Social Wars!!!

“When everyone is playing social games with friends, then why play akele?” This is the main tagline of an Indian social networking website for its recently launched social games. Being a Internet freak I feel that these games are just a newer version of the old stand-alone games. With better internet speeds and lots of social networking, the games have spread their wings from just being played on standalone PCs to now being played directly in the cloud. We can name this family of games as Game 2.0.

Game 2.0 is simply an integration of simple games made on some server side scripts, action scripts like JS or ajax, Flash and implemented on Web 2.0 (aka social networking).

For the newbies, let me tell you that social games are web based games which you can play with friends, mostly on social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, Myspace etc. In this post I will give a brief about the biggest players in development of social games, and compare them in terms of market share, funding, revenue and business model.

We are already familiar with the popularity of the first generation social networking startups like Facebook, Myspace, Orkut etc. Now a new generation of application developers have taken center stage, who are based mostly on these gen1 social networking sites, and are making big money. The top 3 in my list are:

1. Company: Zynga (www.zynga.com)
   Funding: $219M
   Major Apps: Farmville- 61M Players, Mafia Wars- 25.8M , Yoville- 19.8M, Texas Hold Em’ Poker- 18.3M
   Revenue: Estimated $200M
   Zynga is a srong candidate for 2010 IPO.
2. Company: Playfish (www.playfish.com)
   Acquired: by Electronic Arts (EA Sports) for $400M
   Major Apps: Pet Society- 20.5M, Restaurant City-17.3M, Country Story- 8M
   Revenue: Estimated $135M
3. Company: Playdom (www.playdom.com)
   Funding: $47M
   Major Apps: Mobsters -14M, Bumper Stickers-11.7M, Own Your Friends-10.1M, Sorority Life-7.1M, Mobsters 2-3.5M, Poker Palace- 1.5M
   Revenue: Estimated $60M

Let me just remind you that these companies are startups and have existed for not more than three years. So, how are they making this much of BIG money? All of them have two revenue models, and these two models are like the necessary practices for companies in this domain.

• The first model is very simple and straight forward. It begins when you start playing any of these games. Initially everything is free in the game. But as you move ahead in the game you will need a lot of virtual stuff – like seeds for your farm or guns for your gang – which you would have to buy from an online store using a credit card, PayPal etc. The idea is very simple here – get addicted to the free version, then start spending real money for virtual stuff. Playdom has gone a step ahead and even opened offlinestores for virtual goods.
• The second model is the traditional online revenue model using ad clicks, lead generation and toolbar installation, but in an entirely new fashion. If you do not have a credit card or a PayPal account, then you sign up on some other website to get virtual money, which you can use to buy some virtual stuff. The cache here is that when you sign up for that website you are actually generating leads for them. When you signed up on the other website, the gaming company gets real money for the lead generation. You can call this SGL (Social Game Lead), and this lead to companies is a guaranteed lead, as the user needs the virtual stuff, which means he is willing to pay if you can sell him the virtual stuff, i.e. if you can do some SGM (Social Game Marketing).
• Toolbar installation revenue model is more interesting. When you install a toolbar, it will make Ask.com (say) the default search engine on your browser. Ask.com makes money from search ads and pays money to gaming company or the toolbar developer for every installation of the toolbar. Ask.com pays about $1-$2 for every installation. Just imagine how the money is flowing back to the game developer. Ask –> Toolbar developer –>Zynga –> Facebook (for ads) –> Zynga. This is an endless circle. Hats off to this revenue model.

In the beginning of this post I had quoted a tagline – …why play akele (i.e. why play alone)? This tagline is being used by an upcoming Indian social gaming website –Ibibo.com. The tagline suggests how new players are trying to capture the potentially large Indian market. The reason I wrote ‘potentially’ large market was that though the Indian market is very large, but the revenue models might not work out here that easily. You will find less than 5% of the Indian gamers buying online stuff. So, your game might be a very big hit here, but you might not be making any money out of it.

If you were not able to make money out of this market, then this potentially big market could turn out into a potential risky market. Another reason why I say so is that these game developers are not paying any attention to localization, rather Indian-ization, of the games. The big developers have simply imported their international versions to India, and the local developers are merely copying the international games. They have not even cared to give Indian names. For instance, Ibibo has a game called Teen Patti, which is a card game. They have explained the rules using names like Aces and Jacks, which most of the Indian audience would not understand. Had they cared to mentioned that Ace means ‘Ekka’ and Jack means ‘Gulaam’ the public out here would have simply loved it.

Zynga and Playdom have opened up their Indian development centers in Bangalore, and they are planning to develop games purely for the Indian audience. I hope they keep their promise, and also hope that the Indian developers like Ibibo give some genuine thought rather than simply copying ideas. The competition is going to become more fierce as biggies like EA are soon going to join the race.

We still have a few unanswered questions to ponder over – will the potentially big Indian market grow into a real market for the developers, and what new things can be integrated with social networks to make more money out of this seemingly big market?

Your views and comments are welcome.

Reblogged from GeekonNet.com

Product Review : Threadsy-Pull yourself together

Do you have an email account.? The question probably is silly. A more meaningful one would be how many. Most of us, if not all, own multiple email accounts, a Facebook profile and a Twitter account. Of course there is a lot more that we own. But Communication/socializing today is pretty much encapsulated in these 4 things : mails/FB/Twitter/IM. And we do invariably open 4 tabs as soon as we start the browser. Would it be any good if we could access them all and access seamlessly on a single tab.? We presume the answer would be ‘yes’. And if you have answered yes, go open Threadsy in that single tab.!!

So what is Threadsy : In bold terms, its an effort at something, Google failed at. Remember Wave – Google’s much hyped (and failed) integrated real time online communication game changer.!! Google tried integrating various elements of online communication in Google Wave, which probably got too much for an average user to handle. The interface was creepy, with functionalities only quarter developed in the beta-launch.!! So is threadsy better.? Well if not better, at least far more organized with a much cleaner user interface and not half developed/integrated features. Threadsy for beginners combines your multiple email accounts, twitter, Facebook and IM at one place. You dont have to sign in differently for them and switch tabs. You just have to have a Threadsy private beta-invite [can be found at the bottom of the post], sign up at Threadsy, enable IMAP option in your mail settings and you are good to go.!!

How well does it give a feel of the actual accounts :

Well, you can pretty much do all that you do in your mailbox or from your Facebook/Twitter profiles. All messages directed at you (in mail or @replies in Twitter) are put together in one stream called the ‘Inbound’ column at the left. And pretty much all that you follow on FB/Twitter are streamed into the column on the right called ‘Outbound’. You can access all your IM accounts too at the bottom bar (all you need is a Mebo account). Every single operation that you do from your inbox has been smoothly integrated, majority of what you do on Twitter : post/RT/favourite/@replies have been integrated as well. Similarly for Facebook pretty much everything has been integrated too : like/comment/post/inbox/profile viewing. One very good feature that comes across is the bio page of a particular user that comes up in the unbound section when you click on one of his messages in the inbound section.

Verdict : Threadsy shows promise. No wonder then that it broke into the Techcrunch50 finalists.

Where does it lack, or can improve :

Our personal/professional communication and networking doesnot exactly end at emails, FB and Twitter. All professionals today own a professional networking profile (say on LinkedIn), are a part of many other social networks like Orkut, Myspace, even a youtube channel. And even amongst what Threadsy has to offer (emails/FB/Twitter), improvements can totally be made.

Emails :  From a personal experience I found out that sometimes some messages simply do not show up on  your email inbox in threadsy (to be truthful this has happened just one single time.!!). Also there is a little delay that can be observed in the timings between say a message arriving in your mail inbox and your Threadsy inbox.

Twitter : No complaints here.!! All messages (tweets/@replies/DM) are captured and without delay. A good feature is that you can see the tweetpics inline. Just one little thing – older tweets of  the day are a little difficult to see. I didnt see a straightforward way to read the older tweets at least.

Facebook : Again updates/inbox are well captured. Older updates are a little difficult to see.

Overall, Threadsy has offered a good consolidated amalgamation of your regular and major communication clients at one point. The interface is well organized and clean. With time as it comes out of private beta and goes for a real launch the User will have much more at his disposal and probably in a better coordinated and feature laden way.

TEAM Microreviews wishes Team threadsy all the very best in  their efforts.

Note : 10 Private beta invites available : http://bit.ly/4APKQk

Similar upcoming products in line are Silentale and Zood. Keep tuned in for them.

For more on tech product reviews, pls contact ArchieIndian and Aditya Prakash. Mail them here and here.

Follow me on Twitter. Follow microreviews on Twitter. We are on Facebook too. Mail us here.

User comments are solicited.

A pair of Jimmy Choos..

“Very recently, (ok so February, 2009 to be precise), the name recognized world over, for its high-end and suave shoes and bags, Jimmy Choo opened its first ever stand alone store in India.  According to a statement by Tamara Mellon, Founder & President of Jimmy Choo ltd, the company is planning around seven stores in India in the next five years!

For a line that generated record sales of £85.6million in the year 2007, in UK alone, its focus on an emerging market like India was well anticipated. Indian youth is extremely brand-conscious today. Courtesy fatter pay-packages and increasing shore hopping, luxury brands are finding their habitats and the launch of Jimmy Choo in India is a testimony to that.

So how well do we know this name anyway? What makes Jimmy Choo shoes (and bags), an absolute must have in your wardrobe?

For snapshot sake, here we go…

Jimmy Choo was born in a family of shoemakers. (Chip of the old block eh…) The genius designer started his career in a workshop in East London, which he opened in 1986 by renting an old building. His art found notice and soon enough, eight pages in a 1988 issue of Vogue magazine were purely dedicated to his line. Choo soon found a patron in Lady Diana! (Source: wiki) In 1996, he co-founded Jimmy Choo Ltd with British Vogue accessories editor Tamara Mellon. Since then, the line has found an extremely devoted clientele – many of whom are a-list style icons like Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow.

A pair of couture Jimmy Choo shoes does not come cheap though. Prices start at £650 a pair, and costs are directly in proportion to the elaboration of the shoe design. But his clients have not dwindled at all. Infact, these hand crafted shoes received a phenomenal response by the Indian A-listers when the store was inaugurated in Mumbai.

To tap a wider audience however, the brand needs to find a place in our day to day conversation.  As per a recent survey, while Facebook has close to 8 million, Orkut around 16 million and Twitter close to 1.4 million users in India (the third largest after Germany and the US), social media is clearly a huge canvas to paint an image that a brand like Jimmy Choo will need, to keep up with its ambition to grow in the Indian luxury market.  So we decided to take a tour. Hop on as we explore how the brand has registered itself in the Indian SMM scene.

1. Orkut presence: (Our reaction: YIKES!! SOS!!) There is major scope of improvement here.  A community of 142 members (as on November 8, 2009), the forum (err..ok not a forum exactly), has only two floated posts with no feedback or discussions. It is an attempt nevertheless, with one of the two posts, giving information on the new Jimmy Choo store in Mumbai. But given the amount of following it can generate, the community leaves us with no impression at all!!!
2. Facebook presence: (Our reaction: Finally some fresh air!!) The community was created on March 5, 2008 and has close to 55,000 fans! Its page shows us a glimpse of the Spring/Summer 2008 collection. An active fan stand makes it pretty impressive (435 thumbs up “likes” and 76 comments!!). However, there has not been much effort to connect with the Indian audience. Like no news about the new store in Mumbai.There  seems to be another busy facebook page by the name ‘Jimmy Choo fashion’. This page again has some 13000 odd fans. It seems more engaging than the earlier discussed, Jimmy Choo page. Customization lacking though.
3. Twitter presence: (Our reaction: Bingo!!) So now we have finally found a forum where the community is not only updating its 2411 followers (Group location: San Francisco) on the “70% off Jimmy Choo Heather patent boots”, but also discussing college football plans with one of its fans! Pretty amazing don’t you think? Another group based in the UK has a decent score of close to 2800 followers of the Jimmy Choo tweets.  The concern, however, is the same as we had while reviewing its facebook page. As before, no conscious attempt has been made to connect with the Indian customers. The brand sure needs a group based in India!!
4. Photo Sharing: (Our reaction: Umm…not quite) Picture this (almost literally in this case!) An official photo-stream devoted to the Spring-2009 collection! I know it sounds great. The brand however, seems content by using its website for the same purpose. We would definitely recommend a flickr photo-stream, in order to create more touch-points. Of course we do get search hits on Flickr, but an official photo-stream would have been incredible. And many can vouch for that I’m sure!
5. Video Sharing: (Our reaction: Atta boy!!)Yes, Jimmy Choo has an official Youtube Channel. You get a glimpse of the Mastermind’s collection which itself is stuff enough to engage the audience!

Overall, Jimmy Choo’s  social media presence is decent owing mainly to their fans, grabbing whatever chance they get to get in touch with their favorite brand. However, we are not very sure if Jimmy Choo is looking at an Indian customer base specific social media campaign. In order to extract full potential of the Indian luxury market, a lot of homework needs to be done.

Follow Jimmy choo on Twitter.

Follow me on Twitter.

Follow Microreviews on Twitter. We are on Facebook too.

For social media queries related to fashion brands, get in touch with me here.

Update:

Jimmy Choo72: (Our reaction: Overwhelmed!) We just found a label with a heart as big as its name!! We, at microreviews, are extemely glad to have been updated by Jenny (Social Media Manager, Jimmy Choo 72) on Jimmy Choo’s first date with social media. The brand, along with the Elton John AIDS Foundation, has launched Project PEP. 25% of the sales generated from Project PEP, will be donated to the foundation. Anyone can be a part of the cause. All you need to do enter a photo competition; upload a photo based on the theme “’You, Your Shoes and 72′ and there will be a chance for you to win a prize!! This in turn, acts as their photo streaming medium too.

This is one campaign that takes our prize for sure! Project PEP has its presence on Twitter and Facebook too. Both the pages have managed to engage the customers pretty well, to say the least. Through this campaign, Jimmy Choo has managed to display compassion and sympathy for the people who have been loyal to the brand!

Consumer and Influencer engagement through Social Media

These days there is a lot of buzz about Social Media, In June, Facebook attracted 24 million new unique visitors with 340 million unique visitors/month, surpassing Wikipedia as the fourth largest site in the world. Twitter’s unique visitors totaled 44.5 million in June, up 19% from May and 3,000% year-on-year. With every other person who happens to have a twitter profile calling himself a social media evangelist. There is no denying the fact that each one of us has the right to feel empowered in the Everything 2.0 world, but wait on, there is better way for sure.

So what is it that a brand can do to engage consumers and how do they get the influencers of that field to take a note of their campaign. Here are some of my observations.

• Make a note of what consumers have to say about you : search.twitter.com or the twitter real time search is a good tool to know what people are talking about you. There is also the good old, Google Search and Google BlogSearch to know what people have been talking about. There are also number of Online Reputation Management tools (although some of them seem astronomically overpriced) which help you track what the customer is talking about you. Keep visiting microreviews.org for some of most exciting upcoming Reputation monitor tools.
• Face to Face interactions are the in thing : tata docomo, bing are live examples of teams which are constantly talking with the users and creating a personal love about the brand. For me Bing team tends to beat Google at interacting with people. Bing results may not beat Google but they are better at talking with people.
• Respond to customer issues on priority: The moment you get to see some conversation about your brand, try to get involved in it. There is no harm in having a full time employee doing the same. You can even engage an independent team to do the same for you, learn from them and then do your stuff yourself later. However never overdo this stuff by engaging yourself in conversations about other brands. That’s vulgar. A facebook fan page  as the one stop solution providing this media is not a bad idea.
• Promotion deals, competitions and coupons on social mediums: To have your new scheme tweeted for a couple of t-shirts, or to give out coupons to increase user registration is a good old way of crowdsourcing.
• Get involved in some social causes: Getting involved in social causes doesn’t mean you need to tell your brand every-time you are doing something for the cause. Your brand slowly gets associated with the cause. A lot of femme brands do this with a social cause of female empowerment attached to them.
• Facebook games and Twitter polls come to your help: Facebook games and poll-pigeon polls on twitter can help engage a lot of people with your brand.

These are some general, but critical observations we have have made about customer engagement. We will keep updating this space about crowd engagement and the brands doing well at the same.