tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53232589527293102182024-02-20T09:36:42.502-08:00amitsempire@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323258952729310218.post-10091124520254765912012-03-16T08:57:00.002-07:002012-03-16T09:00:25.961-07:00My thoughts on the US way of living, from a desi perspectiveAnd so having lived for short durations in 4 different type of cities of the US of A, the ‘cosmopolitan and so modern’ Chicago, the ‘all business, full of Indians and so similar to Mumbai’ NYC, ‘the in-the-middle Seattle’, and the ‘business district and countryside’ of St Louis…I have ended up developing a view-point on this country and its people and how as an Indian I might end up thinking about American lifestyle…and all of this analysis is totally from a typical punjabi desi perspective, from somebody who was born, brought up, studied and worked mostly in only a 40km radius of my comfort area called Delhi! 2 years of MBA away from Delhi were too much fun and work, disqualifying them <br />So there are 5 different types of Indians that I see around this place:<br />- The diligent lot: Typically from Dakshin Bharat, these are the hard-working lot, who slog it out, get curd rice to office and are in essence boring people, who are a part of US only from a work perspective and not from a cultural perspective…And you will find them in museums on weekends with family and kids…My questions to them is: Why are you here? Is it only money or is it the kick that you get out of work that’s keeping you here? And this btw is I feel the largest pie of my analysis<br />- The Americanized Indians: People who have studied in the US and now settled here…have cosmopolitan parents and these are the ones, who are very much a part of the American culture (at least that’s what they think; this culture aspect is very important and I will come to it later)<br />- The NRI Indians: The closest to the American culture, born and brought up here, Americanized accents, similar values, but mostly you see them in a company of other peer NRI Indians only…so there are a part of the culture but in a closed way<br />- The ‘Stud’ NRI Indians: Very few and far apart, these are the ones who have done it all, are successful and have some stature in the US, in anything that they specialize in, and it could be the most popular Indian across Irish Pubs in downtown Manhattan…One such person whom I met, was supposedly the star of all pubs in upper Manhattan, and owns this popular pub Mehnata and even plays louds Punjabi music there:)<br />- The touristy Indians: People like me, who are just exploring the wonderful infrastructure, having food problems, and always feel that they are not a part of the American culture, don’t belong to this place and are perceived as an outsider…so what I generally hear from them is (and that’s what I feel too): Work here for a month or 2, and then back to India…<br /><br />Now, from all of these the most vulnerable ones are probably ‘Diligent Lot’ and ‘Touristy Indians’…my question to all of them is: What keeps them here? And since I belong to the latter category (and thank god not the former), I will answer what makes me run away from this country:<br />- ‘The Outsider Perception’: This is the one that hurts the most, being perceived by the entire country as an outsider from an exotic nation that has elephants on the roads (and that’s a very common perception with educated and uneducated people here). Now, while it’s not bad to have this perception…it becomes a problem after the first month or so, when you are trying to become a part of this culture, but they themselves remind you that you are not a part. It gets communicated through the attitude, the expressions and conversations in a very subtle way. <br />Now, I if you don’t agree with me on this, it maybe because either you are in some other category, or you are in some good company (Indian or Firang). This is important because if you are here to stay in the long run, that feeling of outsider will be painful<br />- Food: Somehow people here like to eat cold food and the absence of spices and salt doesn’t really help my digestive system. Being a vegetarian doesn’t help either, and I seriously owe it up to my team here, which got my some good Mexican/Italian food most of the times and obviously subway<br />- ‘The people connect’ – Now this may be a misnomer. It’s said that US is a very friendly country to outsiders. The more I think about it, I think it’s because nobody really interferes in you. While it’s good if you are here for a short term, you are on your own and nobody cares, but problem comes where you are in for the long term. That feeling of relatives, community, friends, neighborhood, school k friend, grad friends, MBA friends, pre-MBA job friends, post MBA job friends…all of that vanishes. Facebook has definitely made life a lot easier. Infact on twitter, the most active handles on my timeline, are either MBA students who have lots of idle time, or NRIs who have nothing to do, once back from work<br /><br />These three form the core of my reasons, but yes, that said I must state the positives:<br />- Infrastructure: Awesome roads, buildings, airports, this country has it all<br />- Work: Work quality is good, and I know that’s what keeps a lot of Indians stuck here. But to counter it, I don’t think it’s that bad in our shining India and there are ample opportunities. But yes, if you are the one who wants to excel in your career and slog your ass off, and don’t care that much about your social life (Similar to the diligent lot) then this is a good place to be. To these guys, my question is – why do you work, eventually to do what? If you don’t answer – To enjoy my life and live peacefully, then US is the place. I wonder if a lot of people actually have that mentality of Hrithik Roshan in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara: Earn money till 40, then retire. And even more so, if that actually happens or you just remain a rat in this rat race.<br /><br />Given all the above analysis, and myself being a ‘theth’ Punjabi, attached to my motherland, my mother and the rest of family, the decision shouts out for myself!@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323258952729310218.post-73880553397352260672011-04-18T06:30:00.000-07:002011-04-19T22:40:13.038-07:00Back to work…Life in the real world…some random thoughts….Part 1Graduate from a Well Known Management School in Central India…a plush consulting job and a comfortable 7 figure salary and newspapers filled with reports of the excellent placements and exorbitant salaries that have been offered, relatives can’t seem to stop talking about my exploits at IIM and a look of a wizard from the layman (who maybe from oldest B-school in India and BTW earning a close to 8 figure salary) who thinks I can do anything and solve all his problems…life can’t seem to rosy enough right, !! aha…think again..<br />This post is written as an afterthought and rather innocent ignorance of an earlier post (Written right below this), which I wrote when I just entered into the so much revered hallows of an IIM, the shortest shortcut to being filthy rich and hugely respected in India.<br />Some very heavy reality checks that happened to me, as soon as I got into campus and spoke to seniors, and this made me think if I have been conned by the media hype. To an extent now I feel yes, because although MBA does mean a comfortable job and lots of respect, the extent of dreams that newspapers and media reports fill, it is very much similar to the extent of India TV hyping a Rakhi Sawant and Mika news. A frank confession, when I entered my campus, the dreams of entering Wall Street and being a hot shot banker were so very much alive that even my DC++ nickname (which is the local data sharing server) spelt like – WSHIC (Wall Street Here I come) and so many times the gtalk status read “Living the IIM dream”. This huge over-smartness very soon gave way to the feeling of reality and a fear that the rat race will have to be won or at least finished in the top bracket, else that password won’t even be spelt “DSHIC”…referring to the Dalal Street.<br />Add to that the frustration of listening to desperate for respect professors, some of whom were dismal when compared to my undergrad college…all roads could lead to just one thought – a reverse counting, when is the IIM experience ending. <br />On a very serious note however, I had the pleasure of listening to some excellent professors as well, who did shape and guide me well, and well hugely smart. However, unfortunately enough more than 70% of these were visiting professors. Countless hours bitching about the campus, the Profs, the randomness this place had attached to almost everything did help a lot, since it meant that at least you could vent out the frustration and thank god that you are not the only one who got conned and is now stuck!! Analysis (Now that I am an MBA and even more so a consulting firm pays my bills) leads to the fact that a certain bureaucratic rule that a Prof at IIM has to be a PHD in his field might be a major reason for this. Plus being in a city, that is more of an industrial hub than a corporate one also detracts the best faculty to other tier 1 cities.<br />However, the one thing that frustrates most is the randomness attached to the place. Will discuss a huge lot more (it being my fav bitching topic) on that in the next post…@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323258952729310218.post-51551723239386635972009-07-12T07:38:00.000-07:002009-07-12T07:39:16.089-07:00Back to education..Life at IIM Indore, some random thoughtsMountains or the so called mountains, The hillock that never sleeps, and never lets people on it sleep too, the randomness of the place, that began with random interviews at the GDPI process, to random registrations (which pissed almost everybody off), there seems to be something different about this place, something random, something very exciting and something totally unexpected. The Bakra days brought a lot of analogies for Planet-I. Were we a part of some military camp? Waking up at 430 in the morning would be an exaggeration, as we hardly slept, or maybe a concentration camp, as a Prof had very visually described in the beginning few days, and then a question came whether we were at a b-school, or we were here to be at school writing about our Yoga experiences. One thought even wondered that maybe we were aliens into this Planet-I, and were being tested if we are capable of citizenship. Though the welcome we got, was no doubt magnanimous, though when it did unfold, another random thought followed – how come seniors were so dedicated, sleeping less than we did, just to make a Bakra out of us, guess that’s what Planet-I does to its citizens. As if the randomness wasn’t sufficient, some Profs talked nothing but random thoughts and even quizzes have random questions. So just wondering, what all can be termed non-random about IIM - Indore – maybe the weather, its stays beautiful all along, the infrastructure, which is very well built up, the faculty and support staff (it’s all good enough with a few, or maybe more than a few names, which don’t come under the ‘good enough’ category…am sure each one of you reading this can relate already within a week of classes and would feel very strongly about this). Just a thought here that blocks my train of thought, am I also turning RANDOM within a week itself, asking random questions to Profs (Am not CP hungry, just that they teach weird things, if they do teach that is), studying random subjects, and now even my friends says that I talk random. But then is it all negative, not really, this is what a friend/IIMI outsider feels about my future – IIM Alumni, a glamorous Investment Banker or a consultant, a millionaire in 2 years(at least in Rupee terms) and is working damn hard to crack the CAT and be here at any cost. It feels great to be looked up to, this is what Planet-I does to you. It feels awesome to see how you are realizing your potential, bettering yourself and your expectations each passing day. And as I pre-read at 2 AM for tomorrow’s Micro-Economics class, the indifference curve can be felt to what I am going through at Planet-I, it’s a trade-off for quitting earning and partying for 2 years, for staying away from our home-town, from commanding and managing a team of people to being taught Stats. It’s only a week into IIMI, and I am sure IIMI indifference curve is miles ahead (to the right to be economically correct) of the rest. And as we take off on our journey of transforming the planet-I to “MY Planet-I”, am sure it rocks….it surely rocks.@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323258952729310218.post-39442372099330162672008-08-04T01:02:00.000-07:002008-08-04T01:05:20.841-07:00Social Networking - The Misunderstood advertising mediumIt began with Internet Advertising in general, marketers found it a tough cookie to accept, and some marketers still do, and now as we are finally seeing a rise in online ad-spends proportions, this step-motherly treatment is bound to come up again – Social Networking being the victim. India has been witnessing a steep rise in online ad-spends across all genres, with FMCG being amongst the last ones to join in, with the likes of Clearasil also jumping on the Internet advertising platforms. Consider this - Alexa suggests that 3 in top 10 websites worldwide are social networking sites. Also, 90% users visit their profile everyday on these social networking sites and these sites reach out to more than 40% users online. This is one place where users login when they have time in abundance and hence, are most receptive to advertising. A marketer can target users by Gender, Age, Occupation, Interests providing one of the most accurate mapping of a consumer’s behavior. Couple this, with the availability to create virals, applications etc. On paper, this seems to be the best available option for all advertisers, and money should be pouring onto this inventory left, right and center. Now comes the reality check – <br />• Click through ratess are very low, so Cost per Impressions deals go entirely against the advertiser.<br />• How does the advertiser know whether people have actually noticed the ad?<br />• How can one gauze the success of the campaign?<br />These are only some of the apprehensions that agencies/ad-networks today are facing from marketers on social networking campaigns. Pilot campaigns have been carried out for advertisers of all kinds – Apparels, Sportswear, Cosmetics, Laptops, Jobs and others, but very few advertisers have adopted this channel as a branding medium as a Yahoo!, Rediff or an MSN homepage has been. With Internet advertising becoming extremely RoI focused, it has been a completely unfair treatment on the Social Networking Sites as a medium of brand building. “Internet is the medium to generate RoI while TV is best utilized for branding” – that’s what the CMO of a leading job portal in India suggested, with all their campaigns targeting maximum resume acquisitions. Social Networking as a medium has been dropped mostly because of the lack of advertising RoI obtained. A very fundamental error here being made is that while marketers trust TAM measurements, which is a rough approximation at best, a potential marketing goldmine, in these social networking sites is being ignored. This is inspite of the fact that it’s measured and targeted much better than how TV ad-effectiveness is. Also, what needs to be understood is the variety that each social networking site offers - Facebook users are more affluent and qualified to convert. MySpace attracts so many more viewers that “there's no way marketers are going to leave”. And Hi5 leads the race in the younger age group. Facebook proudly offers the healthiest female: male ratio attributed to the privacy and safety feature associated with it.<br />A key aspect here is also the impatience of advertisers with social networking medium. Virals, and even banner ad campaigns are run best on a long-term horizon so as to build communities on this extremely open medium to connect to the audiences. As people see the virals, and experience it, they trust it and as an inherent aspect of all social networking sites, people will listen and spread the word themselves. Brand advertisers like Auto, Apparels, Sportswear, Personal Technology, Portals, FMCG, Personal Care, Education and even classifieds should have social networking as a must have medium of all their marketing plans. If the medium is given more time and understood better as regards to the branding opportunities it provides, we can hope that perennial under-achieving inventory makes a come-back very soon and rules the dollars the way Spain ruled the Euro.@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323258952729310218.post-64856085911760681282008-06-04T04:13:00.000-07:002008-06-04T04:37:32.601-07:00Small websites – The new growing breed‘More than 80% of online publishers in India have less than 0.1% page-views of what the largest Indian publisher has’, this fact is alarming enough for even a not so internet savvy person to understand where the market is headed to. The 80|20 Pareto Principle is here to stay for sure, if not grow bigger. A true indicator of the growing Internet exposure is the Web 2.0 culture and the growing number of small publishers in India. From a recent research report that we carried out, Small publishers are growing by the day, and it’s getting localized to the extent that more than 50% of the publishers deliver less than 1000 impressions a month. This is just a drop in the more than billion impression ocean that the largest Indian publishers have.<br /><br />Primarily consisting of blogs, review sites and regional websites, most of the traffic comes through search for small publishers and ad-networks are the most preferred intermediary for inventory monetization. This can be attributed to the lack of brand value of these small publishers, and advertiser’s reluctance to go to each and every small publisher. That is where ad-networks cash in with their accumulated inventory. So, while ad-networks seem to be the only choice available to these small publishers, they are also preferred because:<br /><br />• Ad-relevancy is highest from ad-networks.<br />• The danger of inventory being unsold is minimal, and hence the opportunity loss.<br />• Ad-networks are mostly self-serve models, and hence high transparency.<br />• Click frauds are well taken care of.<br />• Ad-networks have competitive filters, to manage competition.<br /><br />For any industry, the feedback and the ideas have to come from both the client as well as the seller. This is where the synergies lock and hence business grows. With ad-networks depending on small publishers to build inventory and small publishers depending on ad-networks to sell inventory, there is a cooperation of sorts, and hence, we get this fast booming small publisher revolution in India.<br /><br />The key reasons for this fast booming revolution could be bulleted as follows-<br /><br />Complete transparency through the automated self-serve models.<br />Relevant and well targeted ads.<br />Excellent click fraud detection and reporting mechanisms Opens up the small publishers to big spending advertisers who otherwise advertise only on tier-I sites.<br />Ensures inventory is sold in absence of sales teams.<br /><br />However, the situation is not all rosy as good as it seems. A careful situational analysis of the small publisher-ad-network industry would suggest that this partnership is still in its infancy and will take time before it grows to become a potent force as it’s in USA and other developed markets where SMEs are an integral part of the ad-market.<br /><br /><br />If we do an EIC (Economy-Industry-Company) analysis based on the report, these are extremely positive signs for the economy. Internet has not only reached the masses, rather it has got them involved and the Web 2.0 concept is a definite success today. From an Industry standpoint, the base is ever expanding with innumerable publishers coming in and creating valuable inventory. Ad-networks are the likely beneficiary of this, and this is where Horizontal ad-networks are creating excellent brand-building inventory in the market. From a Company viewpoint, Tyroo stands to be one of the biggest gainer out of this boom, with its inventory accumulation currently beyond 3 Billion impression, and expanding every day, helping the small publishers build that value chain, and creating for advertisers, an unparalleled inventory across genres.@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323258952729310218.post-64004419526344878352008-05-28T05:48:00.000-07:002008-05-28T05:56:02.004-07:00Ad-network storm in IndiaAd-network storm in India<br /><br />A swarm of ad-networks coming across verticals, accumulating inventory through various exchanges and potential tie-ups has warmed up this, rather innocent looking (a year ago that is) part of the Internet advertising industry. Earlier seen as an industry where buying across the Tier-I websites, Rediff, Yahoo!, MSN among others was the key to campaign performance, the situation has now changed drastically. However, it’s begun very recently with almost each interactive agency announcing their own ad-network coming in to the market. However, a very key component missing in many of them, which every ad-network needs to look forward to is technology, which is the key differentiator in this business. One needs to understand that the success of the best of ad-network companies, including Google has come through its excellent technology and self-serve models. It’s the back-end tech-team that determines the key competitive advantages that ad-networks might leverage in the market.<br /><br />Current Indian Scenario<br /><br />A detailed look into the market reveals the following ad-networks operational\getting launched in India-<br /><br />1. Tyroo<br />2. Google Adsense<br />3. Tribal Fusion<br />4. Advertising.com<br />5. Axill<br />6. Integrid Media<br />7. Ozone Media<br />8. Komli<br />9. WebChutney<br />10. Interactive Avenues<br />11. Paypod<br />12. Contest2win<br />13. Adwale<br />14. DGM<br />15. Publicitas<br />16. NDTV Media<br />17. Ibibo<br />18. Ad-Chakra<br />19. Ishir Infotech <br /><br />One definite conclusion to come out of this is the bright future of ad-networks in India, and this is what’s tempting all the Internet companies to launch an ad-network. The current market scenario is now moving towards where the US markets were a few years ago, with ad-networks coming up left, right and centre. Presently US has more than 200 ad-networks with very less, if any differentiation between them. This is where the role of technology becomes crucial, in providing top-ups over the current system, and building a competitive edge over others.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Where is this ad-network storm moving to?<br /><br />In desperate efforts to build competitive advantage, ‘Verticalisation’ of ad-networks is happening in India, with category focused ad-networks coming in, aggregating inventory across genres. Another stream of ad-networks is the performance networks, working mostly on CPA models for Finance, Matrimony and Travel portals. And the last and the toughest to execute strategy is one of Horizontal networks, which build a huge network across all genres, trying to work on both Premium and Performance business models.<br />Inspite of all the competition and new developments happening, ad-network industry can be safely concluded to be still in the initial stage of PLC with ad-network spends on the lower band of the budgets, but the industry is definitely growing (Approximately 160%), and that too at more than double of what the internet advertising industry is growing at.@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323258952729310218.post-6064683888679071672007-06-05T04:10:00.000-07:002007-07-02T05:15:12.378-07:00IP TargetingIP targeting or Geo targeting is used by the best of the Ad-networks. There are lots of different ways to target advertising. Most of them rely on the surrogates of demographics. Demographics are attributes like age, income, education, status or type of occupation, region of country and household size. Demographics can also include the age of children, home ownership, home value and urban or rural location.<br /><br /><strong>IP targeting</strong> is the method of targeting whereby, the physical location of a website visitor is determined and different content to that visitor based his location, such as country, region/state, city, ISP or other criteria is delivered.<br />IP targeting has been the most long-standing method of using “technology” to target users of the Web based on <strong>geographic determinants</strong>. It has become significantly better recently due to new IP matching companies entering the arena. However, the accuracy of this kind of targeting is how accurately the technology vendor for the site you are advertising on maps IPs to true geographic areas.<br />IP targeting has been around since the early days of ad serving. It involves writing the code that will strip the IP address from a request, compare it to a database, and deliver an ad accordingly. The next and most important step is building and maintaining an IP database. <br />One of the first applications of information in an IP database was targeting to specific geographic regions. Most commercial ad management systems have IP databases that can make geographic targeting possible. <br /><br />The reasons for targeting local in digital media are <br />A) A local business having reach in only a specific area<br />B) A national retailer that has reach in a particular locality<br />C) A national advertiser with a new product testing that product concept and media options to support it in a smaller, representative market<br />D) A national advertiser that needs to achieve certain communication delivery goals that cannot be reached with national media alone.<br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />tyroo_pub = "11114";<br />tyroo_ad_width = "120";<br />tyroo_ad_height = "600";<br />tyroo_adtype = "120x600_text";<br />tyroo_chnl ="1017";<br />tyroo_ads_frame = "tyrooads";<br />tyroo_ad_output = "html";<br />tyroo_table_bgcolor = "ffffff";<br />tyroo_table_headlinecolor = "003399";<br />tyroo_table_Desc_color = "000000";<br />tyroo_table_DisplayUrlcolor = "999999";<br />tyroo_outer_table_bordercolor = "cc0000";<br />tyroo_font_color = "999999";<br />//--></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"<br /> src="http://Ads7.tyroo.com/js/Tyrooads.js"><br /></script><br /><br />It would seem that reasons B) and reasons D) have the potential for being the most compelling use of the Web by advertisers. But one reason not mentioned here that often escapes advertisers in the standard media is one of giving local flavor to a particular product or service. <br />When you advertise, your focus has to remain on the consumer. A consumer may think globally, but he conducts his life locally.<br />This is an important thing to keep in mind, especially as so many of us in the Internet advertising industry tend to lose sight of how the general population thinks and feels about their lives and the media they engage in.<br />“The goal of any advertiser is to make a connection between the consumer and its brand,” asserts Shawn Riegsecker, president of Intégrent Media. “A key to successfully making this connection is to relate or integrate your brand into the daily life of your consumers.<br />“This is where effectively targeting local audiences comes into play. When done properly, communicating with a consumer at the local level allows you to integrate your message into the things your consumers care most about.”<br />The practical reasons don’t go away, of course. They simply become part of a larger array of applications for the use of local advertising.@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323258952729310218.post-42360367389318715432007-05-31T21:24:00.000-07:002007-05-31T21:27:51.311-07:00Tyroo Media crosses 1000 Publishers<strong>Tyroo Media Pvt Ltd</strong>, an Internet advertising network, crossed the <strong>1,000-publisher mark </strong>on May 29, 2007. Tyroo has now the widest and most diverse network of publishers, providing advertisers a one-stop window to reach out to their audiences. Tyroo is like a self-serve ad marketplace. <br /><br />Publishers working with Tyroo include leading names like <strong>Shaadi, Naukri, Oneindia, Santabanta</strong>, among others, along with several hundred smaller publishers like blog owners and user generated sites, which all earn considerable revenues through the partnership with Tyroo. Several large advertisers such as <strong>Microsoft, Tata AIG, HSBC, ICICI</strong>, etc., are currently using the Tyroo network to reach out to these publishers. <br /><br />Said <strong>Aditya Khanna, Business Head</strong>, Tyroo Media, “Our publishers can be broadly divided into 45 categories such as entertainment, sports, news, education, finance, travel, matrimony and real estate among others, which give advertisers a great targeting option to reach out to specific audiences. The targeting is working well which has resulted in our biggest clients coming back to us. Many of our successful campaigns have been giving CTRs (Click Through Rate) that are double the industry standard of 2 per cent.” <br /><br />Importantly, the publishers do not have to bear the cost of having their own sales force. <br /><br />Said <strong>Manish Vij, Chief Business Officer</strong>, Smile Interactive Technologies Group, "Tyroo is going to be big, this is just the launching pad. We have invested over two years to develop a highly robust in-house technology that helps our partner publishers earn more from advertising through a proprietary optimization technology and help our advertisers target their customers through multi dimension targeting.” <br /><br />Tyroo was commercially launched for the Internet in June 2006 with investment and backing from Smile Interactive Technologies Group (SITG). SITG has backed leading online media and technology companies such as Quasar Media, Zoomtra, <br /><br />India’s first online travel meta-search engine, and Zumtra, an online technology services company.@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323258952729310218.post-13575913281413554892007-05-30T03:16:00.000-07:002007-05-30T03:32:56.332-07:00Make your blog your earning partner, Advertise through ad-networksSo you thought that your blog is just a diary that you and your friends can read, all I can say is that what I am going to tell you next can be believed only if you try it yourself.<br /><br /><strong><em><em>You own a blog, you write content daily, the content is relevant to people then go ahead monetize your blog.</em></em></strong><br />Your blog can be made your earning partner, courtesy the booming ad-networks in India. Earlier it used to be Google all the way, but with new and improved versions doing the rounds, ad-networks seem to be the “in” thing. And don’t think you need to be biggie blog to earn money.<br />Just check the following figures.<br />• PodcastDirectory.com receives nearly a million hits and makes around $30,000 to $40,000.<br />• Labnol.blogspot.com receives around 125 million hits a month and 0.03% of global users visit the site.<br /><br />These guys are regular people who later turned to bloggers seeing the amount of money at stake. Blogging has now turned on to a full time proffesion for many tech-savvy guys. Contentsutra, Emergic are some blogs on technology that are getting huge amount of impressions. Similar blogs are existing for a diverse variety of subjects. The opportunity is open for people like me and you to write and earn.<br />The earning are generally on the Cost per click basis. Basic CPC for Text ads runs at approximately Rs. 2 and for Image links at Rs. 4. So even if you get 1000 clicks on an ad, you are earning well enough. (These figures are from a leading ad-network in India, <a href="http://www.tyroo.com">Tyroo</a>)<br /><br />So go ahead, start blogging and start earning <br /><br />Amit Chhabra@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323258952729310218.post-85835830616884370702007-05-29T00:20:00.000-07:002007-05-29T06:29:33.622-07:00FAQs about Advertising NetworksAn <strong>Advertising Network</strong> (also called an online advertising network or ad network) is a company that usually serves as a broker between web site publishers and advertisers. Larger ad networks aggregate sites into general categories so that they can offer advertisers targeted buys. <strong>Google Adsense, <a href="http://www.tyroo.com">Tyroo</a> </strong>are some of the leading ad-networks.<br /><br />An ad-network is a collection of <strong>online advertising inventory</strong>. Ad networks serve advertising on your website and share advertiser revenue for qualified clicks each time your site visitors clicks on ads. <br /><strong>Inventory</strong> is the creative space acquired on a website. It comes in various dimensions such as 728*90, 120*240, 468*60, 300*250 and many more. These are measured in pixels. <br /><strong>Online advertising inventory</strong> comes in many different forms. This inventory can be found on websites, in RSS feeds, on blogs, in instant messaging applications, in adware, in e-mails, and on other sources. Some examples of advertising inventory include: banner ads, rich media, text links, and e-mails. <br /><br /><strong>Click through rate</strong> (CTR) means the percentage of impressions that resulted in a click through. It’s calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions.<br /><br /><strong>Cost per click</strong> (CPC) - is the online payment models by which advertisers pays for each click through made on their advertisement.<br /><br /><strong>Creative</strong> - The technology used to create a banner or other type of advertising material. Common creative types include GIF, JPEG, Java, HTML, Flash or streaming audio/video.<br /><br /><strong>Page View</strong> - Occurs when a user’s browser requests a web page.<br /><br /><strong>Cookies</strong> - A process by which a small file is sent from a web server to the local user’s computer to store information unique to that browser. Often used by advertisers to keep track of the number and frequency of advertisements that has been shown to a visitor or by sites to help them determine the number of unique visitors.@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323258952729310218.post-5191050226536712932007-05-28T00:15:00.000-07:002007-05-28T04:24:59.367-07:00Advertising Networks booming in IndiaAs Wikipedia puts it, an <strong>advertising network </strong>is a collection of (often unrelated) online <strong>advertising inventory</strong>. It’s an <strong>ad-serving </strong>platform that brings together the advertisers and the relevant publishers. It’s different from advertising in the sense that it brings a huge number of publishers together; it’s cost effective for the advertisers and opens up huge avenues for the advertiser through which he can reach his desired audience. A testimonial of the success of ad-networks is a campaign run by a leading MNC in NCR for its recruitment purposes. It had an astonishing conversion rate of 80% i.e. 80% of the people who clicked on the ad actually filled the form. The <strong>CTR</strong> for the campaign was 3%-4% and the campaign was for HR recruitment purposes, considering it’s not the most favored.<br />Its quite phenomenal, the rate at which ad-networks are growing in India. For instance, <strong>Tyroo Media Pvt Ltd</strong>, a Delhi based online <strong>advertising network</strong> which is only in the 1st year of its inception, but is already growing at a very fast pace adding on more that 100 publishers every month on to its network and with impressions in excess of 400 million, it seems to be strolling well towards catching hold of a good share of the market.<br />The Ad-network market in India is currently lead by Google. Following it is a bunch of Indian networks including <strong>Tyroo</strong>, Ozone Media, Tribal Fusion and Komli being the major ones. Tyroo is the only one amongst these to have its own world class technology. Infact, it also has tied-up with leading American and Australian firms and seems to be on a mission to have a world class technology in place. Komli on the other hand, has technology that’s leased and hence, lags a little behind.<br />All these suggest well enough that ad-networks are here to stay and with the amount of healthy competition available, maybe Tyr<strong>oo</strong> could bring in the new revolution after G<strong>oo</strong>gle and Yah<strong>oo</strong>. Guess that’s why it’s b<strong>oo</strong>ming.@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323258952729310218.post-12430806026756611432007-02-27T04:17:00.000-08:002007-02-27T04:18:14.741-08:00Welcome to Amitsempire@Blogspot@mithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14431883234686862711noreply@blogger.com0