Offering
the perspective of the world's most valuable media company Google Gilbert said
that traditional modes of consumption are changing. Now media users have more
choice, control. Google's aim is to present targeted messages in a granular manner.
The aim is to get the right message to the right person at the right price. Search
allows brands to be visible in a relevant manner. For instance if one searches
for hotels in a particular country then the link to a hotel's website shows up
if that hotel is a part of Google's ad network. The Google Partner network allows
ads to be relevant to the content on a page. While Web 1.0 is about basic facilities
like chat, email Web 2.0 is about user generated content. It is about sharing
content and elevating a collective intelligence. He mentioned Google Video, which
can be used by media owners. Orchid is Google's social networking place. Social
networks he notes can span countries, cultures and languages. He adds that in
the future mobile is going to be a key tool through which people access the net.
This one can add of course is especially true for India where mobile penetration
has left PC penetration in the dust. Bajaj who founded Bazee.com is now
part of a venture capitalist firm. He says that as an investor he wonders about
the relevance of web 2.0 in India. He argues is still at the web 1.0 stage to
a large extent. This is where business models like ticketing work. Web 2.0 on
the other hand has handsets, cameras in the machine. He notes that in India
there are already 20 social networking sites that have started up. They have approached
him for funding. One site has in fact translated the name youtube into Hindi.
Yet there is a cultural issue at work here. The psyche of the user is that he
uses his alter ego on social networks. So an introverted person might become radical
and outspoken on MySpace. That is why these social sites are doing well.
Will Indians share their private home videos to begin with? How many Indians have
broadband and will sir for five hours a day on it like what their American counterparts
on social sites do. Are they willing to be part of a network that has shared usage
computers? If they even put their family photos will there be a viral effect?
Are they willing to change their personalities online? Social networks in
the US came about as a result to fulfill a need. Does web 2.0 solve a need in
India? That is what budding Indian entrepreneurs need to ask themselves. Companies
looking to use web 2.0 should try to solve a need rather than get a solution and
then search for a problem. Cultural factors come into play as well. For instance
dating sites will not work in India, as 83 per cent of web surfers in India are
men. There is a huge mismatch. In the US around 54 per cent are women now.
Murugavel pointed out that it is participation that makes sites that use web 2.0
better. Web 2.0 he says is a combination of new technologies and business models.
He gave the example of online site Wikipedia which relies on definitions and information
provided by users ion a variety of topics and people. Businesses need to look
at whether web 2.0 makes sense for their offering. Zacharias says that
in web 2.0 users give content and then it is monetised as opposed to web 1.0 where
you paid to get content. A blog for instance can go to Google or yahoo to sell
through display advertising or search advertising. A case of a blog was given
where parents of a one-month-old baby are running it on the child's progress.
The blog has got ads, which will go towards paying for the child's education in
a few years time on mechanisms in women marketing. Vidyasagar says that
News Corp sees web 2.0 as a subset of media 2.0. Mass media is moving towards
personal media like the iPod. The receiver of content is also the sender of content.
Diversified niche content is becoming big as the net evolves. The online and offline
worlds exist together in an increasingly seamless manner. A good example is what
Sky and Call 3 did in the UK. Camera phone clips sent in by users were sold. The
person who sold it got a percentage of the revenue. This is what he called TV
2.0. It is a liquid fluid state and gives rise to advertising 2.0. MySpace
for instance has immersive ads. The advertiser becomes a broadcaster so to speak.
The concept of central control in web2.0 is diminishing. Broadcasters need to
wake up to this reality. That is what MTV failed to see, he points out,
which is why Tom Freston lost his job. They lost their hold to a large degree
over the young demographic who migrated to social sites. He noted the rise of
citizen journalism during the bomb blasts in Mumbai as being an example of the
new kind of user-generated content. Ambardar Chak says that word of mouth is a
powerful tool for sites that use web 2.0. There is a sense of ownership among
users of these sites. Earlier in web 1.0 knowledge mainly came through
search. Now it is also coming from subscribing to RSS feeds as well as from web
publishing. For it to work in India though web 2.0 need to attain a critical mass.
It is about balancing flexibility and control, generic and niche content. Rao
spoke about the mobile as being an effective marketing tool. While in traditional
media it is hard to cut through clutter in mobile there is one to one interaction.
Mobile is viral as it is impulse based. He says that 70 million out of the 150
million mobile users in India have at one time or another used value added services
like cricket scores. For PVR multiplex in Bangalore the company did movie ticketing
with one operator. The result is that five to seven per cent of tickets sold by
PVR are done through the mobile. In advertising you can get a relevant sponsor
like Nike for cricket scores. The advantage is Onmobile can get an advertiser
on all the platforms of voice, Wap, SMS. They are looking at creating a
data bank of usage habits and patterns so that more targeted delivery can be achieved.
OnMobile is also looking at certain innovations. One of these is sponsored calls.
This means that after making a call the user hears an advertiser message. Then
the call is free for a certain amount of time. Another innovation being looked
at is sponsored ringback tones. So for instance if one takes a tone of Coca cola
or Pepsi then one gets a certain amount of free talk time. | 
