Praval's Musings

While Social Media agencies continue to work for brands to create strategies and leverage social media spaces for them, there is a need to bring up media literacy, promote best practices and stay up to the trends. Social Media Club is a platform that facilitates these and more while helping industry practitioners connect and engage offline.

Social Media Club’s primary mission is to promote media literacy, promote standard technologies, encourage ethical behavior and share best practices. We bring together journalists, publishers, communications professionals, artists, amateur media creators, citizen journalists, teachers, students, tool makers, and other interested collaborators.

If you’re interested to know more about the Social Media Club initiative, you may check the global website.

Social Media Club has 230 chapters worldwide with chapters in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore in India. Last week, SMC Delhi had it’s February’2011 meet at NASSCOM office in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.

I’d like to thank Rajesh, who talked about IndiaSocial, a community of social media practitioners in India.

Rajesh took us through how, when, what, why, where and more on the IndiaSocial Community. It was inevitable to know how unbiased the community is with folks from fellow agencies contributing avidly to it by writing articles on social media trends, events and case studies in India.

In an interesting fashion, Rajesh gave away 2 copies of the India Social Media Report 2010 which is also available for sale on the website. I am thankful to him for passing on a copy to me as well.

I’d like to thank Gaurav and Avinash for reviving the spirits to bring up this session. We missed both of you this time.  It was great meeting Rahul Narvekar – Co-founder at Fashion & You, Sumit Goyal – Editor in Chief at Food & Nightlife and others who came up for an amazing discussion during and after the meet.

We’re looking forward to see more action at the next session of Social Media Club, Delhi which is tentatively scheduled for 4th of March’2010. We’ll have Rabi Gupta from iDubba as a speaker for the March session. You may check out iDubba review on Pluggdin.

We’ll soon have the details up for RSVP. Follow SMC Delhi on twitter to stay tuned!

I would request all stakeholders to participate actively, spread the word and help revive the community.

See ya!

Last month, when I came across the whole idea of ‘Diesel Island’ campaign, I was always looking forward to experience it. I am grateful to receive an invite to the ‘Diesel Democratic Party’ at the Lap, Hotel Samrat, New Delhi, last week.

What’s with the Island?

The idea was conceived by the agency, Santo (a unit of WPP, which also bagged the AdAge International Agency of the Year award, last week). Here in, the ads have a mythical island populated by models/ fans. The whole idea is further extended to belief via online games, videos and a facebook app where fans can interact with the island and its imaginary population. What more, there’s even a fake Wikipedia entry that will be updated weekly as the island grows!

According to Riccardo Bellini, Diesel’s global vice president of branding and marketing, the Diesel Island campaign can be described as – “Think ‘Lost’ but with nicer clothes and no polar bears”.

The #DDP (Diesel Democratic Party) had DJ Gordon Edge who flew in from UK for this event to play some great music, complemented by a fashion show and a lot of page 3 celebs. The list included Jas Arora and Rohit Bal. Cricketers Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan were amongst the invitees, but were never seen around!

The fun elements included the Diesel Island anthem and official haircut of the party called the ‘Mohawk’. Men and women of all ages were found sporting it and getting clicked! I could also spot Darshan Mehta, President & CEO, Reliance Brands Limited, but not with a Mohwawk!

It was nice meeting Abhishek Baxi, Bharat Joshi & Naina, Aman & Akansha, along with my very own Media Redefined gang!

You may want to stay tuned with what’s up and next at Diesel India on Twitter!

Thank you Priyal and the entire Nex Sales team for inviting me to the event and pulling it off in a great fashion! Cheers.

Do you really want them on 3G?

Suddenly, almost every individual in India who happens to live in a “3G available” zone has started to thank his fortune. Not that everyone knows much about the difference between HSDPA and HSUPA for that matter.

3G sounds cool, for what most people know is speed. I’d want to ask them a question. What kind of surfing speeds do you have at your home? Is it very awful? I doubt. I have 1 Mbps connection at home and an 8 Mbps at work. There is no significant difference in the browsing experience between both places. Downloads? Yes.

Secondly, how many times do you bother to download stuff on a mobile phone, say your smartphone? (You’re smart and thinking about tethering? Wait, I’ll come back to you!) Just to tell you, apart from anything that’s darn urgent like a powerpoint or a proposal, or a mobile apps for that matter, I defer from downloading stuff on my mobile. I leave that for the time when I shall be online on my laptop.

The thought is – you can always do MORE work on a PC or a laptop than you can do on your smartest of all smartphones. That’s where you need a faster internet download, may be. On a mobile, I would usually make and receive calls, respond to a few texts, occasionally browse a website or two, read through my RSS subscriptions and heavily use social networks on the likes of Twitter and Foursquare, for which I DO NOT need a faster internet, or what YOU call a 3G connection.

Yes, I do have a Tata Photon Plus data card, which sucks. Big time. I use it to work, on the move. That is where I need a faster, more reliable and on the move internet connection. Not for my mobile phone. You may call it a 3G data card. I wish to rely on them to work from a cafe´, a remote location or even in a cab when I sit back and work during long commuting hours for meetings.

For those who started to think about tethering – I know iPhones, Android phones even my Blackberry has the option to connect it to my laptop and use web. However, I’ve failed to understand the purpose of using it on a regular basis when data cards are not very expensive and are handy. More importantly, to me, it keeps your mobile phone out of this business. Also, I am not too sure about how much battery does a phone consume and how much charge does it gather being connected to a laptop in a tethering mode hence I am nulling down any claims on that ground. Yes, having that as a feature on your mobile is a bliss, but I do not need 3G there.

It is still acceptable for tablets, to an extent. Think of Samsung Galaxy Tab or an Apple iPad with faster internet and sufficiently large screens. Yes!

For me, it’s more about the ease of use and the need. I am happy with a BIS/ EDGE connection on my phone and it does pretty much what I need without me having to compromise on anything that’s even close to my kinship possessions.

*No offense to anyone – friends, clients, prospects, enemies!

Image credits: IhI