ITV

Category: Social Media

  • Twitter appoints Taranjeet Singh as head of sales for India

    Twitter appoints Taranjeet Singh as head of sales for India

    MUMBAI: Twitter has appointed Taranjeet Singh as head of sales for its India operations. He will be based in the company’s Gurgaon office.

     

    Singh’s main responsibilities will be to increase the commercial opportunities for Twitter in India and to work closely with brands and agencies to maximise the value of real-time marketing on the world’s largest platform for live, public conversations.

     

    Twitter managing director – Southeast Asia, India and Middle East and North Africa Parminder Singh said, “India is a very important market for us – we’ve seen strong usage of our platform across the board last year and now is a great time to increase our local sales presence by bringing in Taranjeet as the head of sales for India.”

     

    Parminder believed that it has seen growing momentum for brands and agencies to use Twitter to connect with their audiences in real-time for major events as well as everyday moments in India. “Taranjeet will lead our partnership with brands for maximize their creativity and deepening their customer engagement on our platform to take our sales business to the next level in India.”

     

    Taranjeet added, “I’m excited to be part of the Twitter team in one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile and social media markets. Social media has such a big impact on Indian society today and Twitter is the best way for Indians to stay connected to their interests and the world. We have an amazing opportunity to help the best brands and agencies in India to understand the benefits of real-time marketing on the Twitter platform and make social media an integral element of every brand advertising campaign.”

     

    Taranjeet has more than 19 years of sales and business development experience and a comprehensive understanding of the media industry. In his last assignment as the BBC Advertising sales director, South Asia, he was responsible for revenue and business strategy for BBC World News and the website www.bbc.com. Prior to joining the BBC, Taranjeet held various positions at Outlook Publishing, including heading advertising sales and business development in northern India.

     

    Taranjeet holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from the Amity Business School and a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from DAV College, Dehradun. He is also currently pursuing a General Management leadership program from INSEAD.

  • Wikipedia contributors to share ideas on Wikimedia projects in Kolkata next week

    Wikipedia contributors to share ideas on Wikimedia projects in Kolkata next week

    KOLKATA: More than 250 Wikipedia contributors from India and Bangladesh are expected to meet at an international conference ‘Bengali Wikipedia 10th Anniversary Celebration’ in Kolkata to share ideas about the projects run by Wikimedia.

    Scheduled to be held on 9 and 10 January, 2015 at the Jadavpur University campus, the two-day conference would mark the 10th anniversary of the Bengali Wikimedia community, said Wikimedia India chapter secretary Jayanta Nath.

    The conference is planned to increase content in languages such as Bengali, the official said.

    With a mission to bring free educational content at everyone’s fingertips, Wikimedia Foundation runs projects like Wikipedia, an open-source encyclopedia where anyone can contribute, edit and review an article.

    The conference is a get together of Indian Wikimedians, students, research scholars, faculty members and all individual experts.

    The conference will give the Wiki users, Wiki editors and developers of Wikimedia projects an opportunity to meet with each other, exchange ideas, report on researches and projects and collaborate for the future projects and ideas.

    The conference is open to the public and widens the chance for the educators, researchers, programmers and cultural activists who are interested in the Wikimedia projects to meet the Wikimedians.

    Available at www.bn.wikipedia.org, the Bengali edition of Wikipedia has more than 35,000 articles in the regional language. But out of its 450 active contributors, a dismal number of only five are from India, he added, sounding a note of caution that how regional languages are losing their popularity when it comes to reading habits.

    “The majority are from Bangladesh. We are trying to increase our community from West Bengal,” Nath said.

     Around 17 Wikipedia contributors are coming from Bangladesh while another 22 delegates would be from India, it is further learnt.

    They will be conducting workshops and lectures for students on how to type, edit in Bengali, upload image in commons, contribute to Bengali Wiktionary, etc.

    Contributors from Indian languages like Telugu, Assamese, Hindi, Kannada, Odiya, Punjabi, Tamil, etc would be deliberating upon new ideas in the conference.
     
    A unique feature would be mass editing where a large group will work on articles related to West Bengal together.

    “This would encourage people who are new to Wikipedia as contributors. They would write new articles, edit existing ones or upload media files on Wikimedia Commons, etc. We are expecting around 200-250 participants in this Wiki Marathon,” Nath concluded.

  • Foiwe aims 40 per cent growth in revenue in next 2-3 years

    Foiwe aims 40 per cent growth in revenue in next 2-3 years

    KOLKATA: Foiwe, an information technology (IT) and ITES organisation providing services in the areas of outsourcing, consulting, technology, content moderation and social media management, aims to report at least 40 per cent growth in revenue in the next 2-3 years.

     “We have had a steady growth in the past and so in the next 2-3 years, we expect 40 per cent growth in terms of revenue if not more. We have some new contracts in the pipeline for 2015,” said Foiwe founder and managing director Suman Howlader.

     The primary focus area for the company is its enterprise content management and moderation services. Users across the globe are generating billions of kilobytes of content and are publishing over the internet in various forms such as text, images, videos, blog posts, reviews, feedback etc.

     “Sometimes users may generate bad content which can potentially impact the brand reputation. To safeguard brands online, it is important that these user generated contents on website, forums or blogs are appropriate and managed well. When user generated contents are controlled efficiently, one’s online presence becomes more credible amongst its users,” he added.

     “Currently we have a team of about 60 computer engineering graduates as employees and we are still hiring. The 100th recourse should be onboard by mid 2015,” he said.

     The team comprises experienced technologists and consultants working on complex business problems. “We help our clients to support more than 90 million end users across the globe,” informed Howlader.

     With its headquarter in Bangalore, Foiwe has its other two offices in Kolkata and Ahmedabad. Foiwe organises its services and people in these three primary cross-functional groupings.

     “We are in the process of having another branch office near Kolkata by end of 2015. We are also planning for our presence in USA and Europe by 2016,” he concluded.

     

  • Twitter reveals the most influential tweets for #YearOnTwitter 2014

    Twitter reveals the most influential tweets for #YearOnTwitter 2014

    MUMBAI: The year 2014 has undoubtedly belonged to social media and the digital platform. Right from the Pope to Presidents and celebrities, everyone has made a substantial impact through social media. The digital medium products such as selfies, retweets, posts on the most influential books thread, video bytes, challenges like the Ice Bucket and several other me too challenges, announcing breakups and marriages, open letters, celebrity fall outs and unisons with publications etc.; have ensured that the narrative is always chronicled on social media.

     

    As the social soundtrack to life in India, Twitter has revealed the four most influential Tweeple in India for its #YearOnTwitter 2014 campaign, namely Amitabh Bachchan (12M), Shah Rukh Khan (10.4M), Priyanka Chopra (8.05M) and Sachin Tendulkar (4.85M). The portfolios of two of these biggies – Amitabh Bachchan (@srbachchan) and Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) are handled by Fluence, a celebrity digital network that has made news throughout the year with its disruptive activities and signings.

     

    Starting 16 December 2014 till 31 December, the top five tweets that created maximum impact from this set of Indian Tweeples will be showcased under the Perspectives section on 2014.twitter.com, along with other global movers and shakers such as Lady Gaga, Robert Downey Jr. and Neymar Jr. These influencers were chosen for their reach in the country and the news they made during the year on Twitter. Sachin’s picture of him posing with his mother holding his autobiography for the first time, him receiving the Bharat Ratna, Amitabh Bachchan’s thank you message for fans wishing him on his birthday and him sweeping the streets for Swach Bharat Abhiyaan were amongst the most talked about Tweets in the year.

     

    Speaking about their influential clients, Ashish Joshi, VP Digital & Business Head Fluence says, “I would like to congratulate Mr Bachchan and Sachin, two prolific personalities who the people love and who have the power to influence the country with their statements. While it is an honour for Fluence to be associated with personalities of this calibre this association comes with the responsibility of constantly innovating and coming up with ideas that are true to their personalities and are also loved by their fans.  We hope continue to succeed in our efforts while handling these incredibly charismatic and influential people and set new benchmarks for ourselves in the years to come.”

     

    Rishi Jaitly, Market Director for Twitter India and South East Asia added, “No doubt that 2014 was a breakthrough year for Indians using Twitter to connect to their world and heroes such as Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar with 12 million and nearly 5 million followers, respectively. We’re honored to feature them on our global #YearOnTwitter site which showcases the best of the world’s Twitter celebrities and how they connect with their followers in a more personal, authentic way. We look forward to enabling many more millions of Indians to stay engaged with their favourite idols through our platform for live, public conversations on their mobile devices.”

     

    Established in 2013 by CA Media, Fluence has created waves in the nascent sector by signing on some of the biggest names in the industry such as Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Ranveer Singh, Sonu Nigam, Lata Mangeskhar, etc.

     

  • YouTube launches buffer-free offline video in India

    YouTube launches buffer-free offline video in India

    MUMBAI: YouTube has launched an offline feature in India as part of a larger initiative to make YouTube easier to enjoy on mobile devices, while lessening the burden of data for its growing base of mobile users. This is part of YouTube’s first release of its ad-supported offline feature on Android and iOS, which was announced earlier this year with the launch of Android One smartphones.

     

    The new offline feature for the YouTube app lets people take videos offline, using WiFi or their data plans.  Once taken offline, the videos can be viewed without an internet connection for up to 48 hours, allowing people to enjoy YouTube videos without worrying about slow connections. For videos where this feature is available, people can choose to add the video for offline viewing by tapping on the offline icon that sits under the video frame.

     

    YouTube vice president of engineering John Harding said, “In a country like India, the future of the internet is mobile. 85 per cent of the internet population will connect to the internet with a mobile phone before any other device. Already, we’re seeing over 40 per cent of our traffic in India come from mobile devices, and we want to make sure we are making YouTube as enjoyable as possible for these mobile-first users. By launching this offline experience on YouTube in India today, we hope to help people move past the challenges of data connection, speed and cost to enjoy a smooth, buffer-free version of YouTube.”

     

    Much of India’s popular YouTube content is ready for people to view offline from indie comedy to Hindi movies and select Bollywood and pop Bhangra music.

     
    “We are delighted to launch this new offline experience on YouTube with some of India’s household names for entertainment and music, including T-Series, Saregama and Yashraj Films. Making these popular videos available for temporary offline viewing will help fans connect more easily with their favourite content, and we hope to continue helping Indians affordably access YouTube over the next year. This new feature will also help our partners bring more viewers to their content and find even greater success on our platform,” said YouTube Asia-Pacific regional director of YouTube partnerships Ajay Vidyasagar.

     

    The launch of YouTube’s offline feature is YouTube’s latest effort in a series of initiatives to make video content more affordable and accessible to the large base of mobile internet users in the country. Earlier this year, YouTube worked with Tata DoCoMo to introduce “YouTube Recharge,” a new video data add-on for prepaid users that gave them more affordable access to YouTube on their mobiles devices.

     

    Saregama India MD Vikram Mehra said, “As a partner of YouTube we welcome this new feature which will allow people from small towns who are surfing from poor bandwidth to enjoy our vast repertoire.”

     

    Added Shemaroo Entertainment director Jai Maroo, “We are one of the oldest partners of YouTube India and have a very successful partnership putting the best of bollywood content and monetizing it, where today we do between 46 to 60 million views per month.  Given the access and pricing issues to date in this country, we do see that user behavior that somewhere consumption gets restricted and this offline initiative will help increase consumption.   YouTube has created a win win situation where this feature is easy and seamless for the user while still protecting the interest of the content owner and the advertiser.” 

  • YouTube 2014 Rewind: Year of Bollywood stars

    YouTube 2014 Rewind: Year of Bollywood stars

    MUMBAI: 2014 is winding up and YouTube has already given us its top trending videos of the year in India. Videos that people chose to watch repeatedly, shared and made them the most popular ones of the lot.
    This year seemed to be the year of Bollywood celebrities, embracing YouTube as a means to connect with fans, do something madcap and establish their positions as youth icons. Whether it was the ice bucket challenges or film promotional strategies, celebrities have greatly benefited from YouTube in 2014!

    Taking the top spot with over 8.8 million views is the episode of Comedy Nights with Kapil which featured sultry adult movie star Sunny Leone and producer Ekta Kapoor promoting Ragini MMS 2. Not surprisingly, Leone’s music video “Baby Doll” is also graded by YouTube as the top trending Indian music video of 2014 with nearly 40 million views. 

    Alia Bhatt made a stellar debut on YouTube this year when she paired up with All India Bakchod (AIB) and made the hysterical “Genius of the Year” mockumentary which garnered over 6.8 million views. That is not all – Bhatt’s unplugged version of “Samjhawan” highlighted her singing capabilities and increased curiosity for the film, Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania. The video was watched by more than 16 million people.


    Closely following Bhatt and Leone’s popularity meter on YouTube is Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh. As part of the promotion for his upcoming movie ‘Bang Bang’, actor Hrithik Roshan dared Singh to a challenge on the streets of Mumbai. In his usual feisty spirit, Singh danced to the popular “Main Aisa Kyon Hoon” in the Krissh get up.  His fanatical “Bang Bang Dare” video acquired over 3 million views.  
    2014 also saw innovative and effective content that sought to entertain the audience while at the same time, sending out valuable messages to the viewers. For instance, Nestlé India’s “Good food, Good Life” advertisement, which ranks in the top 10 trending videos of India with over 6 million views, is truly a moving commercial that teaches us the joy of sharing. The public service announcement video entitled “SeatBelt Crew” received close to 4.7 million views.  The unique concept featured a group of transgenders delivering a lesson in safe driving that motorists will carry for the rest of their lives.


    Independent video creators like The Viral Fever and AIB, also took YouTube by storm this year with their spoof parodies and original content.  Their popular videos “Bollywood Aam Aadmi Party – Arnab’s Qtiyapa” and “Nayak2: The Common Man Rises” attracted over 4 million and 3 million views respectively.


    Other trending YouTube videos In India include Aap Ki Adalat’s episode feature Narendra Modi with over 4 million views, “Lion shows tourists why you must stay inside your car”, “Top 50 English Nursery Rhymes” and “Wheels on the Bus”. Amongst the music videos, “Chaar Botal Vodka” featuring Yo Yo Honey Singh takes the second most popular spot with over 28 million views. This is followed by “Tu Meri” from the movie Bang Bang, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s “Zaroori Tha”, “Yaar Naa Miley” from Kick, “Tune Maari Entriyaan” from Gunday and “Jumme Ki Raat” from Kick.

  • Narendra Modi triumphs again, this time on twitter

    Narendra Modi triumphs again, this time on twitter

    MUMBAI: Twitter as a global social platform, has always allowed netizens to express themselves in 140 characters, during moments of celebration, protest, mourning and joy. The micro blogging site receives more than 500 million tweets per day. And we Indian’s are not far away.

    Politicians, actors, cricketers, opinion leaders and citizens have taken to the platform quite well this year. But for the year 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn’t just steal the show during the elections, but also on twitter.

    The Golden tweet aka .the most-retweeted tweet for India in 2014 was Modi’s election-winning tweet. It received more than 70,000 RTs as it became the most retweeted tweet ever in India. The tweet read, “India has won. Bharat Ki Vijai. Aache Din Aane Wale Hain.”

    Globally, the golden tweet went to the Ellen Show’s starry photo from the Oscars telecast, which gave rise to the selfie phenomenon world over. It received more than 33,67,817 RTs.

    Meanwhile, India’s list of power tweeters is dominated by Bollywood stars, apart from Modi. In the top 10, Amitabh Bachchan leads with 1,18,18,056 followers, followed by Shah Rukh Khan at 1,02,46,755. Cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli too make their entry but at number 15 and 16, respectively. Author Chetan Bhagat adds variety to the list, rounding off the top 20 for India.

    Rohit Sharma’s smashing the world record for the highest individual ODI cricket score of 264, on 13 November was the top peak moment for twitter. In fact, of the top 10 moments, three are related to cricket including the Indian Premier League. The second largest peak in twitter conversation for the year was Rajinikanth’s arrival on twitter. With over 2,00,000 followers in the first 24 hours and now over 1.1 million in total, it’s clear that he has many loyal fans both off and on twitter. Hardly surprising, two of the top five peaks in conversations were about Modi.  With 8.5 million followers, he is currently the second most followed political leader in the world (after President Barack Obama) and continues to grow his followers at a rapid pace.

    The fastest rising Twitter hashtag trends in India saw a mixture of sports, disasters and political campaigns. Conversations around the 2014 FIFA World Cup lead the trend, followed by the disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines flight, MH370. Meanwhile, Mufflerman, a campaign led by the fans of the Aam Aadmi Party in support of leader Arvind Kejriwal, gathered momentum towards the end of the year.

     

  • Turtle launches social campaign #idroppedmyclothes

    Turtle launches social campaign #idroppedmyclothes

    MUMBAI: Turtle, a lifestyle brand has made swift strides in becoming a popular menswear brand in India.  And in the process, the corporate has continuously strived to match the attributes of a turtle which has a tough outlook but soft and sensitive inside; lives long; never forgets its roots; can survive on land and in water and highly depends on its natural surroundings and its ecological system.

     
    Hence apart from making the finest apparel, it has relentlessly endeavored to explore avenues to conserve nature and serve its surrounding in a collective effort.  Taking this a step ahead, Turtle today initiated a social movement – #IDroppedMyClothes – a nationwide movement for the betterment of underprivileged community.

     
    The campaign makes an appeal to all individual’s in association with Goonj to be socially responsible by donating their clothes at any of the Turtle stores across the country.  Also, they can help this initiative become a nationwide movement by posting their donation with a picture or video on the social media with (hashtag) #idroppedmyclothes and nominating their friends/family to do the same.

     
    According to Turtle director Shitanshu Jhunjhunwalla “The format of this campaign is such that the noble cause of donating clothes to underprivileged can also be a fun activity for people. I would request everyone to be a part of this. Every person who donates will be eligible for free points added to their membership card which can be redeemed on their purchase.”

     
    At the end of the campaign all the collected clothes will be donated to underprivileged across the country through Goonj which is a non-governmental organization working in 21 states across India in disaster relief, humanitarian aid and community development.

     
    Turtle has been engaging in various efforts to support similar social causes through their CSR campaigns. They are actively involved in the conservation of endangered species of turtles across India for many years and recently entered into a partnership with TSA to support the conservation of freshwater turtles around the world to help shape a better, more sustainable community under its CSR philosophy. Turtle’s strong belief in ‘Earth’ and the preservation of the environment has fuelled many such initiatives, one of which is promoting the hand-spun and hand-woven, eco-friendly Khadi fabric with its premium and Limited Edition Khadi collection that would benefit the weavers and their families.

     

  • Facebook partners with VivaConnect to scale-up its ‘Missed Call’ ad unit business

    Facebook partners with VivaConnect to scale-up its ‘Missed Call’ ad unit business

    MUMBAI: Keeping in tune with trends of emerging markets, Facebook has launched ‘Missed Call’ ad unit business in the feature phone heavy Indian market. To scale-up its reach over mobile devices, Facebook has partnered with VivaConnect for its missed call platform. VivaConnect holds India’s largest infrastructure for voice and missed call services.

     

    The ‘missed call’ advertisement is Facebook’s first foray into mobile service to empower advertisers effectively reach their consumers in developing markets. India, the second most populated country in the world is quickly catching up to the US as Facebook’s biggest market. In last April, Facebook had announced the crossing of 100 million users in India and thus expects higher revenue from this emerging market.

     

    The new missed call ad format comes in action as around 66 per cent Indians access Facebook on mobile devices of feature phone segment and a whopping 95 per cent of India’s mobile subscriber base has a pre-paid connection. A country where it’s a common norm among family and friends to dial a call and hang up after a ring expecting a response in return, the missed call ad format will definitely bolster brands advertising over Facebook, happening on mobile.

     

    “Consumer behavior in high-growth markets is changing very rapidly and we are poised to respond to that as quickly as possible. We see brands delivering useful and entertaining content like sports scores, news, or celebrity messages that people find valuable enough to take the time to listen to and interact with. There is also a good tie-in for direct response advertisers who can use the missed call unit as lead generation, where a person is essentially raising their hand and expressing interest in a good or service,” said Facebook product marketing manager for emerging markets Maxine Schlein.

     

    When a person sees an ad on Facebook they can place a ‘missed call’ by clicking the ad from their mobile device in the return call, the person will receive valuable content, such as music, cricket scores or celebrity messages, alongside a brand message from the advertiser, all without using airtime or data.

     

    The combination of user’s social data assembled over Facebook and the reach offered by VivaConnect’s missed call platform, together will allow brands to effectively target their consumers with the right kind of advertising. Content will be personalised effectively, matching up the highly diverse Indian user base. Also, mobile access will grant an individual reach for retargeting consumers in brands subsequent activities.

     

    “Facebook has been a hot trend over mobile in India and so have been missed call services. Together they would be a perfect solution for delivering an enhanced brand experience over Mobile. Missed calls offer an instant way to spark the conversations,” said VivaConnect managing director Vikram Raichura.

     

    Facebook’s ‘Missed call’ advertisement is a harbinger of great things to follow leveraging brand-consumer connect over mobile.

     

  • Modi encourages use of social media for his Mann ki Baat broadcasts

    Modi encourages use of social media for his Mann ki Baat broadcasts

    NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has won acclaim for his monthly ‘Mann ki Baat’ broadcasts on All India Radio, wants people to use social media to tell him about their views and experiences on dealing with the menace of drugs for his next broadcast.

     
    Modi said the link of the MyGov Open Forum for sharing comments, ideas, views and past work by NGOs in the area is http://mygov.in/groupissue/tackling-the-drug-menace-in-india/show .

     

    In a series of Tweets, he said: “If you have a personal experience and don`t want to share it in public, please write to me directly, using the hashtag #MannKiBaat at http://pmindia.gov.in/en/interact-with-honble-pm/”.

     

    In order to enable people without access to internet to communicate with him, the Prime Minister has invited people to write to him at: Mann Ki Baat, Akashvani, Sansad Marg, New Delhi.

     
    Those wanting to link can go to #PMonAIR. During the broadcast, those who are on the internet can also log on to newsonair.com for the live streaming.