Business India May 2010 - Twitter Cover Story

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May 16, 2010

Life in 140 characters

B U S I N E S S I N D I A N May 16, 2010 Cover Feature

The Twitter Generation

Life
in 140
characters
T
he 140 Character Confer- both, but fail to define them. stay abreast of developments, and
ence was held in New York Why is everything so 140-centric? communicate one-to-one, one-to-
on 20-21 April. It had It’s the number of characters you can many and many-to-many. Today,
more than 140 characters, put in a tweet – the text message on it’s driving many vital decisions of
of course; participation the Twitter platform that has made individuals and organisations.”
has been growing fast. “More than Indian Premier League (IPL) commis- “Counter-intuitively my take is
170 people shared the stage and over sioner Lalit K. Modi and minister of that the digital social media has
1,000 people shared the experience,” state for external affairs Tharoor so improved depth through width –
says Jeff Pulver, Internet entrepre- famous. Their exchange of tweets more perspectives exchanged due to
neur, technology evangelist and con- ended up in both losing their jobs. more connections,” says S. Sivaku-
ference organiser. He was hoping for Twitter is the latest star of the social mar, chief executive of ITC’s agri-busi-
an online audience of 140,000. But it media or Web 2.0. Nobody quite com- ness division and the creator of
fell a bit short. His other gambit – prehends what that means or what eChoupal. “Also, while Twitter is 140
reducing the participation fee from shape it will finally take. “I think there characters, it helps channel followers
$1,000 plus to $140 – worked. is very little real understanding of the to longer blogs. Many friends joined
140CC has also been spreading social media space,” says Sandeep me virtually through Facebook as I
faster than a Shashi Tharoor tweet. In Goyal, chairman of Dentsu India. But travelled in rural China; the collective
2009, there were four conferences. no one doubts it is becoming impor- journey added so much value to me.
This year, three cities have already tant. “The power of social networking My live tweets from various confer-
been covered and five more have been is increasing by the day and various ences bring in comments from follow-
slotted for the rest of 2010. There will levels of social interactions are emerg- ers with such diverse perspectives that
also be several smaller ‘meetups’. New ing,” says K. Pandia Rajan, managing my learning quotient will never be
York was all about the soul and social director of integrated HR services the same again.”
media, Pulver told Business India. provider Ma Foi. “It is becoming a Social media and networking can
That’s apt. You can write reams on medium for people to keep in touch, today be defined only by example.

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lot of the conversation is like two old But Chirp was still feeling chirpy.
crones on the telephone, exchanging The revenue models were being
notes on what they had for breakfast explored by others too. Search adver-
and bed. tising pioneer Bill Gross has just
The entire social networking clan launched TweetUp and declared there
has been making headlines in April. is a goldmine waiting to be tapped in
140CC was followed by Chirp, the Twitter. Besides, the company has
first-ever Twitter developers’ confer- won the first round in the 140 wars.
ence. It gave a peek at the official Facebook has withdrawn Facebook
Twitter numbers. The service has 105 Lite, a Twitter challenger it had
million registered users and 300,000 launched in September 2009.
new users sign up per day. There are Where in all this is the Twitter Gen-
600 million search queries on Twitter eration? Truth to tell, it’s in the middle
daily. Incidentally, with an estimated of a heated argument. Blogger and free-
2 million users, Twitter in India now lance writer Dann Zinke has a problem
has the third highest number of active with the concept. “We are not the
users after the US and Germany. Twitter Generation,” he posted
While impressive, there is still recently. “You cannot take a free Inter-
some catching up to do. Facebook has net service that came out less than two
400 million users. It would not be fair years ago and use it to label a genera-
to compare the global numbers for tion that lived for 28 years before it. We
Orkut, owned by Google, as it has a are not the Facebook Generation, the
major presence mainly in India and MySpace Generation, or even (heaven
Brazil. It leads Facebook in India (see forbid) the Xanga Generation. All of
chart: The top sites for Indians). To our formative years came before that
counter, Facebook is opening its first time. The Twitter Generation isn’t
office in India in Hyderabad. even old enough to read.”
Zinke has a point. But if you look at
A perilous move the Twitter users profile, you will find
At Chirp, Twitter announced plans to that growth is coming from unex-
monetise advertising, its first attempt pected places. Modi and Tharoor may
at creating a revenue model. It proba- be squabbling like school kids, but
bly won’t work; on the Net, the transi- they are both on the wrong side of 45.
tion from free to paid is always very “When the site became popular in
And while Twitter is making waves, perilous. Twitter’s ‘promoted tweets’ early 2007, the majority of its visitors
others like Facebook, LinkedIn and will find it difficult to gain acceptabil- were 18-to-24-year-olds,” says Time
Orkut are also claiming their place in ity. Goyal of Dentsu says that if Twitter magazine. “Today the site’s largest age
the sun. These are basically sharing were to charge companies for the demographic is 35-to-44-year-olds.”
platforms where you get together logos that accompany their tweets, Adds a study by Morgan Stanley,
with your friends – virtual or real-life. 90 per cent would run away. “Teens don’t tweet.”
You share and often share too much –
inappropriate pictures or a rant
against your boss, for instance.
Twitter is more a sophisticated Corporate leaders
messaging service – a microblog – Unique users/
where you have ‘followers’, who are The top sites for indians Company month (million)
automatically sent all your tweets. US Microsoft 8.58
President Barack Obama has 3.77 mil- Rank Domain name Unique users/
month (million) IRCTC (railway ticketing) 4.90
lion followers, Oprah Winfrey 3.44
million and The New York Times 2.41 1 google.co.in 32.20 HDFC Bank 4.00
million. Twitter is for the unknown 2 google.com 29.40 ICICI Bank (icicibank.com) 3.85
world. With every tweet, you shoot an 3 yahoo.com 26.10 ICICI Bank (icicibank.co.in) 3.00
arrow into the air. It falls to earth you
4 orkut.co.in 14.90 Citibank (Citibank.co.in) 2.12
know not where. Facebook and its ilk
are for the known world. Your follow- 5 facebook.com 12.60 State Bank 2.07
ers are friends and family, people you 6 youtube.com 11.60 Airtel 1.85
have probably physically met. Twitter
7 rediff.com 10.80 LIC 1.46
is interactive too. You can have real-
time ‘conversations’. But these days, a 8 orkut.com 10.70 Tata Indicom 1.31

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How they compare Short cuts
Sex Age of users

80
Male

78
Female
79
(%)

1
Below 15
36-44
15- 24
45-60
1
25-35
Above 60
1
(%)
N orthcote C. Parkinson first pro-
pounded his eponymous law –
“Work expands so as to fill the time
54 9 6 6 available for its completion” – in an
22 8 12
20 21 essay in The Economist in 1955. If Parkin-
13 13 41
28 54 44 son had been alive today, he would
27 27 probably have updated his law – “Time
contracts so as to fill the attention span
Orkut Facebook Twitter Orkut Facebook Twitter
available.”
According to Ted Selker at Carnegie
Figures are for February 2010. Note: orkut.com and orkut.co.in have almost identical user profiles. Source: Vizisense
Mellon University, “The addictive nature
of Web browsing can leave you with the
“The Twitter Generation is a state of counter that one man’s news is attention span of a goldfish.” That’s all
mind,” blogger Zinke told Business another man’s babble. It depends on of nine seconds. Incidentally, according
India. “I have yet to nail down just who is doing the judging. Goyal of to Urban Dictionary, a twit is a pregnant
what kind of mindset it is. Twitter is Dentsu adds another point, “To me, goldfish. The folks at Twitter must have
still in flux, moving from what was Twitter is like a poor man’s blog. How been deep thinkers to come up with the
originally glorified navel-gazing into many of us have the time to sit down name. The reality, of course, is that
what we might be able to call the great- and write a blog?” Twitter was named after the twittering
est mobile mass organisation tool on D. Shivakumar, Nokia India’s vice of birds.
the planet. It is in organising groups of president and country manager, sees There are a whole host of products
people in a very short time that I think it as a far richer experience. “Twitter and services today that are catering to
Twitter is most useful, not in telling the has become a phenomenon in reach- the goldfish generation. Among them:
world what you had for lunch.” ing out to one’s community, peers T20: The most obvious is the Indian
Yet, inane messages seem to be the and friends in an instant and real Premier League’s Twenty20. There was
rule, rather than the exception (see time,” he says. “Some consider it for a time when cricket was a gentleman’s
box: Cat got their tongue). According to snacking content, while some treat it game and played over five days. Now it
a survey by Pear Analytics, 41 per cent as a tool to create news moments.” lasts just a few hours. The less said about
of all tweets are pointless babble, 38 the gentlemen the better.
per cent are conversational, 9 per cent Twitter Generation Five-second spots: Ads on television
are passing along value and 6 per cent The problem of understanding the used to be 30 seconds or even longer.
are self-promotion. Spam and news concept of the Twitter Generation is To counter the zap-the-ad generation,
are 4 per cent apiece. (The numbers that it is not just Twitter. Other social
have been rounded off and thus don’t media have to be included, of course.
add up to 100.) Another survey by But contributing significantly are in 140 characters. “I feel that perspec-
Sysomos, a company that provides YouTube, iPod, Kindle and other e- tive in general has shortened in human
business information for the social readers, blogs, SMS and other parapher- life,” says Milind Sarwate, chief
media, has found that 24 per cent of nalia of the Internet and technology. (finance, HR & strategy) at fast-moving
tweets are created by bots (Web It is easier to approach it from the consumer goods (FMCG) company
robots). This could be automated other side. What are the hallmarks of Marico Ltd. “Such perspective could be
newsfeeds too. Fans of Twitter the Twitter Generation? It’s about life with reference to the length of rela-
tionships, or commitment to an organ-
isation or political party or a brand.
Short-termism is now the key philoso-
“The Twitter Generation is a state of mind... phy. Perhaps this has been brought
about by the sudden and numerous
what kind of mindset it is. Twitter is still in flux, changes around us, driven by huge
moving from what was originally glorified strides in technology – both comput-
navel-gazing into what we might be able to call ing and telecommunication – further
accelerated by the convergence of sev-
the greatest mobile mass organisation eral technologies. It is almost as if peo-
tool on the planet.” ple are being bombarded by new
DANN ZINKE things just as they are about to settle in
Blogger and freelance writer with the existing things.”
It all starts with information
overload, a cliché but true. The

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many advertisers have taken to shorten- contact information to.” followed by one hour of credits, listing
ing them to five seconds; it’s over before Two minute Times: The Times of India everyone who participates.
you can press the remote button. This is can be a quickie. Says the Website of this Filminute: An international one-
also true of the Internet, where you can online edition: “(It) is your quick meal of minute film festival dedicated to pre-
get rid of the ad with a quick mouse click. news, if you are hungry for news but senting, promoting and awarding the
Ten Word Wiki: It calls itself the ency- pressed for time. On a single page, it gives world’s best one-minute films. It started
clopaedia for the ADD (attention deficit you a snapshot of important events in in September 2006 and is still going
disorder) generation. Where Wikipedia India and the world. Research shows that strong. Don’t think its trivia. The BBC has
needs hundreds of words, Ten Word Wiki in two minutes, an average person can regularly organised contests for the 60-
does it in 10. Example: comfortably read 400 to 500 words. second Shakespeare, an educational
India: People. Colors. Fun. Religion. Hence, this attempt to condense 12 sto- project. It’s been suspended since 2006.
Discover true self in Crowd. ries in less than 500 words and present That, as it happens, is the year Twitter
Julius Caesar: Roman emperor. Hangs them to you on one page.” was created.
about with the wrong crowd. Dislikes The Five Minute Wrapup: A free daily Incidentally, Shakespeare has been
March. e-letter from Equitymaster to introduce adapted for Twitter too. You can sign up
Microgames: “Sometimes playing you to the “the world of intelligent invest- and experience it.
Tetris feels like reading War and Peace,” ing”. It provides a quick buffet for The Taming of the Shrew: Who woo’d
says Wired magazine. Many HOGs, RPGs wannabe Buffets. in haste and means to wed at leisure.
and FPSs (don’t bother about the expan- The One Second Film: This has to be a The Twitter of the Shrew: Who woo’d in
sion; they are all categories of games) joke. But it isn’t. It’s a non-profit collabo- haste + means 2 wed @ leisure
today come with minigames inside them. rative art project. The film is built around Even in Shakespeare’s day, they
Check out WarioWare. It has microgames one second of animation (made of 12 sometimes woo’d in haste, perhaps even
that are less than five seconds long. large collaborative paintings), and is in a jiffy.
Speed dating: Says Wikipedia, “Men
and women are rotated to meet each
other over a series of short ‘dates’, usually
lasting from three to eight minutes
depending on the organisation running
the event. At the end of each interval, the
organiser rings a bell or clinks a glass to
signal the participants to move on to the
next date. At the end of the event, partici-
pants submit to the organisers a list of
who they would like to provide their

hyperlinked World Wide Web
(WWW) did most of the damage.
Search engines and directories – with
their cached content and links –
added to it. In a seminal article titled
‘Is Google making us stupid?’ in the differently. You start, perhaps, with ‘recently visited’ draws you back to
Atlantic Magazine, Nicholas Carr the recent Peter Robinson’s Friend of Peter Robinson. But a stray memory of
wrote in 2008, “Immersing myself in a the Devil, which your book club (a still college-days favourite Mrs Robinson
book or a lengthy article used to be surviving dinosaur) has recom- sends you hunting for Simon and Gar-
easy. My mind would get caught up in mended. A stray reference (and a link) funkel: The Definitive Biography. (“And
the narrative or the turns of the argu- to the Yorkshire Ripper sends you to here’s to you, Mrs Robinson, Jesus
ment, and I’d spend hours strolling Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the loves you more than you will know”.)
through long stretches of prose. Yorkshire Ripper. A passage there con- Jesus! Jesus? And you are off on your
That’s rarely the case anymore. Now trasting the scenic charms of Yorkshire travels again, perhaps to Dan Brown’s
my concentration often starts to drift to the horrors of the Ripper gets you The Da Vinci Code and the trail of Jesus’
after two or three pages.” The Net has thinking of your next holiday. A link descendants. You have content
changed the way we read – and think. in the book takes you to The Hidden snacked a very diverse library in a few
Content snacking has come to stay. Places of Yorkshire: Including The Dales, hours. In the future, no one can be
Amazon’s Kindle will further Moors and Coast. (On List It – an Inter- sure if the reader will start a book from
change the way we read. When down- net application for the Twitter Genera- chapter one or chapter six or, indeed,
loading books or parts of them reaches tion – you make a note of three the last page.
affordable levels, people will read suggested holiday spots.) A look at the All this is possible (assuming

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digital versions of the books are avail-
able) today. But e-readers give you
ease of use. Try it out with your net-
Cat got their tongue
book or laptop. If you take them to
bed with you, things get too hot – lit-
erally. It is like having too much vari-
W hen the Net was young, perhaps
the only form of simultaneous
multi-user social communication was the
someone had jumped her claim with an
account styled realprietyzinta. Zinta
started realpreityzinta (note the correct
ety at the harem; in chatroom. Folks who participated in spelling of her name). The original
window-shopping, we lay waste our these interactions will remember the site was not even a fake because of
hours – and our powers. gaudy avatars, the ‘handles’ (nicknames) the spelling, though you could call it
Goyal of Dentsu says you can’t like ManitobaMadonna and the passing off.
blame the WWW or Google for this. “If anonymity. It was a many-to-many It can cause a lot of confusion. Imag-
I draw a parallel, this is like saying no medium. Of course, you could get away ine a fake Shashi Tharoor, former minister
one fully reads what is on a Website to a private room if somebody sent you a of state for external affairs, hurling broad-
because it is full of hyperlinks,” he says. PM (private message) and invited you sides at Indian Premium League (IPL)
“It is purely dependent on what the there. But most of the time there were commissioner Lalit Modi. While the real
consumer at that particular point dozens of people talking to each other, Shashi Tharoor (ShashiTharoor) is going
wants to do; it is giving you the choices breaking into conversations, going in and strong, Twitter already has a ShahsiTha-
that didn’t exist earlier.” But choices in out of the room with an apologetic roor (recent tweet: “Now at lively meet-
a Twitter age lead more to distraction GTG2TBR (Got To Go to The Bathroom). ing in Kochi of UDF allies. Talk is of BPL
than desired discovery. Goyal adds In the middle of the nineties, they fell not IPL); a ShashTharoor; a
that SMS will probably have a more victim to new technologies. Yahoo! and Tharoor_Shashi (“I’m Becca the Cat”);
lasting effect on reading habits. MSN closed down a large number of their and even a No Tharoor.
S. Sadagopan, director of the Ban- chatrooms amid fears that anonymous The brass at Twitter has realised that
galore-based Indian Institute of Infor- lurkers were using them to target chil- fakes could take the entire edifice down.
mation Technology (IIIT), also says dren: Madonna from Manitoba could They have recently come up with a ‘Veri-
that how you read and communicate well be Murugan from Machilipatnam fied Account’ feature. This will tell you
is not Google’s problem. “Google in cyberspace drag. Plus, the bots whether the tweets are from the real
democratises information,” he says. (Web robots) had taken over; by one esti- McCoy or not.
“You read in small chunks, but mate, 60-70 per cent of the chatroom For the CEOs and the high-profile,
you read more. What participants were bots. Twitter may not be important today. But
is important to note The similarity between the chatroom some may be losing out on valuable
is whether we are and Twitter lies in ease of entry and Internet real estate. Besides, if you think
browsing more or anonymous participation. On social net- social media is the coming thing, you
reading more.” working sites such as Facebook and Orkut need to register a presence. “Currently,
– and professional versions such as presence is more important than
LinkedIn – the key is in building networks relevance,” says Sandeep Goyal,
of meatspace people (real human chairman of Dentsu India. “Just being
“I feel that perspective beings). In Twitter, a large number of the present on Facebook or Twitter carries
persons you follow could be fakes. badge value.”
in general has Actor Preity Zinta had a surprise The Tatas, in particular, should know
shortened in human recently when she discovered that about the dangers of not being proactive.
life. Such perspective
could be with reference The flitting from hyperlink to networks. The entire world has
to the length of hyperlink means that the Twitter become virtual and they (the children
relationships, or Generation inevitably suffers from and even adults) don’t want to make
reduced attention spans, technically an effort to socialise.”
commitment to an attention deficit disorder (ADD). “This E.M. Forster had predicted this in
organisation or is on the rise,” says Mumbai-based the dystopian The Machine Stops a cen-
political party or a psychotherapist and psychiatrist tury ago. (“Beneath those corridors of
Zirak Marker. There is a physical shining tiles were rooms, tier below
brand. Short-termism dimension too. “We are seeing several tier, reaching far into the earth, and in
is now the key changes in the mainstream popula- each room there sat a human being,
tion in terms of deficiencies in Vita- eating, or sleeping, or producing
philosophy.” min B, lack of physical activities, ideas… The room, though it con-
MILIND SARWATE social introversions, etc,” says Marker. tained nothing, was in touch with all
Chief (finance, HR & strategy) “There are huge setbacks that our that she cared for in the world…
Marico mainstream population, especially There was the button that produced
children, are facing as a result of social literature, and there were of course

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The group has been fighting court battles some of these sites. Twitter account But what about his large battery of
for a long time with squatters who had tatamotors, in the name of Ratan Tata, communications people?
usurped their domain names such as tata- has only one rather objectionable tweet. Is Twitter – and all this bed, breakfast
sons.com and ratantata.com. The cyber- Ratan Tata himself may not have taken to and airport gossip – for real? As a CEO,
squatters had put up pornography on tweets and hasn’t come across it. would you join this crowd?

It is difficult to find too many Indian CEO types on SHAH RUKH KHAN (Tharoor no longer follows
Twitter. Even with other high-profile people, you Actor Lalit Modi.)
don’t always know where you stand. Of the list Followers:
below, Twitter has verified only Anand Mahindra, 295,581 LALIT MODI
Shah Rukh Khan, Shashi Tharoor, Lalit Modi and Following: 39 IPL commissioner

the real Zinta: Recent tweet: Followers:
normally dont 85,094
ANAND MAHINDRA kingfisher ! Love it. Thanks ! do breakfast...today did in Following: 25
Mahindra & kolkata with kids. fried chips & Recent tweet:
Mahindra Group ANIL AMBANI milkshake..so much for the welcome all
Followers Reliance ADAG healthy resolution last nite. investigation
(people who Followers: 525 (Lalit Modi follows Tharoor
automatically Following: 19 MEERA SANYAL and, among others,
receive your No tweets as yet. Royal Bank of Scotland Vijay Mallya, Sushmita
tweets): 45,542 Followers: 430 Sen, Celina Jaitley, Sameera
Following (people whose SANTANU GHOSH Following: 19 Reddy, Shilpa Shetty and
tweets you automatically Symantec Group Recent tweet: Make an Preity Zinta.)
receive): 31 Followers: 199 informed decision when you
Recent tweet: I’ve been Following: 22 vote on Thursday. Now you PREITY ZINTA
appointed on the AI board, as Recent tweet: Flight delay = can question Meera Sanyal. Actor
some of u r aware... Traveled Passengers with anger mgmt SMS MS <space><your Followers:
back from Delhi on kingfisher problems... VIP in the city = question> e.g. MS Why Vote? 152,648
since AI didn’t hv a flt at tht flight delays. Mumbai flight (Sanyal has no posts after 28 Following: 44
time. Felt will get here 45 mins late April, two days before the Recent Tweet:
strange,guilty&treasonous for elections in her Maharashtra For the record! I am SINGLE &
not being on AI! KRIS GOPALAKRISHNAN constituency got over.) not dating any one from my
Infosys team
VIJAY MALLYA Followers: 434 SHASHI THAROOR
UB Group Following: 0 Politician PRIETY ZINTA
Followers: Recent tweet: Schools closing Followers: Fraud
20,309 for summer holidays. And IPL 737,696 Followers: 3,471
Following: 29 competition heating up. Following: 32 Following: 19
Recent tweet: IPL Annual results by companies Recent tweet: I’ve Recent tweet: Do you think I
divided by politics-united by next 4 weeks had enough. am real.

the buttons by which she communi- characterised by short attention long-lasting change. Leading the list
cated with her friends.) spans, sensationalism, inability to is media. “Twitter has evolved as a
“I am also seeing a lot of sexual empathise and a shaky sense of iden- real-time news platform and at
deviance in children,” continues tity. “iPod health warning,” screams times, has even broken news before
Marker. “They are exposed at a very The Sun of London. mainstream media outlets,” says
young age to porn and drugs. In Shivakumar of Nokia.
adults, social media has resulted in Pass with time The print media is anyway on the
increased discordance in family life. Every new technology or societal threatened list. Many publishers don’t
So much access is bound to impact change will have its quota of sceptics. realise that it is the content they are
family life.” It is true that some will suffer, but you selling, not the format. The dead-tree
Others have documented these cannot extrapolate that to the entire edition is anyway dead for other rea-
effects too. Lady Greenfield, professor population. This too will pass. sons. In a couple of decades, newsprint
of synaptic pharmacology at Oxford’s Sadagopan of IIIT expects social made by cutting trees will be treated
Lincoln College, told the UK House of networks to stabilise in 5-10 years. the same way as animal skins. The tree
Lords last year that social networks But there are some places where huggers may be laughed at today, but
were infantilising the mind, leaving it the Twitter Generation will introduce they will eventually win.

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Revolution won’t come overnight.
In the interim, print will carry on – In good company Indian business owners are not exposed
particularly in countries like India to successful case studies of the benefits
and in regional languages. And the
media needs to take interim steps to
the final transition. To put all print
I f a company is known by the men it
keeps on projects such as social media,
India Inc rates very poorly. According to
of Twitter and social media,” says
Sharma. “They have started Twitter and
Facebook accounts just because their
publications in the digital basket Daksh Sharma, co-founder and delivery competitors have done so.”
today is like buying baby clothes even head of Iffort Consulting, a start-up in the “Indian companies are yet to wake up
before you have conceived. Web strategy and social media consulting to the revolution happening in e-space,”
“Organisations that are comfort- space, very few Indian companies are on says K. Pandia Rajan, managing direc-
able with fast adaptation and innova- Twitter or Facebook. Many of the tor of integrated HR services
tion will succeed,” says Girish ones that are have simply auto- provider Ma Foi. Adds Harish
Agarwal, director of the Dainik mated the process Bijoor, brand strategy specialist
Bhaskar group, which has several lead- and outsourced the and CEO of Harish
ing language publications and the maintenance. “The Bijoor Consults Inc,
English morninger DNA (Daily News & problem is that “Marketers in India
Analysis). But adaptation is not the The best
only way; the Bhaskar group intends
companies
to become far more proactive.
“Information consumption pat-
Most active account: MSN India (38,857 tweets)
terns are changing,” says the group’s
vice president – marketing, Sanjeev Most followed brand: MTV India (56,560 followers)
Kotnala. “Bold changes are visible in Most conversational brand: ICICI Bank (98.32% tweets)
personal and community information Most Re-tweeted brand: Tatadocomo (31% tweets)
sharing. This accentuates the need to
know early.” He says the group has Oldest brand: Bookmyshow.com (active since October 2007)
been going in for localisation to match Note: A conversation is one in which the tweets are participating in two-way traffic as different from one-way
the needs for different niches. But for a promotional messages. Re-tweets are those forwarded to others. Source: Indian companies on Twitter, Iffort
mass-market product like a newspa-
per, there is a limit to how far you can
go down that route. Twitter (like sev- specific languages. Shivakumar of exploring the possibilities of getting
eral publishing portals on Nokia says that Twitter is now avail- into the print media business in
the Net) can be individu- able in languages like French, Spanish India.” As journalists scurried and edi-
alised and per- and Italian. “We might be tweeting in tors worried, it turned out that it was a
sonalised; you Hindi, Bengali or Kannada in the fake; Shankar didn’t have a Facebook
get tweets only future,” he says. Incidentally, moneti- account at all. Experts say that credi-
from specific sation – which might bring in bility will decide the future of publish-
people or in unwanted tweets – could well harm ing. You expect unsubstantiated
Twitter without delivering much rev- gossip from Twitter; it is the digital
enue. What would you do with a tweet equivalent of the water cooler. You are
in Traditional Chinese? prepared to put up with some of it
“Social networks are from TV. However, as the current
Trust in tweets debate shows, the shrill voices on the
infantilising the mind, The danger with unknown tweets is different news channels are destroying
leaving it that you don’t know how much to the very edifice of their medium. But
characterised by short trust them, assuming you can read for long shelf-life products like maga-
them in the first place. If Reuters says zines, you just cannot get your facts
attention spans, the IPL boss is sacked, you’ll probably wrong. Credibility is proportional to
sensationalism, believe that. But if the tweet comes shelf-life, both in terms of the nature
inability to empathise from a Routers in Ranchi, you would of the product and the future of the
be mad if you accepted that at organisation. The other conclusion:
and a shaky sense of face value. media houses need to be across the
identity.” Because Twitter is immediate, it spectrum. They need to tweet too.
LADY GREENFIELD needs greater circumspection. But Media is a segment. What cuts
Professor of synaptic Facebook and family can have credi- across is the brand. “In many ways,
pharmacology at Oxford’s Lincoln bility problems too. Recently, Star what has happened to cricket and
College India CEO Uday Shankar posted on what cricket has been able to cascade
Facebook, “Star India, a wholly owned as a mindset amongst some 780
subsidiary of STAR Hong Kong, is million cricket viewers in this country

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are still reading the tea leaves. Not many Twitter to showcase their latest offerings, responsive,” says D. Shivakumar, Nokia
have reacted as yet.” promote product launches, offer dis- India VP and country manager. “That’s a
Iffort Consulting has just completed a counts and announce contests. There are great way of telling your customer that
study titled Indian Companies on Twitter: A specific campaigns around Twitter. you care. Twitter has worked for brands
Usage Study. It looked at companies in Some in the IT industry like Microsoft such as Comcast, Dell, Starbucks and
nine verticals – information technology India (it has a team of 5-6 people), Nokia because it is real time, transparent,
(IT)/IT-enabled services, telecom, fast- Hewlett-Packard India and Capgemini are honest and open minded.”
moving consumer goods, healthcare, Twitter-friendly. Their accounts are active On a global level, companies are allo-
Internet, finance, logistics, media and and managed by real people. Most Indian cating approximately 3-4 per cent of their
automobiles. The cut-off was brands with IT companies, however, have taken the marketing budgets to social media. “In
a minimum 100 followers and 50 tweets. easy way out by automating the process. India, no such figures are available,”
(To put that in perspective, globally Nokia The result: No ‘conversation’. says Sharma of Iffort. But it would be
has 20,735 followers and 230 tweets; But the bottomline is that “Twitter’s significantly less.
Ford Motor has 29,572 and 4,555.) penetration in organisations will continue Figures of a different sort are available,
The key findings of the Iffort study are: to increase on both sides of the spectrum. however. And they explain what corpo-
Many of the active brands are using Conversations between users and brands rate India is more concerned about.
Twitter as a broadcasting platform. But which are managed by humans with an According to a study by the Associated
several are focussed on the ‘conversa- emotional quotient will continue to Chambers of Commerce and Industry
tional’ aspects with emphasis on thrive. The focus will lessen on one-way (ASSOCHAM), close to 12.5 per cent of the
customer service. broadcasts where Twitter accounts simply productivity of human resources in the
News brands make the most tweets. translate into monotonous RSS (Really corporate sector is “misappropriated
That’s expected; they have something Simple Syndication) feeds. More compa- each day”... the average employee
new to say. nies will start using Twitter for market spends an hour, “gluing to various social
Twitter can be a wonderful tool for res- research, listening to users and keeping networking sites such as Orkut, Facebook,
olution of customer problems. Happy cus- track of competition.” MySpace, LinkedIn, etc for romancing or
tomers communicate to other Tweeters. “What consumers appreciate the most otherwise... (sic)”.
Organisations have started adapting is ‘being heard’ and brands that are Romancing? That’s strictly for the birds.

(the mindset of impatience), typifies to develop multiple brands and multi- Sarwate. “Even in our products where
current consumer sentiment,” says ple positioning platforms for them. we have had sustained high market
Harish Bijoor, brand strategy special- This is somewhat like the traditional share, such sustenance has been
ist and CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults flanking strategy. If a consumer has to achieved through constant new
Inc. “The idea is a simple one. We switch, let him do so to a same-house offerings to the consumer.”
have very little time. Let’s get a lot brand. But that has implications for A similar churn in thinking is going
done in it. We don’t have time to daw- umbrella branding and corporate on in another across-the-spectrum
dle. The thought pattern in the minds reputation building. area – the workplace. Some changes
of consumers is simple as well: When The Twitter Generation will not are already visible. Recruitment meth-
you can be impatient, why be patient? stand still. It expects that others will ods and channels no longer rely on
“When consumers have shorter not do so too. “Brand loyalty can now snail mail. The appointment ad has
lifecycles of interest and shorter be maintained only through constant disappeared from print media, except
patience platforms, brands are them- change and innovation,” says in places where it is used to bolster
selves threatened. Do remember that
a brand in the old days meant loyalty.
This very brand loyalty morphs into
brand promiscuity in the new mind-
set. This means that brand users will
want to move from brand to brand
faster. Brand switchers and brand
fence sitters will form a large portion
of the market, much larger than brand
loyalists. Marketers need to prepare
for this. Be prepared for the death of
absolute brand loyalty, and be pre-
pared to harvest profits from temporal
brand loyalty that might last with
your brand for less than 18 months.”
As a corollary, companies will have

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corporate image. LinkedIn is a site for
professionals, so job-hunting is a pri-
ority here. But there are more than 100
Twitter accounts and applications to
help you find a job.
“The word of mouth or letter of
recommendation is now slowly being
replaced by online credentials,” says
Pandia Rajan of Ma Foi. “Networking
sites are fast becoming a medium for
headhunting and reference checks.
Online social presence and participa-
tion is being considered very impor-
tant by many professionals for
elevating their professional status.
Online networking is fast replacing
the old-world methods of social clubs,
which played a very important role in backpack benefits that they can carry needs personalised attention. It needs
professional networking.” with them, rather than benefits linked kid-glove handling. “Business as usual
What you gain on the round- to employers, which are not portable. on the people front is not an option
abouts, you lose on the swings. The Organisations are getting flatter, but because there is no business as usual
speed of locating and hiring talent is the youth expect to move up quickly any more,” says Towers Watson.
just as applicable to your competition and this tension will have to be han- “The old saying that nothing is
too. “Information about the market dled creatively and carefully. permanent but change has turned out
travels faster than expected,” says Employer brands will matter more to be true more than ever before,” says
Pandia Rajan. And industry attrition because of snap evaluations; compa- Sarwate of Marico. “But rather than
rates are higher than expected. nies will not get a second chance to looking at this as movement towards
make an impression on valuable tal- shortening perspective, we can look at
Deeper dimension ent. So corporate communication it as an accelerating change process. I
These are the nuts and bolts of the skills will increasingly become a differ- think most of the media is still domi-
business. There is a deeper dimension. entiator in a world driven by sound- nated by people in the ‘old’ age group
“The biggest manifestation of this bites, summaries and messaging.” and they are somewhat uncomfort-
change is that the youth no longer A recent survey by global profes- able with this. If you look at the
view employment as a contract, but as sional services company Towers Wat- younger generation, they are used to
a transaction. Unlike their parents son says that a ‘new deal’ has arrived change much more than they are used
who viewed employment as a lifelong in employee-employer relations. Its to stability. One of the measures we
relationship, they view it as a taxicab 2010 Global Workforce Study finds have taken to sustain growth is to
relationship,” says Manish Sabhar- this more balanced. Because the dice address the younger crowd far more
wal, co-founder and chairman of has always been loaded against work- than the older crowd.” Given that
staffing services firm TeamLease. ers, the change is in their Twitter is getting older – in more ways
A member of the taxicab genera- favour. The than one – marketers have to address
tion goes on short trips. If one cab is Twitter Gener- both the boy who is half a man and
not available, he will find another. He ation in the the man who is half a boy.
has more opportunity. He has less loy- workplace The Twitter Generation is evolv-
alty. He becomes easily bored with a ing; shorter attention spans mean
particular job. He can easily go walka- that they will flit from Twitter too.
bout; he has the confidence (at least Remember Geocities, which was
in India) that jobs will be easy to find. “When consumers incredibly popular until Yahoo!
Sabharwal sees other changes. “The have shorter lifecycles bought it in 1999 for $3.57 billion and
youthification of corporate India – wound up last year. Or Tripod, which
also the global workforce, given that
of interest and shorter was also partly closed down last year.
25 per cent of the world’s new workers patience platforms, The next big thing is likely to be
in the next five years will be Indians – brands are themselves geosocial networking. Waiting in the
has interesting implications for organ- wings are the likes of Foursquare and
isations and managers,” he says. threatened.” Gowalla, location-based social net-
“Younger people increasingly value HARISH BIJOOR working Websites with bells and
higher takehome salaries than Brand strategy specialist and CEO whistles thrown in. You will read
deferred compensation and benefits. of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. about them soon – on Twitter.
If they must have benefits, they prefer N PARTHASARATHI SWAMI and HIRAL SHETH

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Business India May 2010 - Twitter Cover Story

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