Social Media Marketing/Online Reputation Management

I have recently initiated, among other internet marketing initiaives in my organisation, something called Social Media Marketing. One of the facets of Social Media Marketing is ORM (Online Reputation Management). Infact it will not be wrong to say that ORM is just another face of Social Media Marketing.

In India there's a fairly low level of awareness about ORM/SMM, and I thought it will be great to start a discussion around similar topics which are cutting edge and in vogue in mature economies, but gradually gaining ground in India.

So here it goes, please do contribute, it will be great to assimilate different ideas:

What is Online Reputation Management?

Online Reputation management is the process of tracking our image and perception in the market among stakeholders, recording the relevant perception pointers and opinions in the market; and creating a response strategy and action plan to either strengthen the positive pointers or weaken the negative perception.

Since a large base of customers/prospects/stakeholders access and share information via websites/blogs and search engines, Search Engine Reputation Management (or SERM) tactics are one of the most integral part of an overall ORM strategy.

3 Prime Focus Areas:

Monitor
Optimize and
Engage

Monitor

We need to monitor what: Brand, Products, Company and Key Executives.

Where: News, Blogs, Forums, Social Media and Search

Optimize

Most of the reputation management companies (and Corporates) often indulge in reactive measures. What they end up doing is chasing the dissenters and do not their brand in a position of control.

In-fact, in India a very common (and uneducated) response would be to ask one’s online agency to remove all bad content about oneself from all blogs in the world!

A few others of similar variety would attribute negative imagery on blogs to competition, and would want the agency or online marketing division to retort back with greater vengeance!

While the competition may be involved in spreading a negative word about you, it will be wise to stay stoic and not indulge in a similar reactive strategy.

What many people forget is that the consumer or the reader is much smarter than what they think of him!

What one needs to have, instead is a well thought –out long term strategy to have their digital communication optimized, so that they are present in the form of blogs, articles, or video content across identified set of sites.

Once one starts participating in selected number of strategic sites, their content will grow, communities around these content areas grow, and subsequently this content starts featuring in search results. Since more sites with positive content will feature in search engine, the old negative content sites will automatically be pushed down.

Engage

Let’s say that we encounter a negative article on a blog, here are steps in dealing with it:

Research the situation – is there merit?
If not, provide the facts and ask for corrections
If yes, then offer to discuss
Be ready to respond with your own blog
Be honest, be transparent and LISTEN
Results can be any anything from a positive turn around to a loyal brand evangelist.

A few tips to interact with negative blogs:

Investigate facts internally before taking action - could this be a competitor spreading rumor? Is there really something bad about a particular service which is being complained about?
Always take the high ground

Be honest!

Explain what you have done to rectify any issue

Offer to resolve any complaints personally - have a senior-level staff member make the offer - try to continue discussion offline and utilize your allies.

Don’t create new “personas” to support your position in blogs, forums and message boards as you’ll likely be caught! As I said the reader/consumer is very smart!

Look froward to the 2nd and concluding part next week!

Part-II, Marketing in Digital Age

Continuing from where we left...

3. To be innovative, in today’s parlance means being simple and straight.

Today’s consumers are younger but much smarter, and they do not want sugar coated message, if one can deliver it straight, one will be able to involve them. If you observe Google: it is not the most aesthetically designed site in the world, it does not have any content of it’s own, it does not have any flashy banner ads, or videos on the homepage. You can rarely see any ads/kiosks/hoardings promoting Google products but still, perhaps it is the largest traffic attracter in the internet space! Why?

Simple yet aesthetic design, fast & responsive service and relevant results. So keeping Google’s case in context, what would have Yahoo done in 1998. They would have tried to make better email systems, and better websites which would be feature rich and attractive.But Google saw two trends very clearly and early:

1. There was a catalytic growth in content on the net and this meant that in future people will need to try harder to get a specific information, since the information would then be spread across millions of ever-expanding worldwide network of websites. Hence a need for a good search mechanism.

2. With the design revolution, most sites will sport flash, video and multimedia content, that will make sites heavier and sites will take more time to load, hence a need for a site/search engine that’s light and loads fast.

(This means there still is an unfilled gap of a search engine that can index and search images, flash and other types of information that are still not indexed properly by Google)

That’s what Google did. Another important observation, which you may appreciate, : The major search sites of that era, ‘Excite', 'Alta Vista' and 'Lycos', also missed this point. They tried to expand into becoming horizontal portals (started to present news, and other information on the search site), and look where they are now!

Again, this also links back to observing the trends of peripheral products/categories (not necessarily customer trend only) and carve an opportunity out of it.

4. Marketing through Blogs:

I am sure you know, people across the world tuned themselves to the blogs, when USA invaded Iraq, to know the latest and real story. It was not the CNN or BBC, which held the attention of millions of concerned viewers across the world, but it were the blogs written by journalists who were on- ground during that time. Blogs are considered to be an honest and personal medium of expression, hence the trust and involvement is more.

Blogs are going to change the face of communication on earth! It’s upto us as to when and how do we want to leverage this. GM, Disney, Sony and various other organisations are leveraging Blogs to their advantage. In India, we have not seen much on this front, but this is what for instance, Maruti SX4 could have done:

1. Launch an extensive online campaign calling bloggers to empanel for test driving SX4.(Promote this offline, to build aspiration and involvement)
2. Select 50 bloggers across different platforms, and ask them to keep an SX4 for 1 week, and write about the experiences.
3. Capture videos, and photographs of bloggers using SX4 and spread them in different media as PR and ads as also post them on corporate site, youtube and community sites.
4. The bloggers eventually post their experience.
5. Integrate those blogs and promote them through online and offline mechanism and ask people to comment, ask questions and register for test drive.This could have given low cost high impact advantage to SX4.

Marketing through Blogs is an extremely interesting topic, and if an opportunity comes I shall be glad to share more on this in future.

I am sure you all have tried similar innovations in various aspects of your corporate life.
It will be great to hear and learn from your experience. Please do convey how you liked this article and share your thoughts.

I conclude by quoting Albert Einstein:
Innovation is not the product of logical thought, although the result is tied to logical structure.

Marketing Innovation in the Digital Age

Marketing is a process to come closer to consumer. How innovatively can one execute this process of coming closer to a consumer, would determine how innovative one is as a marketer.


This is how I decipher marketing!

1. Being innovative in marketing starts with listening to consumers (Not exactly)!
Don’t get me wrong, but in today’s world it’s imperative to observe a customer through all the means possible and not just do a feedback research that’s going to give predicted results.
Because it’s not always the consumer who knows the most about his own needs, or for that matter a product that he consumes!

To put things in context, imagine, how successfully Intel has executed it’s marketing program. It has always positioned it’s products at the top end of performance, and coupled with that, consistently launched new products with higher benchmarks.

Frankly, there is no specific need for me to buy a laptop with dual-core processor and hyperthreading (I perhaps don’t even know what difference can it bring to my life), but still I will think twice before buying an AMD equipped laptop or a cheaper celeron.

That’s because Intel has not necessarily just listened to customers, it has observed the buying behavior (which is simplistically, based on a feeling of consumer insecurity, that arises from less knowledge about technology and a tendency to buy products that comply with latest standards, so that they do not face any support problems later), and based on that configured it’s entire marketing strategy.

Intel is a leader, and as a leader it sets benchmarks…and changes them very frequently…it doesn’t wait for the customers or the competition to action or initiate any change/deviation.
Hence, OBSERVING a customer (see, who are the peripheral users, what are the peripheral needs of existing users, what are the peripheral products, buying behavior and see what best practices can we superimpose in our marketing) is more important than just listening to him.

Another example that comes to my mind is of one of the most impactful registration drive campaigns from Timejobs.com.

Timesjobs.com, observed two pain points,
1. Weak bandwidth/communication links: So when a person would start to register on Naukri or mosnter, many times, the connection breaks and the person has to re-fill the entire form.
2. The forms were so lengthy that, people would fill up half of it and then abandon it, to come back again and fill up at leisure.

(There was no specific complain from the customer, because for the customer Naukri and Monster were two great things that have happened to him, and if it means a little bit more effort to fill-in the form, not a problem)

Timejobs created ads that looked like registration forms and it did 2 things for Timesjobs:
1. The person can fill the form from anywhere (clicking a link from within google, or filling up a form within rediff.com)
2. It was quick and easy. (just 3 steps). A person needed to fill in just about 3 fields to get registered.

This helped in driving traffic, so much so that today, Timesjobs claims to be the fastest growing job portal in India.

Again, Timesjobs may not be a better product, but all it did was observe a latent need/consumer behavior and that made a difference.

2. Segmentise Consumers and make segment specific Product/marketing strategies

I have pondered and discussed this earlier in this blog.
For e.g.: Imagine if a company like HP ties up with a newspaper like Times of India (and their special School initiative), and say 100 Schools across India, and encourage children to come out with a fortnightly school newspaper.

The newspaper can be designed on HP-PCs using a few HP softwares, scanners and printers (they may collaborate with adobe for advanced users), and can be distributed by Times of India.
Imagine the number of young minds you can influence. These youngsters are not just the influencers today, but will be the actual buyers and users tomorrow.

Similarly this can be done for doctors, architects and other segments. All we need to do is to create a difference in terms of reaching closer to our prospects and creating an impact.
It’s a great opportunity, especially for players in the field of online gaming, blogging and social networking to tap into specific segments and leverage.


To be concluded... Please look forward to the concluding part of this article, this weekend. We shall discuss Blog Marketing and other innovative and simple ways to market your product)

(This article was first published on http://www.desicreative.com)

8 Interesting Ways to Reduce Online-fraud!

Before we proceed, it’s very important to look at your transaction data and analyse, which segments need what level of fraud control. For e.g. in some cases high value items attract the most fraud, however in many cases, in 2007, the frauds are happening in low denomination items!.

Hence depending upon, factors, (countries, domains, item value etc.), one needs to decide the investment and resources needed for fraud control:

So, here you go :

1. Extra verification: There is an innovative verification technique, I saw at the telesign website (www.telesign.com)

When the person clicks on submit button after filing up the signup for on your site, within a few seconds he receives a call on the number he has provided in the form...and there is an automated voice with a 4 digit pin no.

The customer needs to put that no. in the verification box on your website

We are assuming that a fraudster would not give his real no. in which case he will not be able to verify.

This entire process would take less than 30 seconds.

2. Motivate people for direct debit: give them incentive to use direct debit facility. One would need to tie up with various banks to offer this facility. Chances of fraud are less in this case.

3. Tie up with a credit card company to launch a corporate card...say… Xyz- BankAm credit cards.

Promote these cards on your website and offer incentives. The credit card company will verify the database and share the same with us. We can also use one extra step of verification (like sending a PIN): THIS pin will be delivered at the physical address of the person who has signed up for the card and is sent by the bank. Once received, the person needs to use that pin, while making any payments on your site.

Another benefit of this idea:

A cash back scheme/ frequent user scheme can be easily deployed for the card holders and will go a long way in promoting customer loyalty.

4. We can ask people to use only corporate/paid email ids. No free email ids are allowed.

(Most of the fraud cases are through free email ids): again this would hold true for the denomination where we see most of the fraud happening (say USD 50 and above).

I feel that in the next 6 months, e-commerce sites are going to be very strict on this, though this may seem a put-off initially, this scheme has a potential to go a long way!

5. Proactively sending emails to people after signups and asking them
to call you directly (and not their ban) if they think there is an error; goes a long way in reducing chargeback.

6. Industry negative database: Collaborate with other players in the industry and make an industry negative list. Or hire the services of a professional firm that can provide with updated negative list.

7. Need of a CSO/online security team for policy, application -implementation and control. A CSO brings in a professional approach to the challenges alongwith a thought-process guided policy, action plan and resources.

8. Order Velocity: Check the order velocity pattern across you site or various merchant sites . Deploy software that can check this, or form an industry consortium, and check this in real time.

Reasons for Chargebacks and Their Remedies

Chargebacks can fall into any of five different reason categories:

1. Processing Errors
2. Customer Dispute
3. Post-Transaction (or non-fulfilment of copy requests)
4. Potential Fraud
5. Authorization-Related
In a CNP scenario (Card not Present), following reasons are most common: Processing Errors, Customer Dispute, and Potential Fraud.

Remedies

By all means online merchants are at a disadvantage when it comes to chargebacks. With no credit card to swipe or receipt to sign, one needs to be innovative to really verify a sale.

For ecommerce players like online gaming or online calling services , the situation is even worse, because the delivery of service is immediate and online.
There are new tools available, and more on the way, that aim to reduce online fraud and therefore reduce opportunities for chargebacks. Two similar technologies, Verified by Visa and SecureCode, provided by Visa and MasterCard respectively, will help to verify a customer's identity at the time of purchase.

Unfortunately, I am not sure what’s the base that these companies have, and then there is always a threat of loosing a customer, since it’s one extra step in the entire ecommerce process and not all customers would remember the secureCode/Verified by Visa code at all times.
So this will have a limited impact for now.

But while you use and adopt the Fraud Management technology, nothing beats a Customer Centric Environment.

I would advise the following :

Analyse the reasons why one has a high incidence of chargebacks.

1. If it is fraud:
a. then one needs to have fraud management system in place. (Connect with Visa, PayPal,
CCavenue or specific security/fraud management agencies and configure policies and
systems around address verification, negative database, verify IP, order velocity, etc.)

b. Share your negative database with your competition and make a Global Industry
Negative Database : Block these cards across the Industry.

2. if it is due to customer dissatisfaction: we need to work towards
a. Better and more frequent communication with customers

b. Put in place a system, that records step by step affirmatives and sign-ups by the
customer. This is proactively recording customer satisfaction and his receipt of service, so
that even in case of dispute the incidence is minimum, and to start with it will help you
have a satisfied customer with less chances of dispute.

c. Have a visible customer contact available at your site and all communications with
customer (including billing).

d. Run a customer loyalty program

At the end of it, as someone said, one needs to progress and become smarter along the way. There is no quick-fix and there is no permanent solution.


Sources http://www.cybersource.com, http://www.visa.com, http://www.sitepoint.com

Charge-Backs: A Deadly threat for E-Commerce Merchants

Worlwide there are about 1.2m credit cards which are either stolen or are at risk. You can imagine if each of these cards do a transaction worth just USD1000, there is a potential loss of more than USD1B to the ecommerce industry worldwide.
According to cybersource (http://www.cybersource.com) approximately 1% of accepted orders turn out to be fraud, and in 2005 we lost USD2.5B due to these.
That’s not all, merchants reject 4% of incoming orders due to suspicion of fraud! (You can imagine the losses here!)
In India, as we embark upon the e-commerce revolution, we need to learn and prepare ourselves from the deadly threat of fraud and more specifically chargeback.
What Exactly is a Chargeback?
A chargeback occurs when a customer contacts a credit card-issuing bank to initiate a refund for a purchase they made on their credit card.
For merchants chargebacks can be costly , because not only the dollar amount of sale is lost, but also there is an added processing cost and time.
The Chargeback Process
Let's take a look at the chargeback process used by Visa and MasterCard. The process is as follows:
1. The customer disputes a transaction by contacting their card-issuing bank
2. The card-issuing bank researches to determine whether the reasoning for the chargeback is valid.
3. A provisional credit is provided to the customer. The card-issuing bank initiates a chargeback process and obtains credit from the merchant's processing bank.
4. The merchant's processing bank researches the validity of that chargeback.
5. The chargeback amount is removed from the merchant's account and the merchant's processing bank provides written notification to the merchant.
6. Did a processing error occur? If so, the sale is re-presented to the card-issuing bank for corrections.
7. The merchant provides documentation to remedy the chargeback. If the provided documentation is found to be satisfactory, the chargeback is declined and the customer is once again charged for the sale. If the documentation is found to be unsatisfactory, the chargeback is successful and the process ends.

Look forward to my next posting on the reasons and remedies for avoiding Charge-backs.

Late posting, but interesting. I was in news sometime back, when I tried to promote this blog through adwords and other search vehicles.

check it out !!


http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/12/googler-with-some-big-adwords.html

Shahrukh Khan and Saif Khan in PC Ads!

Yesterday we were having an intersting discussion within our group, about how the technology (B2C) marketing/advertising is changing in India.

So the discussion started with the observation that increasingly the PC companies are hiring celebrities (mostly from Bollywood) to promote their products, and if we see the statitics, both the brands that hired Shahrukh Khan and Saif Khan, are among the top 3 brands of the country!

This stems out from the fact that , firstly PCs have become a commodity and hence one of the ways to do the differentiation is to attach a specific personality to the brand.

Secondly: at the end of the day it's a technical product and a layman would buy your product based on the applications rather than the technology-which he doesn't understand anyways!

Hence a celebrity can illustrate the applications in Bollywood style, and to add to it will attract a lot of eyeballs.

So both : attraction/visibility and involvement or signifying a USP are attained through celebrity endorsement

This indeed takes from where I left in my last blog (see below, "Lack of innovations ...").

and reiterating the fact that a large volume of the PCs sold in India are sold to Home segment. The major drivers of buying a PC in home are:

1. GAMING

2. Multimedia ( listening to songs, designing a greeting card, watching the digital photographs etc.)

3. Entertainment (mediacentre like capabilities)

4. EDUCATION of Children and

5. Internet (chat, email, search, blog)

So, the moot question still is infront of us: What are the PC companies doing to use the above traits/attributes to sell their PCs?

The answer is: They have hired bollywood celebrities, and that's how far they have gone!

I think that's a good start but we need to go far, and faster.

The problem in India is; We do not think big! We are fearful of visualising a BIG market! We are happy the way things are!

What happens if we take each of the above 5 points , and weave a strategy to achieve the goals (quantitaive: how many PCs sold through each of the above 5, as well as qualitative: mindshare, feedback, leads, brand involvement etc.)

Thinking abruptly: Can we have specialised PCs for professionals:

Can we have PCs for Doctors: Even before that can we have a workshop for Doctors; BUT NOT TO SELL PCs, but to explain them how they can really turn super-imapctful with the use of technology

Can we organsie a workshop for Doctors, and explain them how they can use technology to be more efficient:

1. tell them about how a database management system can help them keep a record of patients' history; trends and help them forecast specific ailments in advance.

2. How they can collaborate and be a part of the worldwide health forums

etc.

Similarly can we have workshops for Architects, Designers, CAs, etc.

If we can help them in meeting their needs more efficiently ; these clusters will prefer buying our brands and more than anything else they will bite into the product category sooner than we think.

The market in India is big! Our thoughts are not! The demand of the time is to allign with similar or different product categories, create customised packages and sell innovatively AND INDIRECTLY: through meeting the needs of core TAs.

The Caveat: It may be slightly more expensive to convert the peripheral customers, and the total cost of acquisition will be higher than one is used to. But that's an investment to secure a future market and building a brand. And in long run: one will be able to run a lower than market acquisition costs.

Source of Pitures of Shahrukh and Saif: http://www.funmunch.com

Holiday in Goa

AIR TICKETS FROM 699 onwards; Stay in Goa from 999 onwards... The ads were screaming fiercely on a website; to get my undivided attention.

And attention they did get! I decided that moment that I should spend my Christmas Holidays in Goa. Not necessarily because the fares were damn cheap; but also because it seemed to me that that there are enough flights and hotels available in Goa even in this peak season! And I haven't been to Goa in a while now! Hence I thought to myself: "Saurabh this is a good place to spend your holidays in peace"

Now that's another story; if I tell you that when I went online to book Hotels; there seemed to be a shortage, but anyhow; I managed to get me and my family booked into Taj Holiday Village and also booked my Air tickets- all this in less than half a day. And thanks to the Travel search engines and the airline portals, I was able to get a good deal on all fronts.

I reached Goa after 3 years; the last time I was there I stayed at the International Centre near Cida de Goa, and I spent a large part of my stay in a training program. In fact to think of it I have been to Goa about 3-4 times till now and have always been on some official training stuff!!

So, this time was different; and I was sure to have a good time.

Goa was hot (31 degrees c) as compared to Delhi (about 15-18 degrees c on that day), but the evenings were very pleasant.

Taj Holiday Village is about 1 hour away from Airport, in a place called BARDEZ. Slightly away from the heart of the city (about 30 mins from Panjim), but the resort is awesome.


We had a deluxe sea facing cottage, with private garden, beach beds, and a personal Hammock!

Things that I would advise you to do :

1. If you have a kid, stay in Taj Holiday Village. Why?

Couples with very Young kids (say 1.5 years to 3.5 years) often complain about not being able to have a peaceful dinner or lunch....one of the parents will always be with the kid, trying to stop him from running away, or throwing spoons here and there...

So at this place there are huge open gardens and parks, and the kids can play without any problem, while the couples can have their meal/coffee/tea sitting by the sea in one of the most amazing restaurant with a breathtaking view of the sea and the Sunset/Sunrise.

2. As soon as you come out of the hotel, you can see a auto rental shop, you can hire a bike, scooty or even a self driven car. And that's the thing to do in Goa. So, try and find a shop like this and rent out a vehicle. They would charge you from 350 INR (24 hours) for a bike to about 1000INR (for a self driven car, 24 hours) in peak season, I am sure the rates reduce to 50% in non-peak seasons.

3. Do not take your blackberry with you !

In my case not only did I carry my blackberry , but also my laptop, and you can imagine what happened to my holidays!


But all said and done; the resort with it's scenic beauty, beach sports, photofinish landscape, and amazing dining by the sea and live music...makes up for everything.

I had a ball of time in Goa this year, and have now returned back to work, re-charged!

Lack of Innovations - Indian PC Marketers?

So, We sold about 5m PCs this year, and total base of PCs in India would be about 20-25m.
If you go deeper into the statistics, half of this installed base has come in within the last 4 years.

What does that tell us about the market: that the rest half is ready for replacing or upgrading their PCs! And that the market for new buyers is of course growing by leaps.

So, while there is a need for customised marketing program for existing PC users, there is a huge and critical need for growing our overall market.

What are the marketers doing in India to tap and grow the market?

So, essentially the marketers segmentise the market into various clusters, each segmented by volume, profitability, demographics, compeitition etc. attributes.

One of the most upcoming and dominant clusters is the Home segment. The segment where people buy PCs for their children, and largely the PCs are used for, gaming, a bit of digital photography, playing education CD ROMs, surfing internet for mails, and using office apps a bit.

Now, I feel there's not enough being done in this market. You may appreciate that the Office segment is laregly a bulk buying division where price, performance and global agreements, integration etc. play a major role.

But it's the home segment where one has the flexibility of innovating...and there's a lot more that we can do!

So, in the home segment, one can be very innovative and sell the products at varying degree of premiumness: I think we are not being very innovative in this segment.

We all know (through popular Intel ads) that a PC can improve educational productivity in a child. Can anyone of us illustrate HOW?

On a similar note how many PC companies have told us/educated us (through their print ads, TV ads or roadshows) exactly how can PCs improve the child's knowledge or educational perfromance?

How many PC companies have tied up with schools to educate children on PCs and applications that can help them research better or understand a topic better.

How many PC companies have a specific customised PC for children (between the age group 11-18 years)?

Leave that, how many PC companies have taken up a program to teach the compute teachers in schools?

There is a unique portal for school children developed by Oracle Corporation, which enables school children to collaborate on their home-works and projects and build a knowledge community. (http://www.think.com)

To the best of my knowledge about 900 Kendriya Vidyalayas are already a part of this collaboration website.

Imagine the awe of a student (and in our country even teachers to a large extent), when they find that they can share knowledge, teach someone a new language all with a click of a button.

Imagine the brand equity that can be built (as also the volumes of hard licesnses, or PCs that can be sold -though at a subsidised rate) amongst the influencer group.

There is a Unique program by Times of India for Schools wherein they distributed free copies of newspaper (alongwith a special education supplement) to hundreds/thousands of schools across the country; Can a PC/Printer vendor tie-up and create a platform where it enables the school children to create and print their own School Supplement through the use of a PC and Printer

Imagine the kind of brand involvement one can create, and the potential market share dominance that can be created through these small, yet segmented and targeted innovations

So, this is just one aspect of the entire segmentation exercise, when you delve on other segments, we can create similar innovation opportunities for each one of them and create dominance .

Instead what we are doing now: is copying US/Europe created ads, adapting them to include Indian faces and currency and publishing them in India.

Come-on India needs specific customised marketing programs, we don't have dearth of money, it seems we have a dearth of ideas and enthusiasm.

So, here's hoping that it will change. Amen!

Online Travel: Way to Go

I was recently attending the Eye For TRAVEL SEMINAR-INDIA, which was held in New Delhi.

The content was indeed rich; and if you want to know where the online Travel Inductry is heading...one thing that clearly came out was META SEARCH for Travel is gaining speed

While Meta Search has been in existance since the last 2-3 years, and while it is true that most of them (except maybe become.com) have not really made it big...the experience that they have gained over the last few years and the gradually growing communities around them is indeed a testimony to the fact that this area is going to grwo dominant soon.

According to Wikipedia(http:wikipedia.com)

"Meta (Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond"), is a common English prefix, used to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to analyze the latter. For example "metaphysics" refers to things beyond physics, and "meta language" refers to a type of language or system which describes language."

Now if you notice there is suddenly a flurry of activity around TRAVEL META SEARCH ENGINES or Travel Search Engines (TSEs)

Mobissimo.com; farechase, kayak, zoomtra (an indian site) etc. are good attempts at the same.

Now why do you need a Meta Travel Search engine: especially when you already have sites like: Makemytrip, yatra,travelocity, travelguru, cleartrip, etc.

The reason is simple: Consumers need the best prices and eventually most of the travel sites (like Yatra or Make my trip) may have different packages, different inventories and different prices.

The fact remains that no single site is sufficient as a one stop destination; hence consumers not only surf Online Travel sites but also Travel Search engines (or Travel-Meta-Search sites.)

So, for sure this is one of the things that will be talked about in 2007 in India.

What are the bottlenecks for a Meta Search site:

Before that; Meta searh sites normally do not need to be bound by a specific database or reservation system: That's 1 point in their favour.

However if a Meta search engine cannot cull data from the entire universe of Online travel aggregators, hotels and airlines; then they defy their very purpose. (Now I accept that this is Herculean task, but on a general note being vast makes sense here)

That's one of the most agonising problems that I guess Meta Search engines are facing worldwide. And if Someone in India needs to be succesful the following has to be considered religeously:


1. Tie up with as many OTAs and airlines, hotels etc. as possible

2. The platform should be such that the engine should not be biased (or potentially biased) for or against any specific type of reservation system or OTA site.

3. The interface should be such that it should give a very clean yet smart look. If possible make your interface shine with cutting edge technology, and try to be better than even an OTA site.

4. For God's sake invest in Customer care


I will conclude with an intersting quote in an article in The Wall Street Journal, by Michelle
Peluso, the CEO of Travelocity,: “We continue to evaluate them all [TSEs], but we’re still not convinced that any of them are good for consumers, suppliers,or us. We see these engines as commoditizing travel at a time when we’re working hard with suppliers to go in the opposite direction.”

So, there's gonna be a lot of action in 2007 in this vertical; let's watch and discuss.

As soon as we landed at SF International airport, we rushed for visitor/immigration counter. I was impressed by the smartness , keen observation and knowledge level of the officers.

It didn't take much time and the process was quite smooth. Maybe it was because of the Google brand name.

We were led outside into a comfortable volvo bus by a charming old lady (I was again impressed by the wittiness and energy level of the old lady).

We were half drowsy and may be dozed off in the bus until we saw the city lights of SF. It was a heavenly sight, and it seemed that we are immersing gradually into the glitter of SF. Suddenly things became exciting...proof...we are in the heart of the city.


Hilton was right on the road! Unlike our hotels Hilton SF (Union Square) doesn't have a compound, the gates open right on the main road, just like most of the other hotels in SF.

There were 3000 of us from across the world, visiting SF for our global conference,
and as if destiny wanted to have some fun, my name did not figure in the guest list of the hote. Which means I wasn't allocated a room.

So , here we go, another tryst began, and after an hour I and my room mate got ourselves aroom allocated.

I had a quick bath , we were curious to get out of the hotel and do some night sight seeing.

So SF is not a "corporate", "big city". It's a laid down city with very modern infrastructure: trams, metros, buses and all measn of transportation available.

The city reminds me of goa, essentially because of the laid back lifestyle. It's however indeed a very beautiful and green city.

So the first day we just grabbed some junk food and slept.

Next day was SUNDAY.


Time to go to "fisherman's wharf". A very beautiful place about the bay, good to hang out. Have food by the fireplace, munch snacks and cofee while looking at the yatches and just having fun.


The day passed in a jiffy. And we are back in the hotel. Tomorrow is monday, time for business, conference starts and I know we will have a tight schedule for the next 5 days.


But before that...one more intersting observation, I used to wake up at about 530 in the morning and go for a morning walk, about 4 kms. And ditto in the night.

I must share that there was not an iota of tiredness, the air was so fresh and invigorating, one would be keen to just continue walking.

I continued this schedule throughout the stay, and I can vouch now, morning walk works.

So, here we conclude, but what happened during the next 6 days, stay switched on to know.

Trip to USA

So, this was like a never ending journey. While you are going to the US from Delhi, it takes about 4 hours to reach Hong Kong and then about 11 more to reach US.

On our way, we halted for a couple of hours at the Hong Kong Airport and tried to make the maximum of our time there. The Airport certainly is world class and equipped with all modern facilities including the wireless internet access (which was like a lifeline for us, especially the ones with slightly more tech bias)

So we did some shopping, had cofee and surfed on our laptops while waiting for the connecting flight.

Now Cathay it seems has 3 different types of Indian Meals: Chole Chawal, Chole Chawal and Chole Chawal (at least they tasted and looked like chole chawal)

Now the most interesting part of the journey was ...."my wife's murder"!!!

Yup they were showing the movie and today I am glad I didn't waste my money viewing it in a cinema hall. But it was great to kill time.


One more observation: inadequate washrooms. Throughout the flight duration one could see ques of passangers waiting for their turn...meri baari kab aayegi :-)

(But was it inadequacy of washrooms, or more than adequate food and drinks that a few people stuffed and hence the need for frequent visits...seems like intersting matter for some research)

So essentially the time was well spent:

watching my wife's murder

curiously anticipating the innovative food servings (remember chole chawal)

and waiting for my turn...


and by the time we realised that one could surf internet on board...it was too late...we landed in San Fransico, our destinaton. One of the most beautiful places in USA, where we were to spend about 10 days.

It's going to be fun...watch out for my next posting...