The Yaxis Live by Rajesh Kumar

As a person who buys loves to buy books every now and then, I have faced a constant nag. The stores in the town sell books that in their judgment, will move. They are not necessarily the books that match my taste or are the best. There are many occasions I just spend considerable time in a store and decide there’s nothing worthwhile to buy.Quite simply, there is not a single place where I can know about books, discuss them, and buy them right there.Not upto now at least.

My quest to know about books on marketing, business in general, great companies, business legends and so on got me connected to Shelfari some months back. Social networking to me till that point only meant leaving a few Orkuts scraps in iNcOmPrEhEnSiBlE blob of words and so on. Gradually I started following Shelfari and though I do notice that the level of action is not very high, I love the site for the books specific focus and the ability to have user provided reviews, discussions etc. If you are half sure on a title, ask ‘do you suggest I buy this book’ to folks who own that title.

It was announced today that Shelfari is has followed Skype into being another web property to be acquired by Amazon. Shelfari has seemingly good synergy and complimentary offerings with Amazon book section. It will be safe to assume that Amazon would use the social elements of Shelfari platform to generate book sales. Amazon would be able to tap discussions on books, see get to see early on demand being created by user generated reviews and ratings, opinions and discussions.Book lovers would almost certainly be able to buy those books there. Is social networking taking a new meaning here? Would Amazon use this platform to make people chat on other merchandise it sells?

Logical query: Are we going to see domain specific social networking sites getting consolidated by large ‘downstream’ or ‘upstream’ or ‘proximate’ players’?

I ventured onto WordPress on June 28. Too months onto this platform(and URL), I observe the following:

1. This site has started to get interesting traffic via search. In fact, on a good day it compares significantly with the Blogger blog.Yeh Dil Maange More. 
2. Looks do matter: Comments per post have increased, this could possibly not be attributed to any sudden enhancement in my content abilities.
3. ‘Setup and forget it’ does not work with WP. WP keeps releasing better versions.Compulsive delivery syndrome? Code Diarrhea ? I think I can bear it.

Some reflections on my past posts on Blogger.

1. My posts on Subroto Bagchi and  Mahesh Murthy continue to get  fairly good number of visitors everyday. But overall winner by a great margin is Dr Abdul Kalam, about him I have written five posts, including one on an imaginary conversation between Dr Kalam and (former) President Musharraf which for some reason is my favourite.
2. My moment of real blogging happiness was when Shel Israel left a comment on a post I made on his (and Rob Scoble’s) book.

Net net I remain quite delighted  with WP and the flexibility. I continue to mentally debate if I should move all content to this platform and ditch the old site completely. Any suggestions?

I am being a little audacious in making an emphatic pronouncement on something that has got an amazing hype in India in last few days. But somehow all the hype does not  generate any great confidence in likelihood of  Apple iPhone being any great success in India. Here’s why I feel so:

1. Of course, the price, it is obscene(NDTV’s Vikram Chandra felt it was only ‘slightly expensive’ though!).
2. SMS is important for Indian mobile users, unlike the US where it is possible to come across many business executives who do not  use SMS. The iPhone is not crafted for heavy SMS usage. 
3. Yes, I know iPhone is not a  phone for business executives, but then that’s another reason in favour of my argument.
4. Far superior cameras are available in phones in 15 K range.
5. We do not love buying digital music so much. If we want, it is generally available,you know what I mean. iTunes what?
6. Operator bundling militates against our nature. In a city like Chennai and most part of India, we have three to four GSM service providers. It makes us feel lot of freedom and surrendering that choice does not go with our nature, it is all in the mind.
7. iPhone versus iPhone- Bunty can buy the iPhone in Amrika, get it unlocked on the corner-shop and use it in Patiala. Hello, Bunty is already using it- Why should he pay so much more to buy from India? And he can use it with any operator.Can Apple handle this channel conflict without relooking at the price?
8. Timing wise, August is not the time Indians are in great mood to spend big monies. That happens to be Diwali and around.That’s when the best launches tend to work. 
9. Apple is otherwise pretty much unknown commodity in India. Apple? 
10. 3G? No comments.

Did not surprise me that there are no pictures of any queues outside stores last night. BTW, do you agree with the above?

I realized today that I have not been able to make a single post in the last ten days, which is sacrilegious silence in terms of blogging(If you are not offended, I am). Let’s see how the world’s changed in last ten days:

1. The Independence Day Landmark Quiz happened at Music Academy. Teamed up with two very bright students I met for the first time and nearly qualified for the finals(How can one believe otherwise?!)- Strategic Alliance is the name of the game. That’s how I’ve always won Quiz events, earlier at school and last seven years at my company!
2. Sushil Kumar got India its second medal from Beijing- made us proud (My chest is close to bursting in anticipation of a third medal via  Vijender Kumar ).
3. Apple announced pricing of its iPhone in India(~USD 760 for 8 GB).Skimming pricing is what they taught us in Economics. Demand elasticity, bullshit?  Wait, those pricing guys at Apple studied the same economics paper as me. That means penetration pricing after a duration of price skimming. That means an iPhone in India at 10k in about eight to ten months. I still won’t buy it.Imagine,  you cannot even address an SMS to multiple people, I believe you cannot even forward a message.
4. Bought Steve Jobs biography. It has an uninspiring title called iCon (Steve Wozniak’s biography was on the shelf too – it was creatively titled iWoz).Given Apple’s innovative streak, I was hoping for the book to open sideways at least. Disappointment, it just opens normally.
5. Bipasha Basu threatened Vijender Kumar with a date- ahem, why was this offer not announced before the Olympics selection trials- this could have motivated many of the athletes, and maybe got us more medals. And just by the way, does Bipasha fully understand the ramifications if the hockey boys had qualified to the Olympics and won the Gold?
6. Oops I forgot, India turned 61!
7. Dr C.K .Prahalad gave a talk on India-at-75 yesterday in Chennai and nope, I could not get my copy of his book on innovation autographed.
8. The President of Pakistan resigned. And surprise of surprises, one week after resigning, he’s neither on a plane to some distant land, nor behind bars! Somehow I was reminded of an old Salman Rushdie book with characters whose names I vaguely remeber as Gen Faltu and Gen Bekar.Was it called Shame? Did he have this scene in mind when he wrote this book?

Good Bye For Now.

As news of Abhinav Bindra getting India’s first ever individual Gold Medal spread, the following conversation was heard between two ladies, respectfully called Mamis for their tradition oriented leanings. They had a bewildered look about them:

Mami A -"Why have they given Gold medal to a this guy, da?"

Mami B – "Yeah, what will a man do with Gold? "

Mami A- "Maybe gift it to his wife"

Mami B – "Look at the size of the Gold (looking salivatingly at Abhinav Bindra’s picture, but not at him, but the Gold medal in his hands)"

Mami A- "A nice necklace can be made out of it"

Mami B -"Must be five sovereigns"

Mami A- "Really?!"

Mami B- "Then earrings can come out too"

Mami A- "Yes, but he’d have to give another five sovereigns for a good set to be made"

Mami B -"Its Olympics no, jeweler won’t cheat "

Mami A -"Would it be Chinese?"

Mami B – "No, 22 carats, I’m sure"

Mami A – "He should give this to a decent jeweler, otherwise they’d mix the Gold . My amma knows the thatha who runs that Gold shop where I bought this"

At this point a male listener, who for privacy reasons cannot be identified interrupted. He was struggling hard to control his internal agitation to join this conversation.

Male A -"What do you ladies think he’s that mad that he’d melt his Gold medal for his wife? Do know the value of that medal?"

Mami A – "Good idea, maybe he should keep it for his daughter’s wedding. His wife would be already having Gold, no?"

Mami B – "My husband also got Gold medal. From Madras University".

Note: Pun Intended. All resemblances are purely coincidental.

Abhinav Bindra’s Blog here.

In India we are not unused to being reminded by a section of the Western commentators about how poor, dirty, over populated and kind of burden-of-the-world  we are- the BBC is a living example, its TV reporters seemingly have to file reports only when there’s a cow or a drain behind, at least a child with a running nose( and Nizamuddin Nalla seems a favourite)! The Beeb is not alone.

A leading research analyst at Forrester, Navi Radjou while proposing ‘India’s Interdependence’ this year, has this to say

"To put it more bluntly, India just can’t keep inventing locally when it comes to massive socio-economic problems such as illiteracy, the energy crunch, wobbly infrastructure, and its dismal healthcare system"

(Read Mr. Radjou’s recipe for India at Harvard Business Publishing article).

Thanks Mr. Radjou. Looking at your frustration about Indians ‘inventing locally’ somehow I feel it is good you went away from the land of your birth. Must be quite a relief- Mutual.

Before I start, let me say this. I am not into negative posts that make anyone look bad. But frankly, as a member of another management association, I’m quite stunned to note that the Delhi Management Association website leads you to a domain parking site. Besides the usual ads, it also gives the reasons for the same.  The site existed till few days back and has deep footprints on Google.

My curiosity takes me to a lookup and I find that the site has been renewed as late as today and valid for another year. Looks like it was paid a day after the domain expired. Quite likely, the registrar decided to park the page. And after renewal, someone forgot to unplug the domain parking.

The lookup also identifies a administrative and technical contact at Delhi Management Association and even gives her mail id ( Not shown in the screenshot). One can see another cardinal bloomer. The administrative and technical contact mail id is on the same domain(dmadelhi.org), which means that once the domain expires, the mail also stops working cutting all communication. But quite a good idea, if you have the payment discipline though.

Frankly, in the net age when even small societies are leveraging the net for communications and promotions, a leading body such as Delhi Management Association forgetting the basics is quite a shock.

Updated Aug 9 , 8 AM: The real site is back to life.

Almost all publicly listed and traded companies have a department that’s usually called investor relations or like. Their job is to ensure appropriate shareholder communication. Investor relations is a crafted art and normally speaking, companies are very careful about any form of communication between investors and management – casual conversations are a strict no, all that is to be spoken is prepared and rehearsed. The fright of of the investor relations team also hovers around what the management bosses would possibly  start to talk  on their blog – something that has a bearing on the stock, or seen to be having a bearing on the stock. Agencies such as Securities and Exchange Commission (US) and SEBI usually frown on communication that violate of the stated and unstated guidelines on shareholder communication. Enter the new SEC.

Via Ebay’s official blog, we learn that SEC in US has introduced new guidelines and recognized the social dimension of communication.

“The last time the SEC issued guidance in this area, the idea of ’social networks’ hadn’t yet been developed, and creating a social network where shareholders could meet and exchange views was barely imaginable,” said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox.” Ongoing developments in technology have increased both the markets’ and investors’ demand for more timely company disclosure on the Web, and in turn, raised new securities law issues for public companies to consider. The guidance issued today clarifies the rules of the road so investors can gain — quickly and in a cost-effective manner — the benefits of Internet disclosure of the latest information on the companies they own or are considering buying.”

Clearly this goes a mile. The issue here appears interactive nature of blog format which allowed for two way communication and content was not static. It also does away with the requirement of a communication to acquire a printer-friendly format, which means an investor communication could even be blogpost, a Tweet, or multimedia film, or a flash based slides. Awesome.In one stroke, SEC gave a big leg-up to faster communication. When will the rest of the world adopt this?

Read my favorite CEO Blog- Sun’s Jonathan Schwartz is an old time blogger Why, his General Counsel Mile Dillion blogs too. Mike should be relieved at the above developments.

Ashish Sinha of PluGGd.in noted over a tweet yesterday morning that Ebay India does about a transaction a minute. That makes it 1440 transactions a day and considering that many of these transactions would be not so high in value, the daily turnover of Ebay India would appear pathetically lamentable. That is the state of a country of a billion people and often billed as IT powerhouse.

Sadly, as I noted earlier, it is the smaller countries in the world that are the best wired today. But then online commerce is not just about net penetration alone.The Tweet debate with Mayank Gupta  and Ashish was whether it is true that  the inhibiting factor is the Indian attitude to touch and feel buying, rather than click and buying. I do not think this is completely true. We as investors in securities, do massive online trading, hold our shares electronically and so on. We buy airline and train tickets online and many of us buy books and music online too.  Why, India could be an example of how matrimonial sites do roaring business with Shaadi and Bharatmatrimony setting a trend. And there are several sites doing property and property rental brokerages such as MagicBricks and 99Acres and so on. The numbers may be small, regionally skewed towards south India, but certainly. The story is different in consumer durables, such as white goods, furniture etc.

The press release from Income Tax Department points out that over 1.25 lmillion annual tax returns were filed electronically- returnees either did it themselves, or relied on an accountant to do so. That’s certainly a good baby step in doing things online. The point to note is that while the net subscriber base has not taken off as envisaged, the mobile operators continue to add a million subscribers a month. Add the 3G spectrum auction news and you come to conclude that online commerce in India would perhaps take off via the mobiles.

With Proto dust yet to settle down, blogosphere in India remains quite charged up about startups. As a bibliophile, I was quite attracted towards Pothi.com, which is a bring-your-manuscript-take-back-books style startup by two very talented young minds.

At the heart of Pothi.com’s value proposition is delayering, which means as a prospective author with a manuscript, you do not have to grovel before prospective publishers- you become a publisher yourself. Upload the manuscript, and Pothi.com would provide printing services as well as sell it via their website, for a commission. Sounds good so far, but the concept is nascent and evolving. Pothi needs to go a little further.

Inside every book lovers heart lies an urge to be an author one day (some author, if not a best selling author!). The role of a publishing house editor has changed and now they get involved right from the time a book is conceived. They are partners who help develop the cencept, and with their scholarship arrive at the subject gap, even suggesting to the author what will sell. By delayering, Pothi is completely removing this layer with obvious risks. Pothi.com could do well to consider getting an optional loop where an editor is introduced into the cycle.

The second is promoting a new or upcoming title. Usually, books are promoted by book clubs, reading sessions, reviews in newspapers and trade magazines of repute, sites such as Shelfari and even the blogosphere. There are some reputed book reviewers , who can really swing a few hundred copies easily. What is the plan to tap them? And have you seen Amazon and how they tap reader reviews.

The third observation is on distribution. While books are one of the items that get sold off online relatively easily, significantly larger number of copies are sold via shops such as Landmark, Odyssey and so on. These large book retailers are too big a channel to be ignored or directly competed against. And what’s is your inventory management plan once you get orders of five, or ten thousand copies or more.

Excellent concept, a little rushed implementation which cannot afford to stop evolving.  In short, Jaya and Abhay would do well to spend some energies on the behavioural model of this book publishing  business- the application usually evolves once the behavioural model is in place. I am also making a slightly contestable assertion that there are more book lovers in the South Indian cities, so a name such as Pothi (Tome in Hindi) would have acceptability issues.

At a personal level, the idea looks quite  interesting and worth following the evolution of Pothi.