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  • Eutelsat partners Facebook on satellite initiative for Africa

    Eutelsat partners Facebook on satellite initiative for Africa

    MUMBAI: Eutelsat Communications and Facebook are partnering on a new initiative that will leverage satellite technologies to get more Africans online. 

     

    Under a multi-year agreement with Spacecom, the two companies will utilise the entire broadband payload on the future AMOS-6 satellite and will build a dedicated system comprising satellite capacity, gateways and terminals. In providing reach to large parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, Eutelsat and Facebook will each be equipped to pursue their ambition to accelerate data connectivity for the many users deprived of the economic and social benefits of the Internet.

     

     

    Spot beams for community and Direct-to-User access

     

    Scheduled for start of service in the second half of 2016, the Ka-band payload on the AMOS-6 geostationary satellite is configured with high gain spot beams covering large parts of West, East and Southern Africa. The capacity is optimised for community and Direct-to-User Internet access using affordable, off-the-shelf customer equipment. According to the terms of the agreement, the capacity will be shared between Eutelsat and Facebook.

     

     

    State of the art satellite technology to meet pent-up demand

     

    Using state of the art satellite technology, Eutelsat and Facebook will each deploy Internet services designed to relieve pent-up demand for connectivity from the many users in Africa beyond range of fixed and mobile terrestrial networks. Satellite networks are well suited to economically connecting people in low to medium density population areas and the high throughput satellite architecture of AMOS-6 is expected to contribute to additional gains in cost efficiency.

     

     

    Eutelsat steps up Internet activity in Africa

     

    The capacity will enable Eutelsat to step up its broadband activity in Sub-Saharan Africa that was initiated using Ku-band satellites to serve professional users. Eutelsat is establishing a new company based in London that will steer its African broadband vision and business. The company will be led by Laurent Grimaldi, founder and former CEO of Tiscali International Network, and will focus on serving premium consumer and professional segments.

     

     

    Facebook continues Internet.org initiative

     

    Two years ago, Facebook announced Internet.org, an effort to accelerate the rate of connectivity by addressing the physical, economic and social barriers that are keeping people from getting online. For Facebook, this satellite system represents one of many technology investments to enable cost-effective broadband access to unconnected populations. Facebook plans to work with local partners across Africa to utilise satellite and terrestrial capacity to deliver services to rural areas.

     

    Internet.org vice president Chris Daniels said, “Facebook’s mission is to connect the world and we believe that satellites will play an important role in addressing the significant barriers that exist in connecting the people of Africa. We are looking forward to partnering with Eutelsat on this project and investigating new ways to use satellites to connect people in the most remote areas of the world more efficiently.”

     

    Eutelsat chairman and CEO Michel de Rosen added, “We are excited by this opportunity to accelerate the deployment of our broadband strategy and to partner with Facebook on a new initiative to provide Internet access services in Africa. Eutelsat’s strong track record in operating High Throughput Satellite systems will ensure that we can deliver accessible and robust Internet solutions that get more users online and part of the Information Society.”

  • Mark Zuckerberg on Internet.org and Net Neutrality in India

    Mark Zuckerberg on Internet.org and Net Neutrality in India

    Over the past week in India, there has been a lot written about Internet.org and net neutrality. I’d like to share my position on these topics here for everyone to see.

    First, I’ll share a quick story. Last year I visited Chandauli, a small village in northern India that had just been connected to the internet.

    In a classroom in the village, I had the chance to talk to a group of students who were learning to use the internet. It was an incredible experience to think that right there in that room might be a student with a big idea that could change the world — and now they could actually make that happen through the internet.

    The internet is one of the most powerful tools for economic and social progress. It gives people access to jobs, knowledge and opportunities. It gives voice to the voiceless in our society, and it connects people with vital resources for health and education.

    I believe everyone in the world deserves access to these opportunities.

    In many countries, however, there are big social and economic obstacles to connectivity. The internet isn’t affordable to everyone, and in many places awareness of its value remains low. Women and the poor are most likely to be excluded and further disempowered by lack of connectivity.

    This is why we created Internet.org, our effort to connect the whole world. By partnering with mobile operators and governments in different countries, Internet.org offers free access in local languages to basic internet services in areas like jobs, health, education and messaging.Internet.org lowers the cost of accessing the internet and raises the awareness of the internet’s value. It helps include everyone in the world’s opportunities.

    We’ve made some great progress, and already more than 800 million people in 9 countries can now access free basic services throughInternet.org. In India, we’ve already rolled out free basic services on the Reliance network to millions of people in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala and Telangana. And we just launched in Indonesia on the Indosat network today.

    We’re proud of this progress. But some people have criticized the concept of zero-rating that allows Internet.org to deliver free basic internet services, saying that offering some services for free goes against the spirit of net neutrality. I strongly disagree with this.

    We fully support net neutrality. We want to keep the internet open. Net neutrality ensures network operators don’t discriminate by limiting access to services you want to use. It’s an essential part of the open internet, and we are fully committed to it.

    But net neutrality is not in conflict with working to get more people connected. These two principles — universal connectivity and net neutrality — can and must coexist.

    To give more people access to the internet, it is useful to offer some service for free. If someone can’t afford to pay for connectivity, it is always better to have some access than none at all.

    Internet.org doesn’t block or throttle any other services or create fast lanes — and it never will. We’re open for all mobile operators and we’re not stopping anyone from joining. We want as many internet providers to join so as many people as possible can be connected.

    Arguments about net neutrality shouldn’t be used to prevent the most disadvantaged people in society from gaining access or to deprive people of opportunity. Eliminating programs that bring more people online won’t increase social inclusion or close the digital divide. It will only deprive all of us of the ideas and contributions of the two thirds of the world who are not connected.

    Every person in the world deserves access to the opportunities the internet provides. And we can all benefit from the perspectives, creativity and talent of the people not yet connected.

    We have a historic opportunity to connect billions of more people worldwide for the first time. We should work together to make that happen now.

     

    DISCLAIMER: The author of this article is Facebook Chairman and CEO. The article has been sourced from Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page. The views expressed here are purely personal views of the author and Indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to them.

  • Tonic Media Wins 2015 Social Media Agency of the Year

    Tonic Media Wins 2015 Social Media Agency of the Year

    MUMBAI: Tonic Media, India’s leading independent digital agency, has been named 2015 Social Media Agency of the Year at the Big Bang Awards organised by the Ad Club, Bangalore on Friday, the 25th of September.The agency was nominated across 10 categories with 14 shortlisted entries and bagged 12 awards including five golds, five silvers and one Bronze.

    Over 987 entries were submitted across 58 categories by 72 agencies. Honorees were selected by a jury comprising of 46 Senior Advertising, Marketing, Media, PR and digital professionals from all over India, based on the nominations filed by the respective agencies. The awards re-emphasized the strengths of Tonic Media across social and creative platforms with the agency winning Best Use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn as well as Community Development under separate campaigns.

     

    “We are excited that Tonic has had such a successful year in terms of performance and receiving appreciation for the same.” said Chetan Asher, CEO, Tonic Media. “The awards are a testament to the pace and commitment of the Tonic team. We aim to build the best-in-class services and focus on producing better creativity year on year.”

     

    Tonic received the following titles at The Big Bang Awards:

     

    Winner

     

    ·     Social Media Agency of the Year

     

    Gold

     

    ·     Best Use of Twitter for Aditya Birla Group

    ·     Best Use of LinkedIn for Sony Entertainment Television

    ·     Best Community Development for Sony Mix

    ·     Best Corporate Communications Campaign for Aditya Birla Group

    ·     Best CSR Campaign for Aditya Birla Group

     

     

    Silver

     

    ·     Best Corporate Website of the Year for Little Millennium

    ·     Best Use of Facebook for Sony Entertainment Television

    ·     Best Use of Twitter for Sony Max2

    ·     Best Community Development for Sony PIX

    ·     Best Social Game/App/Contest for Aditya Birla Group

     

     

    Bronze         

     

    ·     Best Use of Facebook for Sony PIX

  • Modi convinces Silicon Valley about Digital India, lauds Facebook & Google

    Modi convinces Silicon Valley about Digital India, lauds Facebook & Google

    NEW DELHI: As he entered the extensive office of Facebook in California, he was greeted with the song ‘Chak de India’ and when he left, Prime Narendra Modi left a huge impression about India’s seriousness ongoing digital.

     

    The euphoria was the same when he visited Google, or addressed a meeting of persons from LinkedIn or start-ups.

     

    In various speeches during his visit, Modi said Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were the new neighbourhood.

     

    “If Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populous one and the most connected,” he said. 

     

    Similarly, he said Google “has made teachers less awe-inspiring and grandparents more idle. Twitter has turned everyone into a reporter. The traffic lights that need to work the best are on CISCO routers.” 

     

    The status that now matters, he said, “is not whether you are awake or asleep but whether you are online or offline. The most fundamental debate for our youth is the choice between Android, iOS or Windows.”

     

    From computing to communication, entertainment to education, from printing documents to printing products, and, now to Internet of Things, it’s been a long journey in a short time. 

     

    Referring to digital networks, he said, “We have attacked poverty by using the power of networks and mobile phones to launch a new era of empowerment and inclusion: 180 million new bank accounts in a few months; direct transfer of benefits to the poor; funds for the unbanked; insurance within the reach of the poorest; and, pension for the sunset years for all.”

     

    By using Space technology and internet, the country had been able to identify in the last few months 170 applications that will make governance better and development faster. 

     

    “The pace at which people are taking to digital technology defies our stereotypes of age, education, language and income,” he added.

     

    “Customers, more than creators, are defining the use of a product. The world may be driven by the same ancient impulses. We will continue to see human struggles and successes. We will witness human glory and tragedies,” Modi said. 

     

    He added that in this digital age, there was an opportunity to transform lives of people in ways that was hard to imagine just a couple of decades ago. 

     

    “Today, technology is advancing citizen empowerment and democracy that once drew their strength from Constitutions. Technology is forcing governments to deal with massive volume of data and generate responses, not in 24 hours but in 24 minutes. When you think of the exponential speed and scale of expansion of social media or a service, you have to believe that it is equally possible to rapidly transform the lives of those who have long stood on the margins of hope. So out of this conviction was born the vision of Digital India,” he said. 

     

    “It is an enterprise for India’s transformation on a scale that is, perhaps, unmatched in human history. Not just to touch the lives of the weakest, farthest and the poorest citizen of India, but change the way our nation will live and work,” he said. “We will transform governance, making it more transparent, accountable, accessible and participative. I spoke of E-Governance as a foundation of better governance – efficient, economical and effective.” 

     

    After MyGov.in, Modi said he had just launched the Narendra Modi Mobile App.

     

    Information, education, skills, healthcare, livelihood, financial inclusion, small and village enterprises, opportunities for women, conservation of natural resources, distributed clean energy – entirely new possibilities have emerged to change the development model. 

     

    “We want our 1.25 billion citizens to be digitally connected. We already have broadband usage across India go up by 63 per cent last year. We need to accelerate this further,” he further said. 

     

    An aggressive expansion of the National Optical Fibre Network had been launched that will take broadband to our 600,000 villages. “We are expanding our public Wi-Fi hotspots. For example, we want to ensure that free Wi-Fi is not only there in airport lounges, but also on our railway platforms. Teaming up with Google, we will cover 500 railway stations in a short time. We are also setting up Common Service Centres in villages and towns. We will also use information technology to build smart cities,” Modi informed. 

     

    “We are also setting up an Electronics Development Fund to support design, development and launch of new products,” he added. 

     

    Indians account for 15 per cent of startups in the United States. “Hundreds of thousands of Indian professionals here and in India are contributing to the global success of US enterprises. Many are leading them today. This is the possibility of the digital bridge – to connect distant lives and change fortunes and future,” he said.

     

    Modi said he was delighted that Qualcomm announced a fund of $150 million for startups in India.

  • Sky & Whistle Sports launch social media channel for original football content

    Sky & Whistle Sports launch social media channel for original football content

    MUMBAI: Sky Sports and Whistle Sports have launched a new social media channel dedicated to creating original football content. Using Sky’s Soccer AM brand, it will go live today (18 September, 2015) and be available to watch on multiple platforms, with its own YouTube channel and a presence on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Vine. 

     

    The content produced will feature new faces such as England Women’s footballer, Alex Scott as well as bringing together existing Sky Sports on-screen talent Adam Smith from Soccer AM and Laura Woods. There will be original programming, entertaining videos and posts covering football topics, such as gaming, fantasy football, stats, and skills. 

     

    It is the first collaboration since Sky’s $7 million investment in Whistle Sports in October 2014. Since then the two companies have been working together on creating exciting new content, aimed at young millennials.  

     

    Sky Sports director of digital media Dave Gibbs said, “Whistle Sports has led the way in producing entertaining digital sports content in the US for some time now with hugely engaged audiences. The new Soccer AM channel on social media is going to do something very different to what football supporters are used to from Sky Sports. We will produce new types of content, with new presenters for new audiences. By combining our expertise and talent, we hope to produce something that will really excite young football fans.”

     

    Whistle Sports CEO John West added, “Young millennial sports fans increasingly use social media to drive their engagement with live sports. Our community of compelling creators have grown to serve that need and engage a growing generation of global sports fans,” pointing out that Whistle Sports recently broke an aggregate 100 million global fans and followers across social platforms.  

     

    “Sky makes a perfect partner for our international expansion due to their commitment to innovation. This new brand, new content and new approach around the world’s most popular sport is a great new offering,” he said.

     

    The Soccer AM channel on social media will feature a number of original content strands including event weeks, with quarterly programming focused on specific themes, as well as new regular shows. On a Monday morning, it will take a fun look at the quirky stories from the weekend’s football, and the Friday evening show will use data and stats to debate the key upcoming games. 

     

    The launch will see the first event week focused on the release of FIFA 16, bringing together some of the biggest names in vlogging to look at the characters that surround the game, its evolution and role in sports gaming. The partnership brings together Sky’s expertise in producing sports output including football, rugby and cricket with Whistle Sports’ proven capability in combining youth-orientated celebrities, innovative programming ideas and formats to make sport more accessible for younger audiences. 

     

    The partnership with Whistle Sports is part of Sky’s ongoing programme of investing in innovative startups that help Sky bring new ideas, insight and services into its business.

  • Mobile based ad expenditure to touch $425 billion by 2021: Strategy Analytics

    Mobile based ad expenditure to touch $425 billion by 2021: Strategy Analytics

    NEW DELHI: Consumer and advertising expenditure on handset-based mobile media is slated to rise 12 per cent in 2015 and is poised to reach $425 billion by 2021.

     

    According to a study by Strategy Analytics, mobile advertising is set to account for 24 per cent of total digital advertising expenditure in 2015 with advertisers increasingly targeting mobile phone users.

     

    A strong growth in smartphone penetration, combined with ubiquitous data connectivity via mobile and WiFi networks, and latent consumer demand to access popular Internet services continues to drive the consumption of content on mobile devices.

     

    Consumer demand for accessing popular internet services and apps on mobile phones, including Facebook, YouTube, Spotify, and mobile games, among others, continues to increase, supported by the growing penetration of rich media smartphones and improving data connectivity, via LTE and WiFi networks.

     

    Strategy Analytics director of wireless media strategies Nitesh Patel said, “At the end 2015 the Asia Pacific region will account for just over half of worldwide data subscriptions.”

     

    A report by the research team said mobile operators stand to benefit from rising demand for mobile data. The total number of mobile data subscriptions will reach 2.3 billion by the end of 2015 equating to almost half of unique mobile users. 

     

    Patel added, “Not surprisingly, we are seeing strong growth in emerging mobile data markets, and in particular where smartphone ownership is rising fast.”

     

    Strategy Analytics vice president David Kerr added, “The strong growth in mobile advertising is being driven by a combination of factors, which includes increasing consumer dependence on their mobile phones for accessing popular internet services and apps, greater participation by brands and business in engaging users via their mobile phones, and an increasingly mature mobile ad-buying ecosystem, particularly with respect to programmatic advertising.”

  • Kokuyo Camlin reinvents digital rakhi for art lovers

    Kokuyo Camlin reinvents digital rakhi for art lovers

    MUMBAI: Stationery and art brand Kokuyo Camlin has created a new way to celebrate Rakshabandhan. The brand is promoting the tradition in an artistic way with its elaborate ‘Rakhi Maker’ that lets anyone create beautiful digital rakhis and share them virtually.

     

    Conceptualised and created by the brand’s digital agency Big I Tuna, the ‘Rakhi Maker’ is an extension of the interactive Camlin Experience App for desktop and mobile. It is modeled on the brand’s philosophy to help anyone express their artistic skills to the fullest and bring their imagination to life.

     

    Expanding on the belief, the ‘Rakhi Maker’ lets anyone virtually use the full range of Camlin products and powerful virtual tools to create endless and stunning rakhi designs within minutes. To do this, the ‘Rakhi Maker’ uses an innovative ‘kaleidoscopic effect’ that reflects every drawing action in 20 sides.

     

    Users can choose from any of the art mediums and colours, and also alter the number of side reflections. In addition to designing personalized rakhis, they can tag and share the rakhi with a loved one on Facebook within the app, or download it and share via email.

     

    Kokuyo Camlin chief marketing officer Saumitra Prasad said, “Kokuyo Camlin explores various routes to promote art and creativity amongst children. Today’s children have accepted technology very well and mastered it. We have witnessed great work from children already using this Camlin Experience App, and we look forward to world class Rakhi images created to celebrate the festival in a unique way.”

  • Facebook’s new features help increase interactivity & user-interest

    Facebook’s new features help increase interactivity & user-interest

    NEW DELHI: In a series of rapid announcements specifically aimed at advertisers, Facebook has made a significant expansion of ad types and formats available in the Audience Network to get better outcomes for the advertisers, and the people that use the app.

     

    Some of the features of the new innovations are:

     

    1. Native autoplay video: By upgrading to the latest SDK and utilizing the new MediaView, publishers can now bring the autoplay video ads experience from Facebook directly to their apps. Video demand will also compete with native display in the same auction to maximize yield for each impression served. Over the past six months, Facebook has seen increased publisher adoption of native ads with ~ five times more apps now using native ads than the start of 2015. In fact, native ads represent over 80 per cent of impressions in the Audience Network.

     

    2. Click-to-play video: Via a server-side change, Facebook will now show click-to-play video ads from Mobile App Install advertisers in full screen interstitials. Publishers who already use Audience Network full screen interstitials will be eligible to deliver the following formats without any changes to their existing placements:

     

    3. Carousel Ads: High engaging format that shows multiple ads in a single view that people can scroll through. This experience is very similar to H-Scroll, however all ads are from a single advertisers instead of multiple advertisers. They can showcase up to five images within a single ad unit.

     

    4. Dynamic Product Ads: Retailers and e-commerce businesses with large product catalogs have seen success creating personalized ads for their shoppers on Facebook, and now their campaigns can extend to the Audience Network. This solution will generally be delivered in Carousel formats.

     

    In a statement, Facebook said, “We have a deep understanding of what formats perform well and drive engagement in Facebook News Feed and are taking two of our best performing units and making them available off Facebook to further empower Audience Network publishers and help drive results for advertisers.”

     

  • ‘Citizen Journalist’ remains to be a show sans baggage: Anubha Bhonsle

    ‘Citizen Journalist’ remains to be a show sans baggage: Anubha Bhonsle

    MUMBAI: The Press has always been considered as the fourth pillar of democracy, but in a vast country like India, the plight of citizens seldom reach the mainstream media. Almost a decade back with the mission of empowering every citizen with a platform of expression, CNN-IBN launched a show called Citizen Journalist Show (CJ). The show travelled to various nooks and corners of the country and Indians became a part of it by sharing their stories.

     

    Acknowledging the emergence of digital years after inception, the network has decided to re-brand the show as CJ+, which will not only have a presence on television but will also be available on digital platforms. “The scrutinization will remain the same,” says CNN-IBN executive Anubha Bhonsle, adding, “The critics of the show often reverberate that as the show is now available on digital, the content’s credibility will get compromised but that’s not true. The story will still go through the same rigour, and the show’s rich legacy, authenticity in reportage will remain intact.”

     

    CJ Show airs on the channel every Saturday. “People had to wait for the content to come on television and if they missed it, it was gone. Digital now enables viewers to see the content whenever they want and that’s something that we have achieved,” informs Bhonsle.

     

    From 1 August, 2015 the new avatar has unfolded for the mass and the reaction has been positive asserts Bhonsle. “Considering that it has been just two weeks, I would refrain from giving numbers but yes viewership has gone up and we are expecting it to grow bigger. We want CJ+ to enhance its base, reach out to more people and tell many more stories and digital will help us achieving that goal,” she says.

     

    “The idea of CJ+ came in because we were interested in new age story telling, where we will intersect journalists with technology and make things more digitised. But at the end of the day, we will continue to be what we were. People can still use the previous procedures that they were using to connect with us,” adds Bhonsle.

     

    With digital innovation rolled out, the probability of rural India sharing their story multiplies. When queried about rural India, Bhonsle says, “I will not say that we received an overwhelming response from rural areas after we launched the digital platform. Rural reacts the most to word of mouth. Whenever we feature a story, we observe many talking about it. It’s early days yet so we will see how it goes.”

     

    “CJ over the years has remained a show that carried no baggage,” says Bhonsle. At a time when television news is occupied by panel discussions and high decibel debates, CJ+ comes out as a differentiator. Now it remains to be seen if the new format garners mass recognition and more importantly whether it manages to grab advertisers’ attention too in a world ruled by ad revenues.

     

    On Twitter, CJ+ has 14.8K followers, while the Facebook page has over 15k likes.

  • OMG launches first Instagram self-serve ad campaigns in Oz

    OMG launches first Instagram self-serve ad campaigns in Oz

    MUMBAI: Over the last four weeks Omnicom Media Group has successfully launched and delivered the first two Instagram self-serve advertising campaigns in the Australia market, for OMD clients McDonald’s and Qantas.

     

    The McDonald’s campaign was the first Instagram self-serve campaign delivered outside of North America. Launching with immersive placement of video ad formats, overlaid with Facebook targeting signals, it delivered strong cost per view efficiencies.

     

    Qantas followed by testing the waters with Mobile App Install ad formats. By supplying creative content to drive installs and targeting relevant customers who would benefit from using the app on Android or iOS devices they have been able to drive efficient results very early on in the campaign.

     

    As one of the fastest growing social networks, Instagram delivers high impact placements targeting the right audiences in a space where they spend a huge amount of time, with the majority of the audience logging in via mobile.  

     

    Accuen, a wholly owned Omnicom Media group business unit housing media acquisition platforms; has been working closely with Instagram to test all available advertising formats and functionalities, and expect to see major developments in the product offering and analytics functionalities over Q4.

     

    Accuen ANZ managing director Paul Shepherd said, “This is key example of innovative work delivered on behalf of clients, which illustrates the great working relationship we have with our clients and partners, McDonald’s, Qantas, Instagram and Sales Force.”

     

    Shepherd added, “We have seen mass interest from clients across the group on how they can utilise Instagram moving forward as part of their digital strategies. It is great credit to our social marketing specialists Lucine Keverian and her team, who continue to deliver ground breaking expertise for our clients in this emerging media channel.”

     

    Instagram Australia and New Zealand brand development lead Sophie Blachford said, “It’s a really exciting time for Instagram ads in Australia. We’ve spent the last 10 months working with clients to establish Instagram as a strong platform that drives branding success at the top of the funnel. With the Instagram ads API being enabled this will now help us make ads more relevant to the community, serve more diverse business objectives and make buying on the platform easier for advertisers.”

     

    “OMD, Accuen, Qantas and McDonald’s have brought great experience into this beta phase new world of Instagram advertising. They are already gaining learnings testing some of the new action oriented formats, layering on Facebook targeting options such as geo location by State or custom audiences, and along with Salesforce are a key component in the evolution of ads on the platform as we look to a wider roll out in the comings weeks and months,” Blachford added.