Death of SMS Messaging

One, two, three, four, five, six...

No, wait! This is not blog for kindergarten kids. I was just counting the number of messaging apps on my phone. 

1. The native messaging app that comes along in the phone 
2. WhatsApp 
3. Google Hangout (earlier Gtalk) 
4. Facebook Messenger 
5. Skpe 
6. WeChat (till sometime back) 

Previously, I also had Viber. Like WeChat I removed it. How many do you have? 

Couple of days back, BSNL, India's telecom behemoth, announced the winding up of probably the original SMS in India.   

The news made me wonder if SMS as a native app will also meet the same fate. The short life of Short Messaging Service? 

Do I need six apps for messaging? What differentiation does SMS anyway bring to the table? 

Cost did you say? Probably, there was a time when the number of free SMS used to be a differentiating factor while choosing a plan. For years now, I haven't kept track of SMS usage. 

Does it work cheaper then say an IP based Messenger such as WhatsApp? I seriously don't know. Actually, I don't care. 

In one of my previous jobs, my colleague and I had a discussion about the low cost PR agencies which spoilt the market for a large, high-fee charging national agencies. I told her that such low cost agencies are good for national agencies because without them the value that a national agency with its reach and good trained manpower is never realized by clients. Similarly, even if SMS is cheaper, I presume, users will prefer messaging tool that provides them greater user experience. 

I always had trouble sending an image though MMS, the superior cousin of SMS. But with WhatsApp, it is a breeze! 

It is also much more cooler to use the messaging apps then a plain vanilla SMS app. Yes, I know SMS Pro type apps spruce up the native app but then why bother? 

I can't think of any reason as to why I would want to use SMS. Internet on mobile is a reality and will certainly become ubiquitous. Other certainty is that every phone will be "smart" in some ways or other supporting such messaging apps.  

What happens to my alerts regarding bank, credit card or any other utilities? Tough one. Isn't there a way that that can be accommodated in CRM for customer contact? See, there's a business opportunity for some! 

Somehow I am not able to convince myself that SMS, in its current form, will last. Would it? 

How The Internet Can Impede Democracy

I often am lost on why would Chinese Government block and put curbs. I think whoever is ruling China has built it to a great organization which is increasing dominating the entire world. And, of course, people are never happy with their governments. India is the largest democracy, people get 'all sorts' of rights. But we haven't moved.

I am wondering if a good authoritative government is the key. Ah but as they say power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Catch 22!
How The Internet Can Impede Democracy: "
Yesterday I asked the question: does China really feel threatened by U.S. social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube? As usual, I got an education in the comments to the post. While it's true that the Chinese government blocks Twitter, Facebook and all of the main American social media sites, several commenters pointed out they are blocked not because of their popularity (because they aren't, in fact, very popular in China), but due to their degree of freedom. In other words, the more open a social media service is, the more likely it will be blocked in China.

However, perhaps authoritarian governments shouldn't block social media - it may actually be helpful to them!

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Evgeny Morozov, a Belarus-born researcher and blogger, presented at TED last year on the topic of How the Net aids dictatorships. In his presentation (embedded below), Morozov makes the contrarian argument that the Internet is actually helping authoritarian governments - more so than being a challenge to them. Morozov asserted that governments like China's have "mastered the use of cyberspace for propaganda purposes."

Morozov noted that in the Iran Twitter protests of June of 2009, services such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs were actually operational and being used by activists. According to Morozov, this was great for the Iranian government - as it enabled them to "gather open source intelligence." The government could identify how Iranian activists connect to each other, by looking at their Facebook pages or Twitter connections.

Kaiser Kuo commented in yesterday's post about the same issue in China:

"...it's astonishing how cavalier some critics of the CCP [China Communist Party] are on Twitter, making no effort to disguise their identities, making their network of friends totally transparent (you can use any of a number of Twitter tools to see the extent of interconnectedness, friend overlap, number of @ messages back and forth, etc) and leaving a completely searchable history. Anyone with a serious anti-CCP agenda would be an idiot to use Twitter."

Also worth noting: Morozov said in his TED talk that cyber-activism may be offset by what he termed "cyber-hedonism." He claimed that people are becoming passive due to the Internet. He said that we often assume that the Internet is going to be the catalyst of change, but it may actually be "the new opium for the masses."

Morozov's theories were challenged in the comments to that TED video. One commenter claimed that "we focus on the obvious totalitarian regimes while our so called democracies use propaganda on a daily basis."

Regardless, Morozov raises some very valid points. While the Web promotes freedom of expression, at the same time it enables authoritarian regimes to monitor their citizens and identify troublemakers.

Let us know your thoughts on this in the comments.


Photo: harrystaab

Discuss

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Thumbs Down to Google Buzz

The problem of plenty. In my opinion, Buzz may not make a cut. It seems Wave and Twitter has been incorporated into Gmail. Force fit, it looks for now. Would be interesting to see what happens after a while.


Thumbs Down to Google Buzz: "

Dave Kerpen, our CBO, gives the thumbs down to Google Buzz. Google Buzz allows you to share information and get social with your Gmail contacts, but there’s no way to segment who you are sharing which information with– and your contact list might include contacts from all different sectors of your world. Try using Facebook lists instead!

Update: Thanks to Brad Ward, who pointed out that you can segment information you share on Google Buzz by different groups. See his screenshot here. We still think Google Buzz has a huge uphill battle to climb, as users don’t want another social network – and that once Facebook debuts its new email system (“Project Titan”), Facebook will own the online identity space that Google craves. But we’re curious about your thoughts: Google Buzz:  Boom or Bust?

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Social Networking: Problem of Plenty?

My interest in writing blogs with renewed vigor was with a post on Orkut. I was not sure if social networking sites were fad or would become part of our lives. A reflection on my behavior indicated that I was using Orkut to find out my existing contacts online and interact with them. I was not keen on newer friends, unless they were fairer variety. So, I felt social networking was at best an extension of Yahoo Groups. But, of course, social networking sites have grown on to became photo album, video album, birthday calendar, game parlor and many more such things.



When I thought Orkut was all that I needed, someone initiated me into Facebook. I opened an account and didn't use it actively, until recently. Then my mails were peppered with invitations to join WAYN and many others. I have resisted the temptation. When I thought going was fine, LinkedIn came along. It has become a must. It has become an essential for someone in the corporate world to be active on LinkedIn. It can get you partners, sales and jobs. So, I linked up. Now, the count is three.

And again I thought that this was enough. Then Twitter twittered into my life. The 140 word social networking, sms, microblogging tool has become very addictive. It’s four now.



A link shared on Twitter showed that while MySpace, Facebook and Orkut are the leading social networking sites in the world. There were many unheard local networking sites leading in different countries. Sonia’s research revealed that there are around 300. That is quite a bit considering the number of netizens in most countries, except for probably developed nations, is definitely low.

But I guess the need for people to network is far from being satiated. Once the number of internet users increase, the importance of such sites is likely to grow substantially. The survival of such sites itself will be interesting to watch out. While, Twitter doesn't have a revenue model, I guess Facebook, Orkut and the likes have or are developing revenue generation models.

On the differentiation front, I haven't used many sites to give my opinion but I think LinkedIn is the most differentiated for segmenting and going after the professionals. It has a well-differentiated offering. The other most differentiated social networking site is Twitter. Limited by 140 words, Twitter probably has a high adoption graph line compared to other social networking sites. It has real celebrities who Tweet real time. By the way, the part on why Internet, despite being a two-way media, still cannot solve the problem for celebrities in responding to fans is a good read, in Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody. While, one can do so many things in Facebook, Orkut…Twitter primarily acts as a message board.



Now, I have reconciled to the fact that I may for sure sign up for another social networking site if there is a different and attractive value proposition. I am not sure if I would need it, though. I have already started signing off TweetDeck for longer period.

Internet Strategy for Indian Politicians

The second most populous nation in the world, India, has a human stock of 1.2 billion people. India also happens to be the world’s largest democracy and the Indian Parliamentary Elections due this April-May will probably be the biggest electoral event in the history.

About 700 million citizens will be eligible to exercise their franchise. 500+ seats, thousands and thousands of aspirants, numerous parties huddles loosely (or tightly) into three (oh no, four. Never mind) fronts. Across the length and breadth of the nation, accommodating almost all terrain possible on planet Earth.

Welcome to the World’s Largest Democratic process!

Despite being a developing country, India takes pride in use of technology in this gargantuan process. Not many developed countries can claim to be as savvy as India is.

What really caught my attention this time was the use of technology by political parties to position themselves as the party of choice. In this case, I am more interested in parties using the Internet. I have seen BJP’s LK Advani on Orkut. My colleague Sonia (not Gandhi) informed me that Congress’ Sonia (this time Gandhi), Rahul, and Manmohan Singh stare you from banners in various website.

Quite surprising! At least, I am surprised.

Why would political parties use the Internet to propagate themselves? The penetration of internet is so low that, in my opinion, it is neither effective nor efficient medium. Internet is medium for the crème-de-la-crème and this number is likely to be miniscule. And most importantly, it is as fragmented as any other medium available.

Let us ponder over the voter base and the reach of different media. We may be able to arrive at a good media strategy for the politicians of country then.

As I had mentioned the voter base of India is around 700 million (meaning people over the age of 18). According to IAMAI, there are about 45 million internet users. We will consider this base 800 million in this article. This is for ease as the IRS studies has taken 12+ population as the sample for its studies on media and Internet as a medium.

According to this report in IAMAI, the number of people who use Internet in India is 45 million. Of the 800 million population, the number of people in the urban and rural India is approximately 250 million and 550 million, respectively. While urban India is savvier, which is no brainer, the Internet penetration in rural India, which is “where India lives”, is abysmally low. In terms of percentages, the total Internet penetration is approximately 6%. Rural India is in decimal figures.



In a stark contrast is the extent of penetration achieved by other media. TV tops at 467 million, publications comes second at 323 million and radio, with its emergence, stands at 180 million.

Some of the leading TV channels, publications and even radio channels can put total Internet penetration figures to shame. Some figures have been provided in this article for you to refer.

So, why are our politicians from the Left, Right and Centre so visible on the IT horizon? Just a small digression, as I write this article, Samjawadi Party has released its manifesto and if I have to believe news reports have decided to shun machines for men.

The problem with media in India is that it is highly fragmented. Primarily, India states have been divided based by the lingua franca spoken in that particular region. For example, Tamil Nadu is inhabited by people who speak Tamil, Andhra by Telugu, Karnataka by Kannada and so on. Each state government over the years has done well in promoting the local culture and language. The role played by local language (or vernacular) medium has to be commended. It will be worthwhile to mention here that according to a study, the number of English speaking populace is only a meager 90 million (maybe it is not meager but the point is that local language prevails). Consider this, Tamil Nadu state has 60 million Tamil (a language which was spoken even before the advent of Sanskrit). Population of Uttar Pradesh (UP), the most populous state in India, is 100 million. The language predominantly spoken in UP and in most part of the heartland is Hindi. Bottom-line, similar to the penetration of Internet, English, Internet’s (un)official language, is pathetically low.



Two, the Indian media is segmented, as it would be anywhere else in the world, based on the content it delivers. General Entertainment channels – Hindi, English, and regional languages, News channels – Hindi, English, and regional languages, Infotainment and Music – channels are primarily English though there are many local language Music channels, Movie – English and Hindi primarily, though regional channels do exist. Internet is also fragmented though the primary use of Internet in India is Mail (91%), Search (76%), Education Information Search (49%) and Text Chat (46%).

And finally, the segmentation based on Socio-Economic classification (SEC). The digital divide is total in India. We have seen that the penetration of Internet in rural India is paltry. Even in urban India where 43 million have access to Internet, the penetration cannot be claimed to be substantial (around 5%). It is no brainer that computer and Internet is used more in the SEC A1/2 section of the society. That again is not big number. Also, I do not think that this section is a large enough vote bank for anyone.



So why? Why Internet? Why are these politicians sprinkling/putting (not betting) their money on banners and ad words? How do they exactly plan to capture votes and imagination of the masses?

As Sonia, my colleague and a strong supporter of the Internet strategy for politicians put it, “it is not for masses but classes. Politicians are trying to reach out to thinkers and opinion shapers.”



Valid point!!! Or is it?

This article is dedicated to Manoj, who commented after reading my piece on differentiation for James Bond, that my thoughts are too frivolous and devoid of any facts or figures. So, Manoj here it goes. I have tried to put as many figures and tried to make this look like a research piece. Thought most is secondary data but relevant.

This article would not have been possible without the help of my very able colleagues who did the research on my behalf. Thanks Sonia, Durai and Rashmi.

If you are interested to read more on Internet in India, please visit http://www.iamai.in/reports1.aspx