It has been trending in Twitter

It has been tweeted by many including Amitabh Bachchan, karan Johar, Your friends and you!!

Amul Butter made a ad based on it.

It has got several versions here, here and here.

A song by a non-singer has been leveraged by Singers also… Sonu Nigam (find it here)

This song has been picked up by IIM biggies to include as Viral Marketing case Study

2,10,000 music downloads within 18 days

Its officially India’s Biggest Viral campaign. Ever, with 23 Mn YouTube Views. 800,000 FB Shares. 12 Mn Twitter Impressions and 2,10,000 downloads within 18 days!!

How did it all happen??

A social network is a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called “nodes”, which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

and to build such social network, there are Social Networking websites. If you are not on any of the social networking websites listed here, please excuse us. (u can read other interesting articles on gadgets,  here). But if you are present on the social networking sites, especially on Facebook, theres something interesting for you!!

In celebration of its 160th anniversary, global payment services company Western Union has announced the launch of a hunt for the most networked person in the world using Facebook presence as a parameter. Western Union is calling for India’s most globally connected individuals to step forward and take the Western Union Network Challenge at www.westernunionworld.com/yourworld

Its an interactive, online application called ‘Your World’ which visualises Facebook fans’ global connections and users receive a score (“World Index”) that shows how globally connected they are. They can compare their ranking against their Facebook friends, against others in their country and against others globally.

Here’s my World Index:

Visit www.westernunionworld.com, take part in the contest mentioned below &  you could win a cool IPod Shuffle!!

Contest Mechanism:

In the comments section post the following:

1. Answer a simple question -

Which country received the most remittance in the year 2000?

2.  Post the screen shot of your World index (as shown above) on your Facebook profile and share the link of image with us

3. The contest closes on Sep 1, 2011. Sep 25th, 2011.

4. The winner will be announced on the blog on Sep 5, 2011. Sep 30th, 2011

Your answer in the comments section should be like this:

1) England

2) https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/303209_10150274032126270_626836269_8029821_5506847_n.jpg

All the best!!!

The “Heineken Huggers” were out on the streets hugging every Heineken drinking person, returning back the love, they gave with One Million likes on the Facebook Page. They shot a beautiful video , which already has 84,000 views in 2 weeks. The video also shows a person being denied of a hug because he’s not drinking Heineken!! Here’s the video -

A nice gesture to return the love to the Facebook fans. Generally brands give some goodies or incentives, but Heineken did a wonderful job by mixing the online and offline world. A BIG THUMBS UP!!!

Through this campaign Through this campaign, Heineken introduced new universal tag line ‘Open Your World’ with a host of ad campaigns: See here.

Which Indian brand do you think could send such Hug team or can take thanks gesture offline?

From here the story has 2 parts:

Part 1: Although Google’s Phone was a big pull, but still being android based was a bigger reason for me to persuade him. And the hunt began. Contact lists were scanned for any NRI friends! Relatives in US were pinged. And finally anyhow my friend got the phone (US-China-India). And I was obliged to accompany him to receive ’The Nexus One’ from the Airport! And when it started,   I was mesmerized by the Shining Screen. The google Id was entered and it took all the contacts from there, with images and profiles etc. .  it was magical.  And then we met very rarely. (he was busy with nexus one and I was busy with some work and jealousy!)

Part 2: One lazy after noon in office,  my other friend shouts my name ‘SUD!!!’ and shows me an invitation to Samsung’s Blogger meet to launch their new android based phone - Galaxy S and Wave with Samsung’s Bada OS. We eagerly went to the Blogger meet (Taj lands End), we were late by 45 minutes (as usual!). and then they started the show!!

First they (Product manager, Developer, Social media Agency etc.) explained about BADA OS - seemed great. Got to try both the phones- Wave and Galaxy S. Galaxy S’ 4 Inch Super Amoled Screen (first time in the world, I guess) was jaw dropping. The super responsive screen is an extreme delight to work with. and some cool features like, Social Hub, Swype (new method to enter text by just swiping your finger), 1 Ghz processor, Android OS all contribute to the best android phone ever!

Recently Google announced that Nexus one is the first and last from them. Well rightely said, Their main aim was to promote android with nexus one and they had accomplised that. Now the legacy has to be taken forward by the Mobile giants. And the latest entrant bring Samsung Galaxy S.

Now coming to the comparison, I got enough time to use both the phones.  Some of the features 4″ Super AMOLED screen, Superb bright and resolution screen, what I liked about the Samasung Galaxy S is the Social Hub, Which ?seamlessly integrates the SNS, IM, Contacts etc. One common minus point in both the phones is to call a contact, you need to do too many touch and takes some good 10-15 seconds! Some more points to note are:

• Both the phones boast of 1Ghz Processor (Galaxy S – Hummingbird and Nexus – Snapdragon)
• Galaxy S is much thinner and broader than Nexus One, which is problem to hold
• Galaxy S has got a flash, Nexus One hasnt got any.
• Samsung Support ‘Swype‘ – sliding text input method – 15% faster than Nexus One
• Galaxy S got a front camera (which also can record HD video), while Nexus One doesn’t have
• And last but Definitely not the least – the price difference is just 4-5 k, and Hold your breath, Nexus One is still not available in India.

And besides all these points, if you still are a Google Fanatic (HTC also!), go ahead for the following comparisons ( I am sure you will change your mind):

Comparison between Galaxy S & Nexus One

Besides these Motorola is coming up with their Driod Series, Which is certainly a threat to Samsung!

Do you have some more points? Do share.

Social media was used quite extensively for this. Pepsi’s Facebook Fan page which was launched 2-3 months ago, where they organised some contests and aggressively gave away Dhoni & Ishant Sharma USB drives.

Now with this new ad coming up, they started posting teasers in the form of Ranbir’s Pictures, Sanjay Dutt’s New look, The game concept, the sets etc. They even released a Making video on the facebook fan page.

In the teaser, Sanjay Dutt says: “Yahaan paheliyon ka jaal hoga, dher saara maal hoga… hai bheja to le jaa…”

All this created quite a buzz and curiosity for the ad, but today morning when the first look was released on Facebook, It was poorely edited, bad concept and strangely awkward Ad. Sanjay Dutt looks tacky.

But the biggest mistake was: I think they were quite excited for the new ad, but in excitement they posted an unfinished, unedited version of the Pepsi commercial.

so here are some clips where you can clearly see the camera trolley used, the chroma and the strings used for Ranbir.

Social Media is all about the content sharing but what do you share is also very important.

Some stills from the video

Camera trolley used for the shoot (0:11 - 0:12)

The Chroma & the strings used. in the Video you can easily see Ranbir jumping on the plain Chroma (0:16 - 0:17)

The actual shot after the Chroma is removed

The brain behind the video :

• Creative Agency: JWT India; Hari Krishnan
• Executive Creative Director: JWT India, Soumitra Karnik
• Production House: MAD Films; Sunil Manchanda
• Director: Marco Kalantari

Now whom should we ask – “Hai Bheja??”

You can download the unedited commercial here: Pepsi, Ranbir Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt

Comments and views are most welcome.

Today I had a talk with my elder brother, who had a bigggg collection of comics, from which I got the habit of reading. Suddenly he reminded me of a comic character superhero – Supremo, based on Amitabh Bachchan.

You would ask, Comic book, on a Film star?? Yes!!! The only reason could be, Amitabh Bachchan has had such a huge fan following that  a comic book was based on him, where the superstar doubled up as a superhero.

Amitabh Bachchan with his Comic book - Supremo

Speaking about the story behind the Supremo Comic Series, Pammi Bakshi says:

Amitabh Bachchan was a huge name in the 1980s. He had changed the economy of the film industry by giving hit after hit. One day, I saw some children playing in my building. They wanted to be superheroes — some wanted to be Superman and some Batman. But when Amitabh’s name was dropped, all of them started fighting as every child wanted to be Amitabh Bachchan!

I was very stunned, as until then I had thought Amitabh was a rage among elders and college-going kids. Here, I saw that he had a huge effect on school kids too. So I realised we needed something for children. I met Amitabh about this and he was okay with the idea of a Comic book. His only clause was that his character should not look like a caricature. There was no talk about remuneration.

How Gulzar got associated:
Gulzar was a close friend of mine. He was writing a book for his daughter Meghna at the time. I told him about the comic book idea and he came on board as a consultant. I was working with Movie Mag, a sister concern of India Book House (Supremo’s publishing house). So it was easier for me to work things out.

The most difficult part was to get an artist, who would make these comic characters. I approached Pratap Mullick. He was an illustrator, who has worked on comics like Amar Chitra Katha. This was the most difficult part as Pratap was not interested in doing anything filmi. I had to really coax him until he agreed. Pratap had not seen any Amitabh movies; he was far removed from films. So we made him watch some movies.

He made about eight to 10 looks of Supremo, and we took them to Amitabh. He approved one of them. The comic had two boys as his sidekicks, Vijay and Anthony — the names of Amitabh’s screen characters. Since Coolie had just released, we used the falcon and called it Shaheen.

Actress Sudha Chopra (Sparsh, Dostana, Kalaa Patthar) would write the stories or we would get freelancers to write them — there wasn’t one fixed story writer. We would also take stories sent by readers.

Why the name Supremo??
There’s an interesting story of how we named the comic Supremo. Amitabh was shooting for Pukar in Goa, along with Randhir Kapoor. When Amitabh would come on the sets, the whole of Goa would come to standstill. So everytime Amitabh would arrive, Randhir would say Supremo has arrived.

I liked the name and decided to call Amitabh’s comic character Supremo. Amitabh was okay with it. We showed the first few editions to Amitabh for his okay. After that, we would send him the script as a formality because once the comic took off, Amitabh never interfered. He was always accommodating. He asked us to send the comics to hospitals, welfare organisations and orphanages.

The comics stopped after two years, as I got married and went abroad. After I went, there was no one to look after it and the initiative died down.

Source: Rediff.com

Are you looking for single Indian Girls? or Chat free with 1000′s of Indian Girls or read this:

Chat with 1000′s of Indian Girls in your area as if its not a matrimony site but an Online Dating site!!!

I was on facebook, when I saw some ads. I saw  matrimonial ads of Shaadi.com and BharatMatrimony.com. And to my surprise the heading for the ad and Images they used, it seemed as of its an ad of some Dating/porno site.

And the images used by Match.com (Australian dating site for love, as they say themselves) uses much better image than the Indian Matrimonial sites. And, the same image was used for the two rival matrimonial Sites!!!

Who do you think is at fault? The matrimonial sites or Facebook to publish such ads?

And with these Reality shows the Bollywood stars are also turning up to Small Screen – Amitabh Bachchan in Big Boss (Not to forget inviting Ritesh Deshmukh, Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina to promote their films ), Genelia in Big Switch (Priyanka Chopra in an episode), and other TV biggies in multi star shows such as Pati Patni aur Woh (Rakhi Sawant, Apurva, Mauni, Juhi, Shilpa etc) and Raaz pichhle Janam Ka(Shekhar Suman, Monica Bedi etc)

Now Our own AB Baby, Junior Bachchan, Abhishek is all set to start his TV Stint. Yes, Abhishek Bachchan is soon to host a show on Colors.

A website for the show is already up: http://www.abhishekaaramclasses.com/ It has a Are you Aarami Game, Downloads videos etc. It doesnt have any sign saying this is a reality/game show!

All we can say to Junior Bachchan is – What an Idea Sir Ji!!!

But an Advertisng agency, BooneOakley, has adopted a unique way. They have created a Video and uplaoded on Youtube. You would probably thing, how do they link to portfolio, contacts etc? Thay have made them clickable within the video. By using the Youtube annotations they have created Links to other videos describing them.  Have a look:

Pretty cool Eh??  In first thought it looks cool idea to have such a website. After around 2 days of uploading It has already got 68,000+ visits & around 89 comments, All Thumbs Up!!!

It features a crap video but whats really good about the site (or Video) is that, its open to sharing, embedding, and commenting. It can be seen on all the platforms which support youtube videos. It certainly has a viral effect. A great website for an agency!!!

Brand DNA says: If I was a client I’d definitely be interested in talking to them. …

You can view BooneOakley video here

It Surely seems a success. But it can Kick Back too. If you remember, earlier such kind of activity was carried out by Skittles too. Thay had Made the twitter page as their homepage.

Once called as a great Social media practice by some Social Media Gurus, was a Social Media Failure.

ZDNet describes Skittles Social media Failure:

When the campaign first launched, the Skittles campaign was one of the hottest trending topics on Twitter.  . . .  All they did was turn their home page into a constantly revolving loop of people saying “OMG SKITTLES LOVES TWITTER.” It almost seemed to be an ad campaign for Twitter versus one to enhance the Skittles brand.  . .  Skittles broke one of the first cardinal rules of social media — it led with a tool and didn’t reach into its community. . . . .Fail, Skittles. Absolute fail.

Posting a image from wordcamp San Franciso. Somehow I find it Suitable!!!

It surely has created a buzz. But does it also have some negative impacts to BooneOakley? Share your thoughts.

Searching ones own name is termed as Ego Surfing. Searching about self is called Vanity Search. This practice of self googling can be a reason for rise in Narcissism [the trait of excessive self-love, based on self-image or ego] in people but also a strong reason to identify their online presence/ Brand Presence.

“The reason people search for themselves is that they’re curious about what other people see when they search for their name,” 

“One problem is they don’t have any control over the search results. Either they don’t like the search results, or what happens most of the time is, they’re not listed on the first page. If your name is Brian Jones and you’re not the deceased Rolling Stones guitarist, you don’t exist.“

Joe Kraus, Google’s director of product management.

So, What can be done to be on the top in the search results of your name. Some of the basic steps would be:

Get a social life: By this I mean have a presence in Social networks. Social Networks play an important role in getting your profile in top search results. With Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter etc. now having your name in the title of their pages, make you searchable. 

For eg: Earlier my Facebook profile url was: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=626836269

But now it has been changed to: www.facebook.com/people/Sudhindra-Rao/626836269

Same is the case with titles too: Facebook title has been changed to
Facebook | Sudhindra Rao

Same is the case with Twitter too. Twittler title of your home page shows something like: 

Google Profile: Seems now, Google is also taking Vanity search Seriously. Last week they launched Google Profiles. Google profile is like an online sheet of all your personal infromation, your pic, your online presence, your address, companies you worked for, your bio, and even your nickname!!!

The Google profile pages, appears in a box on the first page of the search results for their name (presently in US, Strangly mine appears!!)

For eg:  Click here to see My Profile.

You can also have your own profile. Just choose your name to be appeared, carefully. Choose a name which you think people would search you by. And to have your own click here.

The more detailed your profile, the higher your page is likely to be ranked on a Google search for your name and associated keywords. 

Happy Ego Searching!!!