From a sportsmen scandal to sporting glory, from scams to massacres, here is the round-up of the top 10 news of the week.

1.    CWG Scam: Kalmadi’s name missing from the charge sheet

The charge sheet filed by the CBI in the Queens Baton Relay (QBR) scam does not mention Suresh Kalmadi as an accused even though it indicts former OC officials Sanjay Mohindroo, TS Darbari and M Jeychandran of fraud. The three men are also accused of forging false documents in order to sanction payments to businessman Ashish Patel’s company. Although the report clearly mentions that Kalmadi had approved payments to Ashish Patel’s company AM Films and Cars, it does not name him as the accused. CBI officials have stated that since Kalmadi’s name doesn’t feature in the FBI list in the QBR case, therefore his name doesn’t featured in the report. Many of the opposition leaders expressed ‘surprise’ on the omission of Kalmadi’s name in the report.

2.    Government asks Twitter to block fake PM accounts

Upset with the fake PMO accounts that have been operating on the popular micro-blogging side ‘Twitter’, Center has asked for all the ‘imposter’ sites to be shut, fearing that it may ‘misrepresent’ a high office like PMO and may leak wrong information though the option of a blanket ban on Twitter has been ruled out.
The government has also asked Twitter to block such accounts which have posted incendiary and untrue information on the Assam riots and its fallout.
Initially, Twitter did not agree to the government’s demands of blocking the parody accounts but due to political pressure finally agreed to oblige the government. Full story here.

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3.    Bhupathi-Bopanna lose in the Cincinnati final

Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna lost to Sweden’s Robert Lindstedt and Romania’s Horia Tecau in the ATP Cincinnati Masters final. The sixth seed Indian pair lost 4-6 4-6 to the fourth seeded rival team. This was their second final of the season after winning the Dubai ATP in February. India’s Leander Paes and Czech Radek Stepanek lost out in the second round itself. Full story here.

4.    India beat New Zealand to enter Under-19 World cup final
India stormed into the ICC Under-19 World Cup finals after defeating New Zealand by 9 runs in the semi-finals. India had set a target of 210 runs for New Zealand who faltered at 200/9 in 50 overs. Opener Prashant Chopra was the top-scorer for the Indians with 104-ball 52, followed by number three batsman Baba Aparajith who scored 44 runs. Even skipper Unmukt Chand played well and scored 31 runs off 44 deliveries. For the Kiwis, left-arm spinner Ben Horne was the top wicket-taker, picking up 3/23 in six overs. India will now face Australia in the finals. Full story here.

A jubilant Indian team celebrates their win

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5.    Legendary editor Helen Gurley Brown dies at 90.

Celebrated author and former editor of ‘Cosmopolitan’ magazine, Helen Gurley Brown died at a New York hospital at the age of 90. She was famous in print industry of the 1960s. Though, at that time, many feminist groups had objected to Brown’s liberal mindset, Cosmopolitan magazine’s sales increased tremendously under the leadership of Brown, who functioned as the editor  for 32 long years. Her famous works include “Having It All”(1982), “The Late Show: A Semi wild but Practical Survival Plan for Women Over 50”(1993) and “Sex and the Single Girl”( 1962).

Helen Gurley Brown

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6.    Pujara scores maiden century in the India-New Zealand test match

Replacing Rahul Dravid at number 3, Cheteshwar Pujara scored a smashing 119 in the ongoing test match between India and New Zealand in Hyderabad. India finished the first day with a comfortable 307 for 5.  Though the senior most player Sachin Tendulkar  did not last long and got out after scoring only 19 runs, young players like MS Dhoni (29 not out) and Virat Kohli (58) took charge of the game. The second and final Test of the two-Test series will be held in Bangalore from August 31-September 4.
 This match was the dawn of Indian cricket’s new era without the stalwarts like VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid in the starting line-up. Full story here.

7.    Norway killer Breivik gets 21 years for mass massacre

Anders Behring Breivik has been sentenced to 21 years for the murder of 77 people in a gun and bomb massacre last year in Norway as the court found him to be sane and thus responsible for his actions. Breivik had confessed carrying out the attack and claimed that he had  targeted the ruling centre-left Labour Party for its support of Muslim immigration. Breivik also faces the possibility of indefinite extensions to his sentence. Full story here.

Anders Behring Breivik

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8.    2G case: SC clears Chidumbaram, dismisses Swamy’s petition

Dismissing Janata Party’s leader Subramanian Swamy’s plea, the Supreme Court cleared current Finance Minister Chidambaram’s name from  his alleged involvement in the 2G spectrum sale scam along with others accused in the case, including former bureaucrats and former telecom minister A Raja. The ruling stated that after reviewing all the material on record, the court concluded that there was “no deliberate act or abuse of position” by Chidambaram in relation to the 2G scam. However, Swamy expressed his displeasure with the judgment and said that he would seek a review. Full story here.

9.    Report says Kingfisher Airlines might face operational shutdown in the coming months

Reports by the Centre for Asia Pacific(CAPA) states that Kingfisher Airlines may have to shut down its operations if 600 million dollars are not pumped in the organization in the next two months. It also claimed that though in the first quarter, the promoters invested $133.9 million, this amount is barely sufficient for the survival of the company. The airline had the lowest market share in July which stood at 3.4 percent. Full story here.

Kingfisher Airlines: King of Troubles Times?

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10.     Lance Armstrong to be stripped off his seven Tour de France titles

As Lance Armstong refuses to challenge the doping charges levied on him, the USADA said that they would strip him off his title and ban him from competitive cycling. 40 year old Armstrong, a cancer survivor, is one of the most celebrated athletes of all time as he has won the Tour de France title seven times in a row between 1999 to 2005. He retired from professional cycling last year. However, he has refused to participate in the USADA process, as he believes it to be “one sided and unfair”. Nevertheless, the agency claimed that they had blood samples of Armstrong from 2009 and 2010 that were “fully consistent” with doping.

Lance Armstrong

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In today’s business world marketing is all about generating the customer’s interest in the goods and services the company offers. Essentially a company’s marketing strategies drive company sales techniques, business development models, business communication etc. and the ultimate aim of it all is to win, satisfy and retain a customer.

It is imperative that any marketing campaign be designed around the customer. His needs, his choices, his demands should be the focus point of it all. So then the first and foremost aim of marketing should be to communicate the key message to  potential as well as existing customers.

The trick here is to create a series of marketing techniques so that the customer gets ample time and opportunity to recognise and respond to the message being sent across. A lot of marketing tools and techniques can be used for this purpose. We will talk about some that are the most impactful, and therefore common: the key elements of a marketing campaign.

1. Publicity: All publicity is good publicity, or so they say. Well, this might not always be the case, but yes, publicity of any type does help boost sales because all the attention of target group is directed towards you. And let’s face it most big names have had their fair share of bad publicity! Cadbury had the worm episode, Coca-cola and Pepsi had the pesticide issue to tackle with, and Nano had to deal with the ‘on fire’ instances. But they all got past it with time and in the end it all worked out in the favour of the brand as the problem was strategically handled. PR has a major role to play when it comes to correcting bad publicity and infusing the media with all the ‘correct’ information.

2. Advertising: Another way of getting into the customers mind is to put your brand out there. This is what advertising does in order to get that coveted place in the customers’ mind – the ‘top-of-the-mind-recall’. Actually advertising and public relations, and all tools of marketing for that matter, have the same intent – to get the customer to first recognise, then be curious about, and ultimately desire the product. And if the desire can be converted into a purchase, then the marketing strategy behind the whole process can be considered to be a success.

3. Online Presence: Social Media is at the forefront of marketing campaigns today. You need to incorporate the online environment very neatly into your strategy. Be it Twitter, Pinterest, blogs, Facebook or your very own website, you need to incorporate these tools to get in touch with your TG. A sound online campaign can give you new customers and help you please current customers. Since the media is instant, you can measure your online performance instantly and alter/re-design your strategies as per the requirements.

4. Telemarketing: This is one element in the marketing tools kit that needs careful handling. But when applied in the right direction, this too is a great marketing tool. For instance, telemarketing works great when it comes to the business to business (B2B) segment.

It must always be kept in mind that the ultimate aim of all forms of marketing is to attain a satisfied, happy customer. Therefore, all the marketing tools so engaged in need to be fine-tuned and well balanced.

If you are one of those people who thought that twitter was a site just for celebrities, you might want to re-structure your beliefs. Short, witty and precise statements are what the world is looking for. And the 140 character limit that twitter boasts of makes it just the right tool for people to express themselves. No crap, just the exact point. Here’s how to carve a niche in this big tangled network of 140 characters that is Twitter.

1. Why?

Because social media in itself is a great networking tool and an image building arena. Twitter’s 140 character limit equips you with the art of coming to the point, of writing and talking precisely. Also, people will take time out to actually read what you have to say because it isn’t too long to read. It will help you interact with people you know and also those you don’t, but share similar likes and dislikes with. Twitter also makes you aware of the news that’s making the rounds.  Up-to-date with all the information and more, with 140 characters.

2. How?

Firstly, you need to set up your account. Go to twitter and enter your name, email, and a password and then click sign up.

You will now be taken to a second screen where you can select a username. This is the name by which you will be known on Twitter. What name should you use? It can be your real name or something quirky or your ‘pet’ name. Eg: it could be something like @RohanShah or @RockstarRohan or @onionhead. Just about any name that sails your boat! Now click on the ‘create my account’ button. That’s it. You are now officially a member of the Twitter community. Congratulations!

3. The basics:

Now that you’re a part of the twitter family, you need to know the lingo.

Follow: If you’re on Twitter you probably get this one already, but let’s cover it for the sake of it. If you subscribe to someone’s updates, you follow them.

@reply: When you want to talk to someone on twitter or reply to their tweet, you use the @reply option. Your response will show up in that person’s @connect menu on Twitter or under the mentions tab.

DM: A direct message (DM) is sent between users, not shown publicly on the timeline. You can only DM another user if they follow you.

RT: A re-tweet (RT) is when you share something someone else wrote.

Hashtag: The hashtag is a way to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. For example, if you were tweeting about the Olympics 2012, you might use #Olympics as a hashtag.

Lists: Twitter allows you to add users to lists rather than following them directly. This is useful if you want to check in on a bunch of people periodically, but don’t want them on your timeline all the time.

4. Do’s and don’ts:

Write some great tweets. Things that you believe in, that you think about, that amuse you. And be original. Find people you like and follow them. It doesn’t necessarily have to be famous people, just ones that say things you can connect with. They might follow you back! You don’t have to re-tweet everything, but letting people know you’re there and that you like or dislike what they say is always good, so hit reply. Don’t worry if they don’t answer back – it’s not about how they interact with you, but how you interact with them. Hashtags are excellent for grouping comments together. Why is this important? It makes it easier to find items on similar themes; it also helps identify what are the most important issues on twitter (Trending topics).

5. Tech savvy:

An entire eco-system has sprung up around Twitter. Here are some of my favorite applications:

HootSuite: This is the application I use to manage Twitter on my desktop. It will even manage Facebook profiles and pages, LinkedIn, and several other social media services. It is great because it allows you to segment people by groups (or columns). I have groups for my family, close friends, colleagues, etc. It is available for both desktop systems and mobile devices.

Mobile Apps: Each mobile platform has an app dedicated to twitter. You can try Ubersocial for Blackberry, iTweets for Twitter and so on.

Social Oomph: I use this application to bulk-schedule a whole series of tweets. For example, I have identified my 90 most popular blog posts. I have written a tweet promoting each one. Via SocialOomph, I schedule one tweet per day at a specific time. I upload the text file to SocialOomph and forget about it. Everything is on auto-pilot. It will also post to Facebook.

6. Final word:

You need to be cautious about what you post. There are a lot of fake people and untruthful people around. Updating confidential information can be risky, so avoid posting it.

Lastly, happy tweeting!

Back in the year 2004, from the warehouse of the online biggie Google, came the pioneer website for Social Networking, Orkut. www.orkut.com was recorded as the most popular website for staying in touch with people across the world. Orkut definitely didn’t expand with the help of any promotion or publicity. The loud and swift word of mouth was enough to get millions of people hooked onto this website.

I still recall those lazy days in the year 2007, when my friends and I were nothing less than Orkut addicts. We were in the final year of our school and we had this funny concept that we ourselves had invented – ‘Scrap Badhao Abhiyan!’. In school, we would talk about creating polls, communities for our batch, making interesting forums. Oh! Being a Moderator was a real matter of honor. We would return from school and there our fingers almost raced on the keyboards as we discussed the exams that were approaching, the journals to be completed on Orkut. We would plan our parties, send invitations online via Orkut. That was the beginning of Social Networking and it elevated obsession to a complete new level. Parents blamed Orkut big time when their teenagers refused to attend the marriage ceremonies or the Pujas held in the complex. Orkut was such a craze that it even came up with a verb form of itself as in Orkutting.

E.g.:
My friend puts forth this statement. “Hey! I had called you up but you didn’t receive my call. What were you busy with?”
I answer it glowingly, “Oh! My cell phone was on silent mode. I was busy Orkutting.”

Orkut was nothing less than an elixir for people from almost every strata of the society around the globe.

Just like every civilization falls and a new one rises from the ashes, same thing happened with Orkut. Facebook can be called the successor of Orkut. Though it launched itself just after a month Orkut was launched; it gained popularity in the recent past.

Taking my own example, I honestly found Facebook highly complex in comparison to Orkut. Hence, even after receiving way too many requests, I didn’t bother to join Facebook as an active member. While the other fact is, I was too obsessed with Orkut to think of even being a part of the Facebook community.

As the law of Diminishing Marginal Utility states that everything after a certain point of time, reaches the level of saturation, I feel this is what is the actual cause as to why Facebook suddenly turned out to be a massive hit among the people who earlier vouched for Orkut. Facebook groups, quiz and updating status became the passion and Orkut lost the appeal it had earlier.

Today, you meet someone new and before asking for their phone numbers, you tend to ask whether they have a Facebook account or not. This clearly states that Facebook is the latest and the most happening thing in the online social networking circuit.

Never to forget, these social networking sites do have their cons. The controversies associated with these websites are definitely unforgettable ones. But, who cares about them as long as you find your buddies to chat from any nook and cranny of the world??

Cheers to the success of Facebook and I hope twitter does not defeat Facebook the way Facebook defeated Orkut.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed to see what’s the future of social networking! Till then, happy Orkutting, face booking and tweeting!

– Arundhati Chatterjee –

Brands are exploring social media and trying to connect to millions of users out there. Be it Facebook, Orkut, blogging or the latest twitter, brands are leaving no stone unturned to make an impact. Twitter, through its concept of tweeted brands can measure the performance of each of these brands and rank them accordingly. the brand are ranked on the basis of mention over the past 24 hours.

50 Most Famous brands on twitter

Topping the list is twitter itself with 124,471 tweets, followed by You Tube, Facebook and Google, all of which are internet and tech related products.

The list highlights brand from various sectors, thus proving that social media remains one of the prime focus of brands all over the world.

Bangalore: Diwakar Kaushik, 25, is an active tweeter, putting out short messages on everything from the weather in Gurgaon, where he resides, to cricket on the microblogging site Twitter.

Last Thursday, the management student tweeted, “Trying to decide between a Lenovo or an Acer laptop.”

Soon, and much to his surprise, he had a reply from the Chinese computer maker’s India arm, Lenovo India Pvt. Ltd. “I only expected some users to respond,” he said.

Lenovo got in touch with Kaushik, asked him for his specifications, gave him suggestions on various computer models and a list of authorized dealers from whom he could purchase the laptop. “Lenovo helped with the (purchase) decision,” said Kaushik who bought a Lenovo G450 laptop two days after the company reached out to him.

Lenovo India went on social media’s newest and least understood avatar, Twitter, in end-July.

Members on the networking site communicate through messages shorter than 140 characters—a concept that has become a rage globally and continues to grow as users find new applications for it.

“Our expectation was only to listen to customers,” said K. Ramakrishnan, country manager, marketing, at Lenovo India.
In less than two months, the company has generated enquiries and translated some of them into sales, for both individuals and bulk buyers.

Several Indian companies are advertising and closely tracking themselves on social media on the Internet—all the content generated on a gamut of blogs, online video and photo sharing sites, social networking sites and even on the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. Few have been effective.

Unlike Lenovo, whose social media strategy is to listen to potential customers, many companies treat the Internet as yet another channel to plug their products. Often, they launch television or print advertising campaigns and blare them via YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

“They have failure written all over,” says Gaurav Mishra, chief executive of Delhi-based social media research and strategy company Twenty Twenty WebTech Pvt. Ltd. “There’s no conversation. It’s an advertising campaign.”

Mishra thinks such approaches fail because social media users are not looking for advertising and see through the sloganeering.
“Social media is not a one-way traffic,” said Shashank Srivastava, chief general manager, marketing, at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.

India’s largest car maker was one of the early adopters of social media two years back, riding blogs, YouTube and Flickr, but is still evolving its strategy to start having conversations rather than just send advertising messages.

“I’m not satisfied at all,” says Srivastava. He thinks Indian companies on social media are far behind global peers such as Virgin Group LtdVirgin Radio or German car maker Audi AG.
Driving an engaging conversation is far from easy.

The Indian arm of microchip maker Freescale Semiconductor Inc. went on Twitter last month to promote its technology forum held earlier in September in Bangalore. Now that the event is over, “We are figuring out how to keep the conversation alive,” said a spokeswoman for Freescale, who cannot be named because of the company’s policy.

“Presence on social media has become a hygiene factor,” said Unny Radhakrishnan, national director digital at Maxus, a media agency of British advertising and media firm WPP Plc.
He sees more brands embracing social media than there were 6-12 months back. “Everyone wants to see what to do with this animal.”

And those that are already there are changing tack.
Fastrack, a brand of watches and sunglasses from Titan Industries Ltd, started communities on Facebook and Twitter in October 2007. Managing those communities was ousourced till April but the brand decided to bring the job in-house so it could respond in real time, improve efficiency and reduce cost.
“If somebody writes: my watch stopped working in two days. You need to be real time,” said Anshul Nanda, assistant brand manager, Fastrack.

Travel portal Cleartrip sees great value in dealing with customer requests and complaints over social media.
“Servicing a customer over social media is cheaper than over phone,” said Hrush Bhatt, founder and director (product and strategy), Cleartrip.

And surely instantaneous, customer-oriented tweeting does make a difference to brand perception.
“From the kind of replies I got I can tell it is not a robot,” said Kaushik who bought the Lenovo laptop. “They were human replies. That gives me faith in the company.”

Poornima Mohandas
(Source: www.livemint.com)