WhatsApp – The King of Apps?

Talk business or technology, the quintessential question always remains – what next and where do we go from here? Develop an idea enabled by technology, build a viable business plan and get investors to fund the project is fast becoming the way to become an entrepreneur. In most cases, we have now become an app driven community and every person who aspires to come in with a billion dollar idea that can change the world look at apps. What is also means is one has to look back at the millions of apps and programs that already exist in the market to even identify an untapped need. The gap between a concept and an innovative concept is now just growing by the day.

Yes, the advent of a smart phone has actually expanded the horizons of consumer targeted technology and there might be almost every possible need of a common man that the entrepreneurs have been investing for through an app. Even a super niche function like identify the quality of printing on paper (which was something reserved for specialized equipment) is already present in the market and available for free on an app. Most phone applications have evolved from an internet based websites and services. While a few are specially created for the mobile space, there is one undisputed king which only resides on the mobile- WhatsApp.

Now to be fair, WhatsApp is not a complete innovation of sorts. Messaging and media capabilities existed via SMS and MMS for quite some time. The Blackberry Messenger was one thing that made the biggest buzz for buyers outside the corporate domain. The success of WhatsApp possibly came from being amongst the first and versatile data based messaging app that was not limited to any particular mobile operating system.  Its capabilities of sharing photos, videos and forming groups was something that gave rise to social communities through mobiles. In terms of convenience: a voice note just in case you are bored to type or have just one small thing to talk.

It might have taken people a fair amount of time to accept an email or an SMS as a formal form of communication. It has hardly much time to be taken WhatsApp to be taken serious.  To my experience, it has become a means to be at two places without actually being there. A film set is being erected, an event stall is being constructed or anything remote that might take for a person to travel to; it has now become a common practice to send across images or videos over WhatsApp to the approving authority and seek feedback instantly.

Another common practice, form a group on WhatsApp with people work

ing on a project and you have everyone on the same page as if an email update. Groups are a great way to spread information rapidly. The last I know is a short film being released exclusive content on WhatsApp. WhatsApp has also put up a strong fight to voice calling apps like Viber with its calling capabilities. So in a way, WhatsApp has so far had most bases covered in terms of voice based communication and file sharing abilities. So where does it go now?

I guess it might just take a few dips in the near past to believe that social platforms tend to die out the moment they stop evolving. The example of Orkut, Hotmail, Chat Messengers are all examples where they got beaten or replaced by others that had better functionality or enough excitement happening to keep people hooked on all day.  The areas where WhatApp still might lack is Video Calling facilities against, say Facetime. Or the fact that you can connect only by exchanging numbers and not a onetime connect that’s possible via Skype.

One thing that WhatsApp has achieved so far is forming communities within users. Ranging from friends, business circles or even a virtual classroom notice board, it has been adapted in many ways. But if WhatsApp could form communities for a social or a professional outfit, it can be the next stage of brand campaigns or even online PR initiatives. The way news and information (much of the times even improper information) travels via groups has an overwhelming viral effect.  

Having already seen how politicians used WhatsApp during the state elections in Maharashtra, it is already become a mass broadcast medium. If marketing via WhatsApp was an idea so far, what is interesting though is that women with their ever expanding social circles and gossip groups are one strong way that Tupperware ladies have already started taking advantage of. All Tupperware does is create short videos of their products and information previously that required demo is now going across through demo videos.

The final word from me, WhatsApp needs to make a good use of its penetration and evolve into different forms for people and their needs. It has already achieved success over smart phone users which might be at par if not above what Facebook has with the same group – but it is how it will grow and endear itself to the future users that will decide the way ahead. For now, I guess there will be little debate that possibly the most subscribes app makes WhatsApp the king of its domain for now. 

Wanna Date? Get the App!

Finding a partner- it might be the most primal instincts that keeps the human race still in touch with our evolutionary past. Nature possibly wrote this code with the idea of propagation of species; the human civilizations have refined it into a wonderful term named relationships. It is so true that we enjoy being with certain people, have feelings towards them (may be even as friends) and ultimately we assign them a unique place in our social ecosystem as long as it has an impact on our life. This is what I’ed say is my view of how we start and maintain our relations from an individual level.

The first level is usually the family where we are born, next is close and distant relatives. When it comes down to friends; we get them from school just by virtue of innocence- sitting on the same bench, sharing the same toffies, travelling in the same school bus or just nothing at all. As we graduate through school and college, we have a rolling account of friends and our first encounters with dating. But overall in most cases, dating is confined to people we know and to ones we are most influenced by in a group. In such cases, everyone knows everything about one another and where we don’t, we have a friend, acquaint or someone who knows this person in some or the other way and can help. The need to know something about someone is the amazing space which has given rise to social networks of today. (given if the movie Social Network is something to go by)

With the advent of internet in Indian households, chat rooms and messengers like ICQ were the first form of tools to enhance the social circles beyond the boundaries of the known people. But why do we have an inherent need to expand our social circles and get to know more people? The answer is pretty simple- what fun it is to answer an exam where you know every answer or play Prince of Persia with cheat codes. Dating is like being on a treasure hunt for the perfect match from a million around whom you do not know. It’s almost like taking command of the USS Enterprise and going boldly further than any man has gone before to know another person. In most cases, it also brings out a lot of self-awareness as you end up understanding more of yourself from an independent opinion from a person who only knows you as much as you can tell them.

The traditional dating forms like blind dating, speed dating etc. have been tried to a fair extent in India but little has actually caught on. I had heard of mobile led dating devices in some Asian countries but the recent explosion of smart phones in India has led to a large number of dating apps that have come in. Now honestly, I had only heard of Tinder and Bumble for some time and considering the fact that the online space had got creepy in a lot of ways, I was confident that this was just a passing phase. Not to mention, the final nail on Orkut did suggest that people has moved to Facebook and WhatsApp as a preferred choice. But recently I started hearing radio ads of some Indian dating apps gaining popularity. So I kind of decided to do some research.

On an overall I guess the apps have refined the art of internet enabled dating away from the weird friend requests we all get on Facebook (and the fraandsheep seekers on Orkut). Firstly, people are from within your geographical vicinities which eliminates you the chance of finding someone in Latvia, Ghana or Fiji. Also since the larger objective is for people to actually meet at some point, it is necessary that the geography is defined. It is also a great thing for people to just swipe around and take a call based on the first impression if it is worth exploring- there are no second chances and a reject is like permanent. I’m sure this gets rid of a lot of nuisance value and stalkers. The third is that you cannot make a profile on its own as they use Facebook as a reference platform for verification. So no more corny id’s like ‘waiting4u, 4uonly, hunkinslacks’ will every bother you.

While everything as an app might seem good with Tinder or an Indian one like Woo, there is and has always been an element of creepiness which is one obvious thing that floats around here. I mean when you name an app Thrill or Desi Crush; it somehow just doesn’t inspire that confidence to meet genuine and good people. But I guess this is the space where people have to change rather than apps and their filters. I do believe there will be people who will possibly mention their intent well and truly direct manner in their profile at some point. These apps are purely means to have more friends- just friends. Sadly this is something not very common in India for people of opposite genders to be just friends; our movies only preach a bunch of guys exclusively or girls exclusively who can sing a song on being friends. Also we love to promote the myth that friends turn life partners eventually.

In my view, more than anything, people have to understand what really is dating. In plain simple terms, dating (unlike flirting) is merely a casual interaction between two people who meet, talk about areas of mutual liking and possibly share things about their life. There is no space for any malicious intent or involved. Since there is no accord to meeting someone again, people usually do open up without the fear of being judged. Though this might not be a primary use of dating apps, I’m already hearing of people who are using Tinder as a business tool to meet people who might be from a particular field of work with a business proposition. And most certainly, a dating app is not a Shaadi.com app or some escort service in disguise.

In an era when I see more and more people involved in activities which actually disconnect them from one another, where the bonds in our social circles, time spent with friends away from work etc. are dropping to a new low, these apps can actually be a breeze of fresh air. A technology connecting people in real. 

The rise of the ‘Me’ world

A feeling quite a few people around me shared during Diwali this time around- ‘the number of people bursting fire crackers seems to be going down in our locality’. Most of the people saw this as a welcome sign as it could be related to possible lower levels of air and sound pollution along with an opinion that it was judicious use of money by spending it in other areas. While I still await stats of how much of e-retailers and malls sold this time around, I do foresee some big numbers arising here. But while it may have been better business in retail; I can help suppress a fear creeping in my mind- has the spirit of Diwali slowly eroded?

Bursting crackers during Diwali was like a social event in my building. Children and elders came down for the occasion, pooled the crackers and sweets and spent almost an hour together chatting, sharing jokes and enjoying the fireworks in each other’s company. Lighting up of a 1000 or 5000 maala intertwined with an atom bomb or Laxmi bomb was like the highlight of Laxmi Poojan. Lighting an anar or seeing a rocket go high in the air was charming. It all seems lost today when not a single person took part bursting crackers or even meeting each other on the occasion. My genuine concern- has Diwali lost its social relevance as a festival and become just another occasion to spend time and money on our own self?

Being an 80’s kid; I can safely say that I have seen the world change in more than many ways. Concepts like one car, one TV, one phone, one computer, one house per family has vanished and today we actually take pride in the fact that every person in a family is likely to have their own phone, TV, computer and car. Weekends or time after school was the time for negotiation with parents to play cricket, football or even hide ‘n seek with the neighbour’s kids. Even a game on Sega (only the few fortunate ones who owned it) was a group activity with 4-5 kids lined up before the set. All this seems to be a thing of the past.

With the sharp rise in consumerism has come the exponential rise in personal gadgetry which in a way is threatening the need for social interactions. Almost all kids today have a Play Station console or have mastered the game apps on their parent’s tablets and cell phones. Playing outdoors is usually limited to some sport involving a professional coach who is programmed to get them into a regime designed like a rigid framework rather than a way to unwind for recreation. One bat, a contribution to buy a ball, stumps drawn on a wall decorated with ball marks have been overruled by console buttons labelled by a circle, cross, square and a triangle.

This is not something which has happened all of a sudden. We have very slowly but surely migrated into an individual driven society. For my parent’s generation; it was always a group of friends or family that listened to the same radio shows, saw movies together in a theatre and on occasions of festivals- got together to enjoy on a higher level. Shopping was also a group activity with one buyer accompanied by 3 support cast. The only forms of personal space was either a form of art or reading books. For our generation, it was handheld video games and the Walkman which first intruded the personal entertainment space. Computers came in much later and affordability kept them at bay. Options with TV channels were few and hence was replacing the radio at some level. But the rest all remained similar.

Easier and affordable access to technology combined with rapid growth in communications and connectivity has together resulted in a social breakdown of sorts. Every aspect of life can now be termed personal and thereby be personalized to taste. From being convenience; technology is now giving a reason for the young and the adults to cocoon themselves from the outside world. Why play in the sun, when you can play on the LAN? Why walk around in a mall or a bazaar when you can shop and order online? Why do you need to spend an hour bargaining with a shopkeeper for a better price when the online store offers you a steal to begin with? Why write a letter when you can email? Why call when you can send a message on Whatsapp?

Today, while talking about a ‘built to last’ HMT watch belonging to his grandfather, my friend since nursery posed a thought questioning if ‘new technologies are really an advancement’. For starters, watches have become a fashion accessory and its functional role taken over by the cell phone. If capabilities and features are to be put in perspective; may be a wearable gadget has a lot more to offer than an HMT watch. But in this ‘Me’-driven world, what an iWatch, Samsung Gear or GOQii will lack is the charm of an interpersonal conversation started off with someone walking up to you and asking. “bhai, time kya hua hai”. 

Towards a Phony World

We all take pride in the fact that the world is shrinking; thanks to exponential improvement in technology and avenues to communicate. A 2010 movie named Udaan had a small joke about the state of telephony in India. A student being rusticated from a school has a small moment of ecstasy when the school master mentions about reporting matters to his father on phone- ‘You mean my house now has a phone line???’ I guess the joke shall fall flat today when India has more mobile phone connections than landlines.

While I have nothing against development or technology, I am coming to believe that technology is actually breaking the human bonds of the society by making us more and more impersonal. Today, almost all of us have a mobile phone, but the so called educated lot have given up calling and gone deeper into messaging. The charm of writing a hand written letter has now become something of a novelty (no wonder guys still try to impress girls by writing letters). I fail to recollect an ad I has seen some time back where there was a statement was, ‘technology today can tell you about what your distant cousin is doing in the US, but let aside mingling- we fail to even know or acknowledge our next door neighbours.’  The bottom line, Nokia may still say we connect people- but the human touch seems to be losing its grip.

Back in the days when I started working in GE Healthcare, the mobile phone became a need to connect with people towards getting solutions to field problems. In those day, my job role demanded me to be reachable round the clock for any emergency as a machine could go down at 7 in the morning or even 11 at night. With every breakdown having a rider attached of ‘human life at stake’, I was paranoid to a level where my phone had to be in the same room and as close to me each time I laid my head down. When I entered media, I got to learn that I was under a behavioural illness termed as Nomophobia.

Coined in 2010 in UK, Nomophobia (No-Mobile-Phobia) was a condition where a subject was living under a fear of losing mobile connectivity either by loss of the instrument, no network coverage, no credits or even the battery losing all juice. At that point, I remember there were stats like more than 70% people sleep with a phone at an arm’s length, 30% indulge in messaging during meetings, loss of a phone book record is more disturbing than losing a book etc. I cannot agree more that all this is happening. In fact, I had to take some forceful steps for myself like no phones during lunch/dinner, no phones when out with friends, phones on silent at night etc. to get me off this.

The next term that joined this list of new age phobias has been propelled by the increasing use of social media in recent times- FOMA (Fear Of Missing Out). It is not a stand-up joke anymore for people to visit Facebook or WhatsApp before the washroom after we getting up from bed or the finishing statement switching off the lights is hitting like on the last comment.  (http://www.warc.com/LatestNews/News/Online_India_gripped_by_FOMO_.news?ID=33659)

Let me just shoot you some numbers from this survey by Tata Communications undertaken in India, Singapore, UK, US and Germany. (China would have been interesting as well). With the 9417 respondents across these countries, 29% of the total spent more than six hours daily on the internet; the number for India being the highest at 46%. Of the total respondents, 56% could not survive for more than 5 hours without internet. For 12 hours without the internet, the Asians collapsed while the rest has over 70% survival. 82% Indians showed signs of FOMA and the gender ratio for anxiety was skewed towards women. What’s more, 43% Indians were prepared to give up on TV for more time on their tablets and smart phones.

It is evidently clear- technology is taking over our world too rapidly and eroding all other forms of media and inter-personal communication. In an interaction with students in their late teens, newspapers had made way for news apps on phones. It was not uncommon to spot a few smiling as they looked down to their groin. I threw a fit when recently on a vacation to Goa, my friend spent more time looking into his phone while sitting on a beach. The habit is so common amongst people that beach side shacks advertise being WiFi enabled. It was there by a refreshing sight when one shack declared it was a place with no frills but perfect for family time and live 90’s style.

I fail to understand how people can participate in twitter battles while watching a Federer- Nadal match or contribute to an absurd poll about Dhoni’s haircut while watching IPL. It actually beats the human nature of reward oriented actions as at end of the day, your tweet was one of a million that day. What an amazing date it is when the girl and the guy are both more interested in clicking a selfie with each other and tagging where they went and missing out on enjoying each other’s company.  

I am certain the scenario has risen out of two key components- easy access to mobile internet and social media applications for phones which are actually destroying the physical and inter personal relations in the real human society. It is thereby not uncommon to see some people taking a sabbatical from social media networks from time to time; it is a kind of a self-imposed restrain (or detox) to avoid the complete annihilation of their physical social structure. I just hope this doesn’t mushroom into a clinical mode of treatment- the indicators do suggest: we are after all moving very close to a phony world. 

Trial by Social Media

We often have regarded the Jessica Lal murder case as one of the first instances of trail by media in India. If you have seen the movie, ‘No one killed Jessica’, the makers of the film have been completely unapologetic in showing that the murder case had lost its place in the news to larger events happening across. It wasn’t until a channel took it serious and took up the story in a manner exposing the ones involved that justice finally came through.

The pivot point here; a news channel- a part of the organised media had to be involved to take notice and act as a conduit to escalate matters and get people on to the streets to fight for justice. This process of waiting for a news channel or organised media to intervene has actually got bypassed to a fair extent today by the hyper-drive status of social media. Commoners use Facebook and WhatsApp and the popular ones have Twitter following to be applied to leverage social media to a very high extent.

TV channels like Bindaas, Channel V and MTV all today have at least one show where there have been some episodes on how people have used social media to speak out against powerful and influential people around them, report workplace abuse etc. Much like any tool, they also show cases where social media has also been abused to malign people or their reputation as an act of vengeance or to inflict social embarrassment.

If this is the case with individuals, how can corporate houses be left far behind.

Vishal Gondal is a name that found fame as the ‘King of Indian gaming’, thanks to the success of his venture, Indiagames in the late 2000’s. But this gaming wiz also has to his credit to be the man taking on Audi India in a case known to the auto world as the ‘Sleep-walking Audi Q7’. (http://forbesindia.com/blog/business-strategy/the-curious-case-of-vishal-gondals-sleepwalking-audi/)

Gondal had given his prized 65 lac worth luxury car for servicing and as typical of a gizmo freak, had the facility to track the same over GPS. The night before the delivery, he got a speeding alert from the GPS. The next few hours gave him the horror of seeing the car rally across the cities arterial roads and even land up in suspicious scrap yards of Kurla before getting back to the service centre. Gondal’s reflex action, the GPS track went onto Facebook and Twitter where he was blessed with loyal followers who were up in arms with what had happened. Every person who had service issues with any car manufacturer joined hands and the entire fraternity had to take notice. 

But Audi claimed the car never left the workshop and have termed the GPS tracker as defective. In the online war that followed, Audi tried to delete all hate posts on their page; but it simply added to public ire as the smart ones took screen grabs before being deleted. Even though the head of Audi in India spoke of taking action, nothing happened. To this day, Audi has not apologized for any wrong doings on part of their staff even at a cost where it has dented its reputation. A case where an apology and some make good could have cleared the air, still remains unsolved. The insult to injury, Gondal posted pics posing next to a Mini Cooper and handing over the advantage to Audi’s rivals, BMW.

Apart from denial of the truth, Audi faced a lot of flak on social media and also resulted in a loss of face and customers in the coming months. Lessons to be taken: if an apology works- just do it. And more importantly, never delete posts: people are most upset when this happens; especially with woes.

Today I have come across another brewing case: Neha Tomar (apparently a Gurgaon based lawyer) taking on Amul Milk. When a bag of Amul Gold milk went bad (sour) in the Tomar household, they tried to return it back to the vendor. The vendor refused and an attempt to make cheese from the sour milk took things from bad to worse- the curds turned into an elastic emulsion similar to melted mozzarella cheese.  Pictures of this were posted on Facebook on 10^th October with an appeal for caution and action against Amul. Sympathy vote: it has got over 77,000 shares. (https://www.facebook.com/neha.tomar.39/posts/10152355551565785)

Between 10^th to 14^th October, the Facebook page of Amul has been plastered with this post by various people who saw the Ms. Tomar’s post. Things reached a level that Ms. Tomar has even taken a petition to the Health Minister of India with a call for support for 500 names to pass the legal action. Amul in the meantime had been more of organising its stand but with no ill language or posts towards all this on Facebook.

Today afternoon, after four days of the first post and pictures appeared, Amul has come out with an official stand on Facebook which is both solid and scientific in its defence and openly exposing the flaws in Ms. Tomar’s claims. The milk was expired, some irregularities in the dates mentioned by Ms. Tomar in her post, a video to replicate how and why any kind of milk can turn into this lumpy elastic mass and finally; the behind the scene action taken by Amul officials to actively engage with the customer complaint. The most crucial part, disapproving of malicious intention and trying to reinstall the faith in the brand and its legacy of being built by farmers themselves. (https://www.facebook.com/amul.coop/posts/10152808817269446)

This is what separates Amul as a brand from the rest of the millions in India. A complaint was taken seriously, investigated and the reply was made in a solid and well researched. Sure the shares at present are slow (only 1500 odd so far), but the message is loud and clear: no attacks on the brand are taken lightly or left unattended. If the medium of the offensive was social media, it is the same medium employed to manage the damage and answer to the world.

In my opinion, this is amongst the best of the reputation management action on social media I have seen so far and unless there is any drastic change on stands soon- it will be etched as a live example for me to share for at least some time now.