Bengaluru is cool

I like the proposed name change for my city from Bangalore to Bengaluru. Not just because Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata have gone down that route, but also because it does reflect the history and origins of the city. After all, Bangalore is a relatively new name given by the British who couldn't be bothered enough to pronounce the original names.

I don't think there will be any major impact on Bangalore's viability as a business destination. If some CIO sitting in NY decides against offshoring a project just because of this name change, probably Bangalore is better off without such business!

For the locals of Bangalore (when I say locals, I mean people who have been in the city for a considerable amount of time and speak Kannada) it always was and is Bengaluru. When I speak to my friends and family and talk about the city, it is Bengaluru I refer to - and not Bangalore.

Bengaluru is cool, and hopefully the Government and other related organizations will launch a nice campaign to promote the new name.

Mobile phones in the UK

Yet another pointless statistic that fascinates me:

UK's population - close to 60 million (2001 census)
Indians in the UK - 1 million

Mumber of mobile phones in the UK - 63 million! There are more mobile phones than people in the UK! Amazing eh?

India's population - 1 billion plus.
Mobile phones in India - close to 70 million.

Need we say more about the potential for growth?

A clean Times of India

The Times of India website sucks - the page is so full of annoying ads that ever since I came to the UK, I am reading other online newspapers like the DNA, Deccan Herald and Rediff for Indian news. I am ok with online ads - I know newspapers have to survive, and some ads are actually informative and useful. Especially online, where ads can be personalised and served up based on specific pages visited etc. But the TOI website is like an online guide for design students on how not to design a portal!

And then I found this link to Arzan Wadia's post. I installed the Adblock plug-in to Firefox, and there you go - a clean (relatively) TOI website, with more news than irritating ads, pop-ups and pop-unders. Makes browsing so much easier. Actually even the Rediff and Indian Express sites have too many ads, all of which don't appear now. HA HA! That goes for you too, Cricinfo.

Go here to figure out how to remove all the pesky ads, and enjoy!

PS: Once you have done this, you may have problems with Flash not appearing on websites. Don't worry - all you need to do is go to Firefox-->Tools-->Adblock-->Preferences-->Adblock preferences--> and then disable Obj-Tabs. That should take care of the Flash problem.

Militant Kannada activism

Yesterday (Nov 1) was Karnataka Rajyotsava Day - the day Karnataka got its name (it was earlier Mysore). This is the one day where TV channels play these "Proud to be a Kannadiga" kind of movies and songs, and expect everyone in the state to sing along. Most normal guys relax and do precisely nothing - it is just a day off! Of course this year coincided with Deepavali, and therefore all the more reason to neglect the feeling this day is supposed to arise in Kannadiga hearts and minds! Of course, most of what is fed to us is mere symbolism - just for the day, to be promptly forgotten come Nov 2 - which is why the common man does not really relate to such symbolic gestures like Independence Day etc.

Another phenomenon is the politicisation of such days. This is the perfect opportunity for publicity mongers and politicians (no, not mutually exclusive) to and get into the front pages.

I am a Kannadiga, and proud to be one! I am really saddened that this language is losing its primacy in a city like Bangalore, where not speaking in Kannada is 'cool'!

But I can never support this outfit, which goes on a rampage smearing English billboards violently - just for TV cameras and press cameras! Do they really have the true interests of Kannadigas at heart? If yes, why don't they do something more substantial at the grassroots level? Why don't they encourage more kids to learn Kannada, generate quality reading and AV material in that language, create outlets and platforms for Kannada to be freely expressed and flourish, and make Kannada a viable and exciting option for the resident and migrant population in this beautiful state? This force-fitting will never work, and will further piss people off! A mass activity like this needs public participation - it has to come from within. Agencies are meant to facilitate this process, not shove it down peoples' throats! It is a slow and long process, but it is the only way to retain the beauty of this language. This 'once a year' militant activism will never work! Thank God for that!

Online advertising in India

The Hindu Business Line has a good article on online advertising in India.

Figures:

2003-04 - 42 crores - .5% of Indian ad market
2004-05 - 107 crores - 1.2% of Indian ad market
2005-06 - 162 crores - 1.7%
2006-07 - 218 crores - 2.1%
2007-08 - 303 crores - 2.5%

Is it growing fast enough? I don't think so. With a smallish base, it should ideally be doubling size every year fof the next few years. Maybe it is slow because internet penetration is not growing rapidly enough.

Indian advertising industry

India's advertising industry is growing at around 10% per annum. Here are some figures (from Adex India):

- Overall advertising industry in 2004 - 12000 crores
- Print - 46% - 5520 crores
- TV - 41% - 4920 crores
- Outdoors - 7% - 850 crores
- Cinema - 3% - 360 crores
- Radio - 2% - 240 crores
- Internet - 0.5% - 60 crores

- The industry grew 13.5% from 2003.

The TV market in India

The Indian TV market is quite interesting - it is potentially huge (all set to be the second largest in terms of reach). There are different technologies also in play - free to air, cable (pay) and DTH (pay).

Here are some raw figures:

India: (figures from NRS 2005 - via Hindu)

- TV now reaches 108 million Indian homes (a growth of 22% since 2002). Of course overall households in India is around 215 million, which means there is a 50% plus penetration in India for TV.
- Cable and Satellite reaches 61 million homes (from 40 million in 2002)
- 56% of Indian TV homes now get C&S
- 58 million homes have colour TV, while the rest have to make do with good old black and white.
- DTH figures are very miniscule now, but projections range from 5-10 million by 2010 (still small). Basically, C&S will determine the growth, with other digital modes like DTH etc having to reduce prices dramatically to get any traction.
- The ad to subscription ratio is ridiculous now - 70:30, as opposed to a 50:50 or better in most other countries. This is because of leaks in the distribution system.

This report by Indiantelevision.com provides a fantastic overview of the Indian TV market.

TV advertising:

- TV advertising in 2004 was Rs. 4860 crores (1.1 bil $), which was 41% of the overall advertising market of 12000 crores (2.6 billion $).

- Total TV revenue (subscription and advertising) could grow from 2.7 billion $ (12,100 crores) in 2004 to over 5.8 billion $ in 2010 (double in size), and 8.6 billion $ in 2015.
- Ad revenues for C&S channels will grow in line with GDP, from 640 million $ in 2004 to 1 billion $ in 2010.

Blogs V IIPM

We are in the middle of an increasingly violent battle between a bunch of bloggers and a management institute with crores to spend on advertising, and precious little for everything else.

Yes, this is the fight between JAM Magazine and IIPM, which somehow spilled over and got the entire blogging domain involved. Heck, it got me to post on this blog, so it must be something eh?

Long story short, Rashmi Bansal of Youthcurry (a fantastic blog on youth trends), who is also editor of JAM Mag published an article in JAM exposing IIPM's claims of being the alternative to the IIMs. Well, it didn't take an advanced degree to fathom that, having seen their crappy ads in newspapers. But JAM did a good thing by analysing all aspects, and factually dismantling IIPM's claims, and therefore educating prospective students. IIPM then (apparently) ransacked JAM's office, and sent legal notices. They set up a bunch of blogs to post ridiculous comments on Rashmi's blog. Gaurav Sabnis has a blog on which he posted a link to Rashmi's post, and Gaurav got a legal notice as well. Also, his company, IBM, got a call from IIPM asking them to fire Gaurav. Well, IBM didn't, but Gaurav resigned anyway, to avoid any embarassment for IBM.

Heck, this is getting serious isin't it? A whole bunch of Indian bloggers and a few international ones as well have posted on this (nearly everyone critical of IIPM), and so have I. I don't know the truth, but the fact is that IIPM chose the wrong method to hush up matters. This has the potential to blow up on their face, if they don't do damage control quickly. By taking this route, they have convinced me that they have a lot to hide.

Of course, mere bloggers can't do much in India, yet! After all, how many Indians read blogs anyway? This requires a mainstream publication and TV to get the necessary publicity. Given IIPM's clout, that seems not very likely. However, if Indian bloggers stick it out and fight through this one, history could well look upon this as the time blogging came of age in India.

I don't think Gaurav will have a tough time getting a new job. In fact IBM may be happy to hire him back once the dust settles. JAM has got the publicity of it's lifetime thanks to this, so they are ok. The IIPM whizkids could have unwittingly done these guys a great favour.

Detailed updates available here.