TechGazing

I have written this piece based based on interviews with LinkedIn users and my own analysis. It talks of what LinkedIn will be like in 5 or 10 years. It is also a chapter in my forthcoming book ‘Let’s Connect: Using LinkedIn to get ahead at work‘ (ships January 10,2007). Feel free to agree or disagree with what I have written.

What will the Internet look like in the next five or 10 years? Any attempt to answer this question would be an exercise in fantasy and wishful thinking – after all, no one could have guessed how omnipresent the Net would become ten years ago!

So while it may not be safe to speculate on how LinkedIn will evolve in the coming years, it may be safe to say that it will take a more predictable path than many other Web applications. This statement can be based on a host of factors. Read on. It’s a longish piece, but worth it…

I posed this question to the LinkedIn community recently, asking not only what gadget they plan to buy in 2008 but any technology - covering add-on hardware, software, applications, paid subscriptions to e-mags/ podcasts/ other web resources etc.

The result: No clear winners but the iPhone, a laptop under the One-Laptop-Per-Child program and the Amazon’s book reader Kindle seem to be highly favoured. More of what others are planning to buy are given in the comments.
Any interesting answers? From US based writer and consultant Christopher Richards: “More SumoGrip mechanical pencils with 0.9 soft leads, and Moleskine 5 x 81/4 notebooks. I just love p.a.p.e.r technology. It requires no electricity. It is interactive, bug-free, fully searchable, re-writable, and portable. Oh yes, and no license fee! I recommend this technology.”

What are you planning to buy?

If you are sitting on stacks of video content, it may be time to organize it better for some good reasons. One, there is always the risk of it getting lost or damaged. Two, you may lose out on an opportunity to strike gold: digital media is predicted to be the next big thing on the Internet, and content owners could well be the first to cash in.

And if you thought the whole process required high investments in hardware and software, you may have been right. Until now. A low-cost, user-friendly solution is soon going to be available: MediaBaron from Movico Technologies. Continue reading »

Does your Blackberry go with you into the shower? This question may sound far-fetched, but what cannot be denied is our increasing addiction to our gadgets. While their importance in our daily lives cannot be denied, a pertinent question that faces most of us technologically-enabled folk is whether this technology is keeping us away from giving much-needed time and attention to other aspects of our lives? Are we able to strike a balance? And are there any of us who have found an effective way of life mostly away from these gadgets?

These are questions being asked globally, in most societies of the world. Interestingly, amongst those who have a need and the means to use technology in their day-to-day lives, the adoption patterns can vary between all forms of extremes. Continue reading »

In a previous post I had written about ten reasons why PR professionals could benefit from pitching to bloggers, including the smaller ones. While many still fail to see merit in the arguments presented, or are unable to find ways to monetise such coverage unlike a traditional press clip, the good news for bloggers is that many companies are engaging with bloggers already in India.

And these range from big organizations to smaller ones including start-ups. During a recent interaction with Arathi Vedantham, Head-Corporate Communications, Yahoo! India, she admitted bloggers hardly figure anywhere in PR plans for most agencies and their clients. “But they are important to us at least, and we engage with them on a regular basis,” she says. Proof of this? Bloggers and online media get invited to junkets by Yahoo India along with journalists from mainline media. Continue reading »

Fastrack, one of India’s leading youth fashion brand, recently took a conscious decision to embrace social media. Reason? Its keenness to participate in the emergent marketing environment where the consumer is a co-creator, where insights and participation from influencers bring tremendous value and insights for any brand.

This campaign is being managed for them by Delhi based consultancy, Blogworks. To understand the why and how of this campaign, TechGazing chatted up with the Simeran Bhasin, Marketing Manager, Fastrack. Excerpts: Continue Reading

Being by far the biggest and most successful professional networking site ever, LinkedIn is having it good. But there are already rumblings amongst its most ardent users who feel LinkedIn could yet spoil things for itself.

Can it? How? These questions were posed to LinkedIn users, and what has emerged is a view most users would tend to subscribe to. Here are a few insightful responses:

Digress from goal of professional networking: “Good question. I personally think that LinkedIn can do a lot of things to spoil things, the biggest of which I believe to be ‘doing too much.’ In order words, if LinkedIn tries to implement and offer too much features, or features that have less to do with the LinkedIn goal of professional networking, it will lose. So if we see videos here online, or pictures of each other’s kids, it will cross some borders and I don’t think it can compete with existing applications.” - Wouter Broekman, Owner / Webdesigner at Pyramedia Web Solutions, Netherlands

Selling out to Rupert Murdoch: “Well, if the rumors are true, and Rupert Murdoch buys LinkedIn, I think that will be step one in the site’s decline. You can guarantee at that point that it will become more of an advertising vehicle and media distribution channel for NewsCorp. But like any successful online venture, the point will eventually come where the owners may see the chance to cash out (and understandably so), and that’s always a turning point for an e-business.” - Peter “Dr. Pete” Meyers, President at User Effect / Usability Specialist, USA. Read on for more views

With blogs and social networking sites becoming a part of our daily lives almost as much as emails, it may be tempting to be an active participant on these. For professionals, it may be both interesting and rewarding to seek out conversations related to their work. And why not? It is a sure way to network and expose oneself to new ideas and thoughts. But is your company management open to you engaging in the same?

Yes, a few companies are quite liberal in their outlook but most continue to keep a tight leash on what and where their employees talk. Not only in India, but all over the world including the US and UK, the two most mature Web 2.0 societies. Are the companies right in playing it safe, or are they losing out on benefits and opportunities in the process?

[This article was written by me and published on Rediff and can be accessed here.] Or continue reading the full article here