions like the innovative Obama '08 iPhone and iTouch application that enabled owners to mobilize their friends and contacts in battleground states through the Apple devices.

It will be difficult for Indian politicians to ape Obama’s social media campaign as social media awareness in the country is very low. The main reason for lack of awareness is low internet penetration. However a beginning can be made by our politicians in the forthcoming general elections.

Pepsi used friendfeed and not facebook or myspace? I wonder why?

Social Media Networks--a treasure trove of News. Is it the end of Journalism?

Coming from a journalistic background with a stint in public relations and communications, an inclination to learn about the social media networking and its positive attributes seemed almost inevitable in my case. My curiosity to understand the social media space got the better of me. A month of goggling, surfing the net for any topic associated with the social media, scanning discussions involving highly rated social media bloggers, participants at discussion boards, forums and community networks got me thinking--- is social media here to stay?

Yes, without doubt, my inner self asserted! Social media seems to be turning an average individual into a prolific journalist. So is the future of journalists globally nearing an end.

Thanks to the discovery of social media space. Now everyone wants to be someone and what better way to reach the stage of becoming ‘someone’ by the exceptional tool called ‘The BLOG.’

A quick scan of few blogs on the internet showed emergence of a few thought leaders, a few reporters talking passionately about the things they like. It should definitely send a red alert to journalists the world over. They will have to reinvent themselves or face extinction.

In order to keep up with the rapidly expanding social media networks and the amount of news flowing around, even traditional media such as newspapers and magazines will have to innovate and reinvent themselves or they will be dead before one utters ‘Jack Robinson’.

This trend is visible for all to see. Take the case of the ongoing financial sector crisis in the US. A few days ago I was reading a top line international newspaper-- the epitome of classic journalism at play (name deleted for obvious reasons). And this is what I found. The newspaper was quoting discussions in the chat room about what people had to say about the crisis. Now-a-days even international columnists with impeccable reputation are taking their news pegs from blogs and chats.

If such trend continues, “traditional journalism” is sure to die a slow death. Although it won’t happen immediately but the fact that I am already referring to the so called journalism as “traditional journalism” is definitely a case in point. So what do we call social media journalism----the new age journalism! Any comments.