Web Innovation 2007 Day 1

Yesterday, I attended Day 1 of the Web Innovation
2007 conference.

The first half of the day was quite useful, but the latter half turned
out to be pure marketing pitches by the sponsors.

First and foremost, I think the title of the conference is a misnomer.
Although it says “Web Innovation 2007: The Nextgen Web Technology
Revolution: 2.0 & Beyond”, it should have been “Web 2.0 : How can
India catch up” – the discussions were really about the ‘current’
situation of things rather than ‘innovation’ or ‘future’.  By
‘current’ I mean, the internet products and services market in the
western world and how India can catch up.

The No.1 and possibly only gripe that most speakers mentioned which is
a barrier for internet and Web 2.0 to become omnipresent is that
broadband connectivity is pitiful in India.

I agree to this as far as locality reach, reliability, and pricing is
concerned. However, let’s compare it to mobile phones which is the
second-most discussed topic, on how it is booming and all that. Why
did mobile phones take off and not broadband? I think it’s because
mobile phones had a killer application – communication. That too,
communication any time, anywhere.

Similarly, let’s take the case of computers in many shops and
distributors – accounting solutions whether it is by the local
software shop or well-known ones like Tally, they bought computers
just so that they can use these software. Just like Lotus 1-2-3 for
Apple Mac I in the history of computers.

Unless we have killer applications that people in India want to use,
why would anyone want to buy a computer or a broadband connection?
And if there are killer applications, won’t there be demand for
broadband connections, and won’t supply follow? Just like the mobile
telephony market today?

Maybe I’m completely off on this one, but I still don’t yet see killer
applications on the web today for the common man in India, let alone
Web 2.0-style applications. Forget common man, how about the
educational aspects of things, if there are products and services that
can be beneficial to school and college students, that alone is a big
deal. As B V Naidu (one of the advisors in the Karnataka IT committee)
said, 54% of the Indian population is below 20 years!

Naidu also mentioned that there are 7 million new phones being bought
every month, you won’t find such a high number anywhere else in the
world. Yet, there are a meagre 1.6 million mobile internet users.
Again, what are the killer applications for them? At least, I never
felt the need for internet on my mobile phone. (As an aside, getting
it working for the first time is a pain which is another major
factor).

Kiruba Shankar (of Kiruba.com fame) was the moderator for a panel
discussion on what is Web 2.0. The
panel gave analogies,
for example, Mohit (Times Internet) said it is a two-way street and KK
(MindTree) says it is “content + commerce + community + context
+ personalization + vertical search.” Phew.

Jaspreet (MSN) asked Kiruba on what was the name of his upcoming book
and Kiruba replied saying “Unconferences: Where the audience is more
intelligent than the speaker”. Jaspreet gave a “right” nod and was
about to hand over the mic to the next speaker… But he stopped to
say that the difference with Web 2.0-style applications, people are
converted from an object to a subject.

Dr. Madan (Frost & Sullivan) gave some of the best insights, such
as that most successful Web 2.0 ventures appear to appropriate social
welfare without looking illicit and have three factors : 1. Resources
for something, 2. Branding, 3. Institutionalization by externalizing.

Kiruba, being an unconference guy, got the audience to interact and
there were some useful discussions such as “Are people making money?”
which had a huge range of answers. Dr. Madan said if you expect your
website to survive on advertisements, don’t expect revenue for the
first 18 months. That too, only Singapore has a 3% success rate on
ad-supported websites, other APAC countries don’t have a single
success! He went on to recommend that don’t be just an infomediary,
but be transactional, make meaningful communities and lock-in users
(in a good way).

Then, there was the question of what can go wrong in India, and KK
said that Indian mindset of one-upmanship, diversity of languages, and
lack of community ability to create engaging content are some factors.
Dr. Madan said sociologists categorize Indians as users, not
contributors, most communities that are successful are transactional,
and don’t expect community contribution in India.

What I liked about the panel session was seeing how these people high
up in the decision-making process think about these issues and go
about working around them or towards them. And they’re very frank in
their opinion and make no bones about saying which situations are bad
and which are not.

There was more of the Web 2.0 explanations (user-generated content vs
published content, text vs visual, contextual, social networking,
interactive, personalization, ad-funded business models) which went on
ad-nauseum, but I’m trying to put my thoughts here on the more
non-obvious things. Not to take those things lightly but executing the
above concepts/aspects is very hard and getting it to click is very
situation- and community-specific, so no point in discussing about it.

This is the part where I got tired of writing, so I’m going to just
transcribe my notes from paper, on the sessions that I attended:

• Jaspreet (MSN) on “Web 2.0 in India”

  • 3 screens : Mobile, TV, PC
  • 18% of global population will be in India in 2025
  • Three categories with wide open spaces : Education,
    Entertainment, Communication
  • We are in a consumption boom, whether literature or television
    or careers.
  • Global players will win in services, local players will win in
    content. This situation in India contrasts with rest of the
    world because we are a western-mindset country
    (English-speaking, and even think in English).
  • Ceiling of 75 million users – the no. of English-speaking people
    in India.
  • Get into niche services or content, not global services.
  • Don’t follow same local search models as in USA, be
    India-specific since global players will easily adapt
  • Indian ‘Facebook+MySpace’ will flop miserably; we already have
    Facebook and MySpace.
  • Indian social network is already there but not online, be
    mobile-out and not around boy bands or alumni
  • Mobile is super-important, everyone knows ‘why’, but no one
    knows ‘how’
  • Bollywood and cricket are ‘it’, but no main website, still
    wide open spaces. Also education.
  • Software + services will win
  • Without reaching the 10 million households (and hence 40-50
    million people) on broadband, the Indian internet hype will far
    exceed reality. Right now, only 2 million.
  • The Web -> My web. Personalization and Identity is ‘in’.
  • Advertising is a huge business model as ‘our competition’ has
    shown, so we’re getting into it.
  • jbindra at microsoft.com
  • jaspreet at jeeves.in

• Mohit (Times Internet) on “Web2.I”

  • Glocalisation from dating to matrimonial sites
  • What about mobile WAP sites that speak out RSS feeds in Indian
    languages to the booming cellphone population?
  • Stormhoeks became unofficial wine of Silicon Valley because they
    shipped wine free to any geek dinner and everyone blogged about
    it
  • mohit.hira at indiatimes.co.in
  • Audience asks what about using TV for broadband and not wait for
    PC? Mohit says will your mom give up watching Kyunki so that you
    can surf, even if it is productive.

• Naresh Gupta (Adobe) on “Rich Internet Applications”

  • More devices -> explosion in digital content -> personal
    publishing and social networks
  • Forms of engagement changed over the years : publishing ->
    electronic documents -> interactive media -> websites -> RIA.
  • RIA characteristics : Rich controls, Separation of data and UI,
    use of client side computing power to deliver richer UI, mash
    ups and custom user interfaces.

• Naushad (Times Internet) on “Designing for and with community”

  • Emphasized importance of market research and idea
    conceptualization – that too much longer time than actual
    website development
  • Content (choose niche), Commerce and Gifts, Connect and Share
  • Revenue Points : advertising, ecommerce, subscriptions
  • Explained window2india.com conceptualization and how it is Web
    2.0 for NRIs.

• Sandeep Shrivastava (Yahoo!) on “Web 2.0 Applications: Give me my
  50 million users”

  • Build a stadium
    • centre stage – match
    • stands – audience
    • That’s how you get business + audience
  • What do users want?
  • Common motivations
    • Creation and maintenance of relationships with other people
      (non-transactional)
    • Sharing, keeping in touch with friends
    • Pursuit of knowledge, recognition or accomplishment
    • Promotion of views (political, aesthetic, social, personal)
    • Having fun
  • Best motivations are translated offline -> online
  • Is your app fulfilling the user’s motivation?
  • Emphasis on market research to find/validate idea, but does not
    guarantee success
  • You have to really mean it when you want to fulfill the user’s
    motivation, not thinking of only the money.
  • Business is all about 1. Products 2. Money.
  • Only a tiny number of people care about ‘cool’ or ‘technology’.
  • Fail fast
  • Speed to market is critical
  • Understand what creates loyalty
  • Don’t think numbers while looking to create a critical mass of
    users (some users are more valuable than others)
    • Flickr targeted only passionate photographers in the initial
      phase
  • Make it super-simple to interact with the product, but this does
    not mean lack of features.
  • The product should be its own marketing – viral, open, reusable,
    remixable, portable
  • Think international – internet is global, your product should
    also be, if it is possible
  • Takeaways
    • Never ever take your eyes off the motivation of the user
    • Make things “massively multiplayer”
    • Create an ecosystem, not just a distribution channel
    • Content/media objects become the locus for interaction,
      rather than things which are “passively consumed”
  • sandeeps at yahoo-inc.com
  • Audience asks is sharing fancy or useful? Sandeep says go back
    to user’s motivation – is it transient or ongoing?
  • The network (user activity) is the platform
    (fulfillment/purpose)

• Upen Roop Rai (Times Internet) on “Business Models in Web 2.0”

  • Gave a broad overview of the market and drilled down into the
    numbers comparing them vs US numbers
  • For example, there is no real main classifieds site in India,
    what is being used is CraigsList. Compare that to US where the
    offline yellow pages and classifieds market is worth $37
    billion, and the online share is $5 billion and growing fast.

• Parmider Singh (Google) on “Maximizing market effectiveness”

  • Turned out to be a pitch for why you should use Google Adwords
    (you realize that when “moment of relevance” is mentioned)
  • Talk was aimed at marketers who don’t understand internet very
    well.
  • Statistics in India
    • 1+ billion searches in India
    • 70+ searches per user per month
    • Search sites reach 64% of internet population
  • Google is in the “connections” business

• Prof. M P Ranjan (National Institute of Design) on “User Driven Web
  2.0: Design Opportunities for India”

  • Better described in his own blog
    post.

Phew.