SmartCrowds Blog

One of Gaurav Mishra’s predictions for 2009 is “More Indian corporates will use social media tools to engage with their customers”, with a mention of BrandAdda in the article.

On IndianWebStartups here.

On DigiMouth here.

Thanks guys!.

Thanks to pluggd.in and WATBlog for their reviews and feedback (pluggd.in review, WATBlog review). Thanks to AlooTechie for the news article.

Our wishes and prayers for peace & comfort to the victims of this senseless and avoidable calamity.

Futile, lose-lose, destructive, toxic .. are some words that come to mind to describe the actions of the terrorists on the field. The only ones who may find this satisfying are a small handful who, in their lust & greed for power, use these unfortunate souls as pawns. These pawns are victims too.

We hope this is a wake-up call to each and every indidivual to be alert at every moment and at every place - whether it be a mall, a theater, a hotel, or a neighbourhood in the urban areas, or a quiet, remote, place deep in the rural areas. A billion watchful eyes is a formidable force. But this force can be squandered without proper support from the administration. Imagine a nationwide, central, terrorist hotline. Something simple to dial as 123.. Something that will cut through local/regional power politics and traitor networks. We need an effective, active, alert, and swift central network.

We hope this is a wake-up call to all the officials in the administration who, for personal greed, help breed the underworld networks. These officials are part of the country, and yet bring cancer into it, thinking they’re immune - until the victims includes one of their own. They are like an arm of the body that thinks that inhaling smoke will only hurt the lungs, and the arm is safe. They are victims too, but willing ones.

For all that support and perpetrate inhumanity, we pray for their hearts to be injected with wisdom, courage, grace, and compassion - in short, the STRENGTH to be HUMAN.

Peace to all.

(flickr picture by mauricedb)

BrandAdda is now open to the public, and transitioned from the Private Beta to the Public Beta Milestone couple of days ago.

It has been a long journey, but the satisfaction of launching a product we love does justice to all the tough moments we went through.

Our dream is to inject the practice of Marketing with the power and creativity of Consumers.  We’ve put our contraption out there. Let’s see how the world receives it.

A hearty welcome to all at BrandAdda - the roundtable for Consumers and Brands.

This article came to our attention courtesy of Google Alerts. We’re in violent agreement with it :). The resonance is remarkable. Our comment about it.

A quote from the article

“Now is the time for smarter not bigger. And the smart way forward is collaboration. People will learn and teach each other. By leveraging the power of the community, a new model is born that can succeed in the new world. Smart crowds.”

The now famous presentation from Sequoia Capital has probably reached every inbox in the technology world. Since Sequoia is one of the finest VC firms around, this note, quite understandably, is taken as a signal that startups are in danger. Since SmartCrowds is a startup, this came into my inbox with an additional note of caution.

Going through the presentation, I found some graphs & inductions that went over my head (I’m no economist), and some advice that seemed like timeless principles that don’t particularly apply to bad times alone. Cash is king, Manage spending, Focus on quality, Reduce debt, Need for profitability, and so on…. Who didn’t think these were important during good times??.

My layman economic sense tells me that rather than cutting investments in startups during bad times, it should be increased!. At bad times, more than ever, there is a acute need to do more for less, and to constantly innovate on products, technology, and business models.

More for less: There are two economic “beings” that rush to my mind that excel at more for less - Chinese Manufacturing Units, and Startups!.

Constantly Innovate: This is the very basis of a startup’s existence and survival. Startups are constantly pushing the envelope here.

Ergo: Investing in startups is now a better idea than ever.

Its true that a majority of startups fail. But if we stop experimenting, we run the risk of stagnating or worsening an already bad situation. Startups are the cheapest & fastest ways to experiment. I don’t believe large corporations are suited to run experiments as quickly and as cheaply as startups can. Startups are a key part of the economic engine.

So, where VCs are stepping back from investing in startups, Corporations and Governments should probably step in.. because this is good for the industry, and the economy as a whole.

On another note, now is the time for Marketing departments of large corporations to take a serious look at leveraging the wisdom of crowds on online media. Hundreds of billions are spent each year by Marketing, and there is significant belt-tightening that is going on with marketing budgets. Finding scalable, efficient, quick and cheap alternative ways has got to be one of the paths to be explored. It is not enough to just cut back on existing expense streams. Online/Mobile social media holds tremendous promise IMHO. ROI on offline ad spend, Ad testing, Ad creatives, Market Research, Product Strategy & Features, Promotions, PR, can all be improved with the help of such media.

The goal of this post is to request comments from Marketing, Branding, Advertising professionals about our newly launched product BrandAdda.

BrandAdda is a community platform with a broad base of tools that enable participation in the form of ideation, expression, sharing and exploration.

The protagonists on BrandAdda are Consumers and Companies.

The vision is to enable Win-Win Marketing, or Partnership Marketing.

By Marketing, we mean any or all of: Advertising, Market Research, Product/Service Strategy & Design, Public Relations, and Promotions.

For a moment, imagine there is a large, engaged audience on BrandAdda. Getting an Audience and getting Companies interested are inter-dependent, so in effect we have a chicken-n-egg problem, but we have some ideas on how this can be bootstrapped. So, for a moment assume that we do have the audience.

Below, we list some possible ways in which a MARKETING DEPARTMENT, or a BRANDING TEAM, or an AD AGENCY could leverage the BrandAdda platform.

1. IDEATION on Ad campaigns, Branding Campaigns

2. IDEATION on Product/Service features and design

3. PRE-TESTING, POST-TESTING of Ads to optimize spend and get indications of ROI

4. MARKET RESEARCH (fast, scalable)

5. FOCUS GROUP STUDIES

6. PROMOTIONAL EVENTS (LIVE) on the internet, including tools for live interaction between consumers and companies (e.g. chat rooms)

7. PROMOTION CHANNEL

8. PUBLIC RELATIONS CHANNEL (via COMPANY BLOG)

9. MARKET INSIGHT REPORTS organized by industry, region, demographics (Consumer Sentiment Index, Consumer Participation, Most Wanted, Most Loved, Most Hated, Key Insights etc..).
   Note that MARKET INSIGHT REPORTS are possible only after establishing critical mass using some application mentioned above.. so in that sense, this is a derivative application.

Based on this, we have some questions for Marketing/Branding/Advertising wizards with the goal of building solutions/applications that are relevant and useful to business.

1. What are your most important needs today?

2. What are your biggest pain points today?

3. What is the role of Consumers in your domain today? and How do you see it changing in the future?.

4. Do you foresee any trends that BrandAdda can help give you a jumpstart on?

5. What are the ways you would think a BrandAdda audience can help solve some of your problems in your domain?

6. Which of the above applications would be most interesting to you, and do you have other applications in mind beyond the ones listed?

Many thanks in advance for your kind consideration, and help.

We have recently updated our jobs page. Looking for a Business Head, Technology Head, FE/BE Engineers/Architects, and UED specialists.

If yourself or someone you know may fit these profiles, please let us know.

Cheers.

We would like to expose our product to a number of people in a Usability Test drive. We are looking for volunteers who can spend 2 hours with us, using the product, and giving feedback about their experience. We have Rs 500 as a token of appreciation for this time spent.

The kind of volunteers we’re looking for are those who love to offer their opinions/ideas/criticism/praise about Products, and/or Brands, whether it be offline or online.

If you’re interested, please send us a note with the following information about you, and we’ll contact you with details:

• Name
• Age
• Gender
• Education
• Profession
• Time spent online per week
• Favourite websites
• Favourite products and/or Brands

Please pass the word to those you think might be interested.

Thanks!!.