Glob – The Indusgeeks Blog

Am posting this from my room in Guwahati. All hail the new messiah .. the HSIA ( short for High Speed Internet Access) Device.. my Photon + . I brought along my lil Lenovo S10-2 netbook instead of my XPS and my shoulders have professed undying love already.. ! I was here on the invitation of the ABP Group ( Telegraph, Business World etc.) to speak on ‘Looking at Tomorrow – Emerging Entrepreneurs’.  Having had a packed week before the conference I arrived in Guwahati on the 27th of August without a single slide for the presentation on the 28th !

But I really wanted to test the power of virtual communications and productivity and sure enough as soon as the lights blinked green on my Photon + USB..I knew, I would be okay. This is what 24×7, universal access to broadband can do. Give you the confidence to prioritise work .. not on the basis of scarce resources ( i.e. Internet availability ) but on merit and availability of your time. So I worked through the night and early morning with Google, girl friend in L.A. and Ashi in Bombay to finish off the presentation.

The next day ..at the conference the presentation was well received ( thanks Ashi and Namita) . The accounts of other entrepreneurs such as Mr. Santosh Ostwal of Ossian ( Pune) who has created a mobile controlled device for water pumps which won a global award from Nokia made me think of convergence between mobile and computers again! With a slew IEDs ( Internet Enabled Devices) available in the market the days of ‘anytime access’ can’t be far behind..  India with it’s 441+ million mobile connections projected to grow upwards of 700 million by 2012 will be one of the first countries I believe to be significantly affected by this ICT revolution. For the first time in Indian history – ‘real time’ information will be available through various IEDS like netbooks, mobiles etc. at the doorstep of the ‘aam admi’  - the socio – economic – political implications of this are immense and I touched upon the same in my presentation at the summit.

Another thing I noticed during my first visit to Guwahati was the energy radiating from the youth. After years of separatist and insurgency marked violence the region, at least Guwahati, seems to want to get down to business. Interactions with another panelist Mr. Parthapratim Phukan , CEO of Gray Matter ( a marketing research and consulting ) company based out of Guwahati made me realise the youth here wanted to move on.. needed to move on..  Can Internet technologies like Social networks and Virtual worlds ( which are infact two facets of the p2p networking) bridge the alienation at the average youth in the North East of our country feels from the ‘mainstream’ India. What if ubiquitous IEDS and reliable broadband ( both of which are still unavailable – at most places in the North East and indeed most of India) could bring together people from all parts of India seamlessly without 3 hour flights, army barracks, terrorist threats and language barriers. Could we indeed build the future India as an ‘idea state’ with a sense of shared identity through a virtual universe?  Would this in turn solve the problem of alienation and lead to greater normalcy on the ground for the citizens of our country living in remote locations ( geographically) ?  It might be idealistic and naive to believe that ICT can be the cure to all problems of North East India but we can make a start by reaching out.. from the comforts our home to see if we can make ‘any’ difference.

I believe in the near future networks of people will form for social, business and other purposes seamlessly using 2D and 3D virtual worlds ( think Facebook, Linkedin and Second Life ) and companies like Indusgeeks needs to play an enabling role in the process. The government needs to make Internet access a priority as countless studies have shown the benefits to the overall population when this is done.

Final thoughts from this trip as I pack up… need to spend some time looking at the magnificent Brahmputra before I head towards the airport..

Note to self need to visit here more often..nudge nudge ABP Group.. NICT 2010?

- Sid

that’s what our new card and logo reads…

This is our new logo

New Indusgeeks Logo

As you can tell we are rebranding. We realised that without realising ( couldn’t let that pass ) two and half years had passed since we started operations. And that two and half years later it was time to move on to a more representative image of the company.

The new logo highlights our 3D pedigree by representing all 3 dimensions through the arrows and the new colours maintain the continuity with our previous logo’s colours. However, the changed font and the shift to grey for our company name represents a greater focus on reliability, sustainability and delivery – main areas of focus for us in our early growth phase.

As we look towards the future we realised that a new focus should be represented  in our image and hence the change in the logo.

Do let us know what you think of the new logo @  http://twitter.com/Indusgeeks our twitter channel.

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi and Ramadan!

Sid

PS: We will updating and changing the existing website very soon as well…. in case you were wondering why we still haven’t replaced the old logos there.

This article appeared in the 4Ps Business and Marketing magazine published by Planmanmedia ( November 21st , 2008 edition) under the title  ‘ Virtually yours … in our 2nd lives ‘.

Virtual worlds like Second Life burst onto the digital marketing scene in early 2006 and since then it’s been a roller coaster ride for marketers. In the early days most marketers correctly realized the potential of this medium to immerse their audiences in to the brand narrative but could not implement or create an effective virtual marketing campaign. As virtual worlds continue to grow and their registered user base touches about 400 million users by some estimates; it’s increasingly important for marketers to understand what works in these worlds. Virtual worlds such as Second Life are a hybrid of web and contact marketing. They combine the advantages of technology and latest web trends like social networking, video sharing with the proximity and immersion of contact marketing. They create engaging user experiences being entertaining, interactive and immersive.

Second Life vs. Other Virtual Worlds…

Although Second Life started it all, it isn’t the only virtual world out there. There are many others like There (used by Coke and MTV), Gaia, etc. The choice of a virtual world or a combination of them that is best suited for a brand depends on the demographics, target audience, customer experience, etc., just as in the case of traditional web marketing. Virtual worlds can also be custom created for a brand and allow embedded brand advertising – Barbie Girls, Lego Universe are popular flash based virtual worlds targeted at teens and youth across the globe.

Branded and interactive virtual worlds can be effectively used to create loyal communities around brands. Long term community interaction, for instance Sunsilk’s ‘Gang of Girls’ – is essential both for community as well as marketing. Interactive virtual worlds can also be integrated with existing online communities such as Facebook (YoVille – Flash based virtual world application on Facebook which has about 1,50,000 daily users). That brings us to another potentially interesting application of virtual worlds – distributed virtual worlds or embeddable virtual worlds.

Using Embedded Virtual Worlds…

So far most of the popular virtual worlds like Second Life, There, Gaia, et al are client-based as opposed to browser-based applications. But with the growing popularity of the medium, a need to embed these virtual worlds into browsers is growing. This is especially relevant for web marketing and network marketing purposes. Just as social networking platforms like ‘Ning’ and Google’s ‘Open-Social’ make it possible to host a social network on your own website/portal as opposed to walled gardens like Facebook; distributed virtual world platforms created using Flash, Java, et al allow virtual worlds to be hosted on a company’s or an individual’s website.

This leads to the usual networking effects witnessed in social networks wherein a friend can be invited to hop onto your virtual space on your website which is in turn connected to a whole grid of such spaces allowing for both public as well as private virtual experiences. Embeddable virtual worlds are in the early stages of development and their growth will have a significant effect in using virtual worlds for digital and interactive marketing.

Myths and problems…

In 2006, when Second Life was on its upward media popularity curve, many companies jumped onto the bandwagon of establishing their ‘presence’ on Second Life. This amounted to little more than just a nice-looking static 3D space, very much resembling an extension of themes and concepts used in the companies’ existing 2D websites. The expectation was ‘if we build it… people will come’, completely ignoring the basic fact that a user needs a compelling reason to visit a virtual location just as he does to visit a company’s website. This saw many major companies like American Apparel, Wells Fargo, Armani, Dell, etc. launch huge campaigns and see them fail.

It led many prominent advertising agencies to believe that virtual worlds like Second Life were not meant for marketing purposes and led to a backlash in the media. The failure, however, was not of the medium as much as of the message. Virtual worlds offer the great chance to engage your target audience in an interactive and immersive brand experience. They allow you as a marketer to create a narrative and ask your customers to participate in it. Such an experience is not possible in any other online digital medium to this extent. Instead of leveraging the huge interaction and narration capabilities of the medium most of the failed campaigns tried instead to create ‘pretty places’ and sell their products blandly using the kind of video and banner based marketing popular on the 2D web and this expectedly backfired.

Brands like coca-cola, L’oreal, Orange, Pontiac and Starwood Hotels succeeded wildly in their Second Life campaigns because they chose to take an event based and community based approach to the medium. They provided an experience or utility which people demanded in virtual worlds while blending it with the brand message. Indeed coca-cola has launched a new campaign in Second Life for its Nestea brand by sponsoring a concert in Second Life.

To conclude, the future of Virtual marketing or V- marketing is bright as long as marketers realize how to use the medium and it’s strengths.

- Siddharth Banerjee

CEO

Indusgeeks