Consumer Generated Media

Consumer Generated Media describes a variety of new and emerging sources of online information that are created, initiated, circulated and used by consumers intent on educating each other on products, services, brands, personalities and issues.

-- Neilson Buzz matrices.

Pete Blackshaw, CMO for Nielsen Buzzmetrics, coined the term "consumer generated media" (CGM) to describe the evolving consumer-created space on the internet. CGM refers to posts made by consumers within online venues such as internet forums, blogs, wikis, and discussion lists, on products that they have purchased, questions they have or problems they are trying to solve. CGM is constantly evolving in terms of form and content. A few prominent websites used for CGM include: Brickfish, Dailymotion, Digg, eBay, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Picasa, Revver, Second Life, TripAdvisor, TypePad, Wikipedia, WordPress, YouTube, bigadda



The most common consumer hangouts in the CGM spaces are: Discussion boards, Blogs, Wikis, Social networking sites, News Sites, Trip planners, Mobile Photos sharing sites, Videos sharing sites, Customer review sites, Experience or photo sharing sites. The CGM supporting sites can be divided into five different categories for better understanding. They are,

Blogs: A Blog is the collection of web log where publisher shares his stories, fantasies or experiences. The wordpress, blogger, bigadda are the famus platforms which offer blogging experience.

Message Boards or Discussion Forums: Interest-focused message forums and discussion boards like citehr, are the most prominent content sharing tool. This concept was evolved from the Tech World where techies discuss their problems and experts offer advice to the fellow techies. Now this concept has become common across verticals.

Review Sites: This is a popular place where an excited customer spread positive word and an irate customer vents his frustration. Mouthshut is one of the famous review site.

Groups: These are highly focused and specialized groups or communities where the members exchange ideas in the virtual world. These clubs are an offshoot of the Mail groups where one can connect with their friends through group mails like Yahoo, Google offers platform to create groups.

Communities: Communities like Orkut, facebook, you tube, Flicker, linkedin offer networking and socializing opportunities to the Internet savvy individuals. Started as a socializing tool, these communities grew as an influential media for marketers.

The idea of CGM has evolved from its early roots of consumer feedback via online letters and email to encompass new media such as video, pictures and social networking sites. The phenomenon, CGM is a nightmare as well as an opportunity for marketers. It is a nightmare since the marketer has no control over the media or the message, an opportunity because if used wisely, it can turn out to be a new medium and an invaluable source of customer information.

Mobile Advertising – Fair & Lovely

Reliance Communications mobile ad campaign - Fair & Lovely Scholarship programme 2007 has been adjudged winner by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) Annual Global Awards jury at a glittering ceremony held in Los Angeles in November 2007.

Fair & Lovely is a leading and one of the best-selling skin care brands of Hindustan Unilever Limited, had launched an ad campaign of ‘Fair and Lovely scholarships for women,’ using short code (51234) and instant voice from mid-August to mid- September, 2007. Reliance Communication executed a pan-India ad campaign on Reliance mobile phone network. Fair & Lovely Scholarship programme 2007 mobile advertisement was powered by clickable banner ads in various languages. These banners were linked to a micro-site where interested candidates were asked to provide their choice of course, annual family income, etc.

Reliance Communication also created a special Fair & Lovely Scholarship Zone on ‘R World’ to promote the campaign and generated around 50,000 leads in which 60% came from tier II and III cities and 40% from urban cities. The Fair & Lovely Scholarship programme 2007 campaign got great response from the semi urban and rural India, which also break the myth that the mobile advertising can only be targeted to the urbane India.

The innovative mobile ad campaign has been voted as the Best Use of Mobile Marketing in the Direct Response Category of the awards. This is also the first time in the world that a scholarship programme has been advertised on a mobile platform. The other nominations were, Affle Limited & Aviva (India) Pvt. Ltd. for Aviva - Cost of Postponement; MindShare Interaction India for Mobile Test Saves Time and Lives in India; Mobile Dreams Factory for Renault Twingo; SendMe Inc., MobiTV, Fathom Online for Discovery Channel Discovery Channel's Shark Week and Vibes Media for Dumped were nominated for the

Mobile Advertising Case - Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption and Child Welfare

Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption and Child Welfare (IAPA)

Successful messaging doesn’t always need a big media budget. What it really needs is a media channel that compliments a powerful creative idea. Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption and Child Welfare to launch a campaign on child adoption used a MMS campaign. The campaign uses the viral nature of MMS (video message on mobile) to spread awareness about abandoned infants who need a caring home.

The Indian Association of Adoption and Child Welfare campaign was titled “The hottest MMS ever – If you don’t like it, pass it on.”

In the 25-second video Indian Association of Adoption and Child Welfare tried to create awareness about abandoned infants and convince people for their adoption. This campaign was a huge success. The promoters were reconnected in three days from all parts of the nation with the same message. The discussion forums also generated a very good response. In fact, the first week witnessed all of 1,210 downloads and clips were traced to eight other servers.

Mobile Advertisement to touch INR 500 crore in 5 years

Reliance Communications, is pioneer of mobile advertising in the country, has effectively offered mobile advertising solutions for more than 20 clients over the past four years. In my understanding, the mobile advertising, started with LG during World Cup Cricket in 2003. Reliance Communications has also handled Cadbury’s, Coke, Maruti, Hyundai, ICICI, Kotak and HDFC. The mobile advertising in India is at nascent stage it is roughly INR 40 crore industry but advertisers in India are looking to cash in on the mobile advertising as potential tool of advertising. Experts predicts that advertising spend on this medium is expected to jump more than ten to twelve-folds to touch a size of INR 500 crore in next five years.

Mobile advertising can attract advertising spends from integration with below-the-line budgets, retail budgets and the digital budget. The bottleneck, however, is the unreasonable cost of Internet on mobile and also disproportionate sharing of revenue between telecom service providers and advertisers. The mobile advertising is demanding even playing field from internet and mobile providers. The operators, at present, are acting as a gatekeeper and commands control over the revenue distribution. Currently mobile advertising revenue is split at 70:30 ratio between operators and the companies, which gives very little scope for the growth of the mobile advertisers. Moreover, the operators have to stop acting as gatekeepers to the Internet and allow consumers to access content and services on the Internet easily and cheaply, using their mobile devices.

The mobile advertising market which is currently valued at INR 40 crore can grow more than nearly twelve times provided the telecom companies offer open Internet access at low rates along with standardization of regulations.


Reference: http://www.business-standard.com, Mobile ads to touch Rs 500 cr in 5 yrs: Experts, June 22, 2008.

Mobile Advertising

The business of encouraging people to buy products and services using the mobile channel as the medium to deliver the advertisement message
                                                                                               --- Internet Message Access Protocol

Mobile advertising is an innovative and a customer-centric approach to reach promising customers. It includes advertising in the form of Short Message Service (SMS), mobile alerts, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), mobile games and videos. Mobile advertising can be divided into two main categories: Mobile Push Advertising and Mobile Pull Advertising. Mobile Push Advertising, can be in form of solicited or unsolicited advertising News alerts, job alerts and cricket score alerts are a few examples in this category. Mobile Pull Advertising, on the other hand, is defined as advertising when users request for the services from the service-provider for instance daily horoscope.

Mobile advertising is the latest buzz in the field of advertising, since it is a cost-effective way to promote and inform the target customers. With the advent of new media, mobile advertising has become one of the most demanding and integral part of marketing mix.

Benefits of Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising is cost-effective and offers flexibility to inform target group as and when required. In the case of mobile advertising the advertising message can be personalized with respect to Target Audience. The mobile advertising is interactive in nature and advertiser gets feedback immediately. Though mobile advertising offers flexibility to contact target group as and when required. It also gives option of permission-based advertising, which is also governed by telecom rules and regulations. The mobile advertising is still not brand creator but it is more helpful in brand recall and brand interactivity. The benefits of mobile advertising include: flexibility of content, speed of reach.

Limitations of Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising has limited message content. It is mostly driven by key words and target audiences in most of the cases take mobile advertisements casually. Moreover it still has very limited reach as compared to other conventional tools of advertising. The visual display is not as impressive as TV advertising. Though the advertiser has more control on the mobile advertising but still cant calculate ROI of advertising more accurately. Most importantly, mobile advertising is often criticized for intrusion of target audience privacy.

Guidelines for Mobile Advertising
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has published guidelines for mobile advertising. These guidelines are designed specifically for the Asia-Pacific region to encourage the use of mobiles for advertising-related purposes as well as its acceptance by marketers and consumers.

As of now it is not in practice. There are companies, and advertisers violating the defined guidelines but we are moving in the direction where the advertising world will take it seriously.

Conclusion
Mobile Advertising is at infant stage of the life cycle. The share of advertising spend on mobile advertising is minimal but when advertising spend is seen from the lenses of life cycle it is a good start.

Amazon: Earth’s Biggest Selection TM

Early 1994, Internet usage was growing at a phenomenal rate of 2300 percent per month. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, recalls that he felt need of doing something immediately. When something is growing that fast, every second counts.
Bezos quit his lucrative job at DE Shaw to start an online venture. His initial plan was to sell a low priced product, which customer would not hesitate to purchase online. After weighting several factors, he decided to concentrate on books.
“unless you could create something with huge value proposition for customer, it would be easier for the customer to do it old way.” Books, with low price and more than three million titles worldwide, seems to be an ideal product for selling online. Mail order book catalogs were not feasible, as they would have to carry thousands of titles, making them very bulky and expensive to mail. On the other hand, the Internet could provide such information economically and efficiently.
In June 1995, Amazon.com Books Inc. commenced its operations. The name Amazon drew inspiration from largest river in the world, signals Bezos’ clear intention to develop the biggest bookstore in the world. The name Amazon is short to remember, it captures the spirit of the site, and conveys its vast size and offering. Infact, Bezos had chosen the name Amazon also because it short, simple and easy to remember. Moreover it also captures the spirit of the site. He also wanted the same to start with letter A so that it appear at top of the search engine list.
Brand building initiatives
Online, the balance of power shifts away from company and goes towards the customer. Our strength is that we have not been competitor obsessed.
–Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon.com
Bezos identified it very early that customer is the king. He proposed customer value proposition for the Amazon which is evident from the initiatives at Amazon. Amazon provide value added features to increase the ease of shopping viz. product search, gift click, wish lists, gift reminders, and ‘Amazon.com Anywhere’ which support access from wireless device. Amazon has successfully created one-to-one relationships with its customers by customizing features and service based on customer purchase history. It has also added community feeling among customers by soliciting and posting readers’ comments on book displays. Amazon also introduced Amazon.com discussion board to further enhance the community feeling. It allows customer to share information on their topic of interest. Amazon Associate program is help develop better customer interaction. The customer interaction is reinforced with the personalized communication model. Customer centricity is evident from all online and offline activities of the Amazon.
Amazon’s promotion program can be divided into three distinct phase. It started with word-of-mouth publicity among online communities. Second phase was beginning of advertising in online, print media and outdoors. Third phase of promotional program started with inauguration of Associates Program in 1996. The associate program offers other website to display the Amazon.com hot-link and offer specific books of interest to their visitors. Amazon has developed alliance and partnerships with high traffic web portals and sites viz. America Online, Yahoo!, Geocity, Alta Vista, Excite, Prodigy etc. The associates program has been phenomenally successful, attracting member sites of all size. Amazon has also used viral marketing technique through customer reviews, free e-Cards, and gift certificates.
Changing Focus
Amazon is an early mover on the internet and the first mover on the online bookselling. This has helped it build a strong brand at relatively low cost. Thanks to extensive hype and coverage across media.
The online book company received strong criticism when it started expanding its product line. Marketers and academicians across geography said that Amazon is diluting the value of its association with books. A report in time magazine mentioned: “it’s incredibly risky. How elastic is the Amazon brand name? how much can you stretch it until it simply explodes and become meaningless to consumer? And how long can the money hold out? Bezos has alreadt burned through a bank’s worth of ash with no sign of slowing down. If any thing he is upping the ante – according to estimate, the company’s net loss could be $350 million in this year (2000) alone.” Bezos, however felt otherwise: “No, see we are not book company. We are not Music Company. We are not Vedio Company. We are not Auction Company. We are customer company.” He started line extension with some other valid logic – brand to certain degree is quick-drying cement. When they are young, they’re stretchable and plaint, but over time they become more and more associated with a particular thing and hart to stretch. His views were absolutely right which was evident from Amazon music store initiative. June 1998, Amazon unveiled a music store, which within six month propelled Amazon to one of the leading online music retailer.
Conclusion
Amazon has successfully built a strong brand and loyal customer base.

CDNOW (Amazon.com - buy an old story)

Jason Olin Knew there had to be better way to buy music– phill Carpenter

Leading music store CDNOW was one of the most popular shopping store sites since 1994. It had mammoth selection of music-related products. It boosted of excellent coverage of music reviews, cover art, daily music news, features, guide to music genres, and exclusive interviews. It also involved in digital distribution of music. CDNOW was the first site to offer the sale of music downloads. Armed with successful implementation of innovative ideas, CDNOW aims to make every visit to the site a valuable and rewarding experience.The CDNOW was very easy to navigate and quick to load. Strong content alliances, music reviews, cover art, daily music news etc. had made the content of the site attractive and useful. It had made the process easier for customers to explore new music and make informed purchase decision. It also offered customer to customize site as well as music CD as per user performance. At CDNOW, customer had option to maintain and Address book online making it easier to send music to friends and family this innovative technique of viral marketing helped strengthen loyalty and deepen customers’ commitment with brand. It developed strong community feeling among the users through Jazz club or classic club. It reaches out to its customers with personalized e-mails from Jason Olim and e-mail newsletters informing customers of news and releases relevant to the preference.
CDNOW was able to maintain its first mover advantage. It constantly added new functionality to the site and was very innovative in its offering. It ensured that its activity reinforces customer commitment and promises offered to customers. it was one of the first website to develop multifaceted, integrated communication strategy. It used online advertising, word-of-mouth communication and public relation to attract customers. Founders of CDNOW strongly believed that word-of-mouth powerfully influence online purchase decision.
The company began its marketing effort focusing on the web admirers in the early days of the business. It did not use any traditional marketing tools in the beginning of the venture but viewed online advertising as the way of both generating sales and building awareness it also appoint i-traffic as its online ad agency. On the one hand it had banner ads on the major internet content and service providers including, CNN interactive, AOL and on the other hand it had banners place on the more specific music-related sites like Billboard. It also stuck exclusive alliance with high traffic companies like AOL Yahoo!, Excite. It helped CDNOW generate both traffic and visibility.
CDNOW since inception had made public relation one of the highest priority tool in the brand building exercise. Mario Zoda, the public relation manager designed most of the public relation programs at CDNOW. They also realized very early that in the high-tech business, word-of-mouth is in particular is very important tool as it influences the purchase decision. Public relation helped generate word-of-mouth communication and influenced sales. They banked on the story how CDNOW was founded in the basement by two twin brothers with little money reflected the ‘American Dream’. The story helped them as Americans started associated themselves with the CDNOW venture which helped increase business.
CDNOW with development of the internet venture and competition realized that to build brand and grab share, it has to invest substantially on the traditional tools of marketing. It first turned to tool such as TV and radio. It also examined with print advertising in publication like Rolling Stone, spin, and variety.
Conclusion
CDNOW exploited its early-mover advantage and keeps ahead of competition. They developed a detailed understanding of its customers’ need that has enabled the company to create better product and effective market campaigns. CDNOW had personalized its product offering which was managed by the capable service team. The team was instrumental in building a reputation of excellence that is core factor of a successful Internet brand. CDNOW was one of the first website which understood the economics of online business. it reflected in its business model and media communication strategy.
——————–
Once a leading music store, CDNOW was one of the most popular shopping stores since 1994. It was founded in February 1994 by twin brothers Jason Olim and Matthew Olim of Ambler, Pennsylvania. In the early days CDNOW was a telnet (text-only) service which was re launched in September 1994. In 2000, CDNOW was bought by Bertelsmann. In late 2002 Amazon.com purchased the rights to CDNOW from Bertelsmann and began operating the CDNOW web site. Although the CDNOW brand is still visible by accessing the web site at www.cdnow.com, it immediately redirects to www.amazon.com.

Yahoo! built on Acquisitions

Yahoo! was founded by Stanford University graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo in January of 1994 and incorporated on March 1, 1995.
Yahoo provides a range of products and services including a web portal, a search engine, Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail. It has grown through continuous innovation and acquisitions. Here is the list of acquisitions which helped Yahoo! grow.

1997Net Controls, Web search engine which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! SearchFour11, Web-based email which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Mail

1998Classic Games, Online game, which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! GamesSportasy , Fantasy sport, which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Fantasy SportsViaweb ,Web application which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! StoreWebcal , Calendaring software which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo CalendarYoyodyne,Direct marketing which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Search MarketingHyperparallel, Data analysis which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Search

1999Log-Me-On, Digital identity which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo!Broadcast.com, Internet radio which helped Yahoo develop LAUNCHcastEncompass, Internet service provider which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo!GeoCities , Web hosting service which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! GeoCitiesOnline Anywhere , Content delivery network which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! TV

2000Arthas.com, E-commerce payment systems which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! StoreMyQuest , Internet service provider which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo!eGroups , Electronic mailing list which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! GroupsKimo, Web portal which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo!

2001Sold.com, Online auction tools which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! ShoppingLAUNCH Media , Online music store which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Music

2002Hotjobs.com , Job search engine which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! HotJobsInktomi Corporation , Internet service provider which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Search

2003Overture Services, Inc., Search engine marketing which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Search Marketing

20043721 Internet Assistant , Browser Helper Object which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! AssistantKelkoo, Price comparison service which helped Yahoo develop KelkooOddpost , Web-based email which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! MailMusicmatch Jukebox , Audio player which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! MusicThe All-Seeing Eye, Game server browser which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! GamesStata Labs, Web-based email which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! MailWUF Networks, Mobile media which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Mobile

2005Verdisoft, Computer software which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! MobileStadeon , Online game which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! GamesLudicorp, Image hosting service which helped Yahoo develop FlickrTeRespondo , Advertising network which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Search MarketingDialpad, Voice over Internet Protocol which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Voiceblo.gs, Weblog software which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! 360°Konfabulator , Widget engine which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! WidgetsUpcoming.org, Calendaring software which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! LocalWhereonearth, Web mapping which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Mapsdel.icio.us, Social bookmarking which helped Yahoo develop del.icio.us

2006Webjay, Online music store which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! MusicSearchFox, Web search engine which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! SearchMeedio, Digital video recorder which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! GoJumpcut.com, Online video editing which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! VideoAdInterax, Online advertising which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Search MarketingBix.com , Social media which helped Yahoo develop BixKenet Works, Mobile software which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! MobileWretch, Virtual community which helped Yahoo develop Wretch

2007MyBlogLog, Social network service which helped Yahoo develop MyBlogLogRight Media, Online advertising which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Search MarketingRivals.com, College football which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! SportsBlueLithium, Advertising network which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! Search MarketingBuzzTracker, News site which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! NewsZimbra, Collaborative software which helped Yahoo develop Zimbra

2008FoxyTunes, Browser extension which helped Yahoo develop FoxyTunesMaven Networks , Video on demand which helped Yahoo develop Yahoo! VideoInquisitor, Browser extension which helped Yahoo develop Inquisitor

The growth of the Yahoo is function of acquisition or innovation or innovation backed by acquisition is matter of debate.

Yahoo! built out of Alliances, Acquisitions (and looking for Merger)

In 1994, Jerry Yang and David Filo, the two young PhD computer science students from the Stanford University, started compiling list of their favorite websites as a hobby. They also listed them on websites. They developed Web-searching software which helped in web search and indexing sites. They categorized and subcategorized their websites for better search result. The website in the early days was categorized under Art, Business, Computers, Economy, and Education and also subcategorized each of the categories soon became too cumbersome, as the number of websites in their list increased. Jerry Yang and David Filo named the search list Yahoo.
By January 1995, Yahoo, had 10,000 websites and was getting one million hits a day. However, the indexing was still done by humans. During the same time, Yahoo had to be moved out of the Stanford University server where it was hosted.
By this time, Yahoo had gained fame and respect and venture capitalists showed interests in investing in Yahoo against a pie of Yahoo. The industry had recognized the potential of Yahoo and AOL wanted to buy Yahoo for $2 million. However, both Yang and Filo declined the offer. The media covered these events in detail which helped Yahoo gain visibility. The feature story in Newsweek during that time coined the expression ‘did a Yahoo.’ This coinage was later modified to become the company’s famous slogan ‘Do You Yahoo!?’
LaunchIn March 1995, Yang, Filo and Tim Brady (a friend of Yang) wrote the business plan for Yahoo. The business plan put forth the vision of Yahoo; to become the ‘TV Guide of the Internet.’ The business plan also focused on advertisers to help generate its revenues, without charging any fees from the users.
The plan also stressed the importance of Yahoo’s independence, editorial impartiality, brand equity and free service for the end users. The business plan also listed that the second-biggest source of income should be through licensing deals.The business plan announced Filo as president and CEO, and Yang as chairman and CFO.
In March 1995, Yahoo was incorporated and in April the company got its first $1 mn venture funding from Sequoia Capital. As soon as venture funding was received, the founders put an interim management in place at Yahoo. Yahoo launched its website in early August 1995.
Yahoo Expansion
In April 1996, Yahoo launched Yahoo Japan as a joint venture with Softbank, with Yahoo and Softbank owning 40% and 60% respectively. However, in all other cases it always held the majority stake. In Europe, Yahoo launched as Yahoo Europe in United Kingdom, Germany and France along with rest of Western Europe with Ziff Davis Yahoo held 70% of the equity stake while Ziff Davis held only 30%.
Yahoo forged strategic alliances with different companies like Procter & Gamble, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Nabisco, Pepsi, Microsoft, and Real Networks. To improve its pure search capability, Yahoo licensed AltaVista’s search engine and to broaden its distribution, Yahoo forged deals with Compaq and Gateway which allowed Yahoo to put its button on the desktops of Compaq and Gateway PCs. However, Yahoo and MTV alliance to create, a music search engine failed soon after its creation.
Yahoo initially started as a search engine, but with alliances and joint ventures it slowly developed as a portal. Mostly growth happened through acquisitions. Some of the companies acquired by Yahoo were Flickr, Konfabulator, Upcoming.org, Del.icio.us, and Webjay. The new Yahoo search engine was built on the acquired technology from Inktomi and Overture. The new search engine created the best search technology for consumers and an effective advertising platform for the advertisers. Yahoo also launched Yahoo 360, a social networking service.
In long run, Yahoo has become a victim of success. The company had adopted the model of being a one-stop portal, offering all the services on its web site. Yahoo’s homepage had links to a host of products and services like e-mail, music, mobile, small business services, health, finance, games, movies, personals, etc.
Acquired Companies
2002 Hotjobs, Inktomi2003 Overture,2004 3721 Internet Assistant, Kelkoo, Oddpost, The All-Seeing Eye, Music Match, Stata Labs Inc, WUF Networks2005 Verdisoft, Ludicorp Research, (Flickr), Stadeon, TeRespondo, Dialpad2005 blo.gs, Konfabulator, Alibaba, Upcoming.org, Whereonearth, del.icio.us2006 Searchfox, Meedio, Gmarket, Jumpcut.com, Adlnterax, Right Media, Kenet Works, Bix.com, Wretch
Strategic Alliances and Joint Ventures
During the same time, Yahoo initiated strategic partnerships. Yang’s objective of strategic partnerships was, to leverage relationships for future financing, rather than raising money. They zeroed on Reuters, and struck a distribution and revenue sharing deal with Reuters. The success of the yahoo – Reuters deal led Yahoo to bring together a pilot program of six advertisers like GM and Visa, each of which paid $20,000 per month.
As the number of paid advertisers along with the daily visitors in Yahoo’s website increased, few companies showed interests in investing in Yahoo. Reuters, computer-magazine publisher Ziff Davis, Japanese software publisher and distributor giant Softbank invested in Yahoo against a portion of its equitystake. Reuters invested $1 mn for a 2.5% stake, Ziff Davis and Softbank each invested $2 mn for 5% stakes.
In 1999 when the dotcoms started to collapse in 1999, and the advertising market shrank, Yahoo had to search new ways other than advertising to make money. Yahoo started charging for some of its existing services, like auctions and personals and introduced new paid services, like extra storage space for email and photos, registration of personal domain names and tools for building personal Web pages. In 1999, Yahoo also entered the ecommerce business by introducing Yahoo Shopping where 9000 merchants joined. Yahoo also partnered with Kmart’s retail website, BlueLight.com, to provide free Internet access to the users, with the objective of attracting large number of new Net-savvy customers.

Brand Google

Google, the largest search engine, besides restricting itself as the number one search engine globally has become a one stop shop destination for many other offerings. It offers G-mail, the fast e-mail service; Google Earth replaced, atlas; Google News replaced newspapers and magazines. Google digitize all books available on the planet to offer e-versions of books. With so much to offer, it was no wonder that starting its journey as a humble search engine in late nineties, the company had emerged as one of the most powerful brands by 2006.
Beginning of Journey
Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University. Larry Page and Sergey Brin planned to develop a new way for online search. The idea behind the setting up of the Google was to organize all the globally available information and make it accessible and useful to all people across the world. Google was incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998.
In 2000, Google was answering 18 million queries daily and maintained a repository of one billion URLs (Uniform Resource Locator). Unlike other search engines, which relied on servers to answer the queries, Google linked PCs to answer the query fast and in accurate manner. This technology leads to a faster response time, greater scalability and lesser cost.
Google offers search facility on different subjects, in different languages, and users could search information on Google Toolbar, Google Deskbar, and on mobile through WAP and i-mode phones. Along with search facilities, Google also provided images, pages in different languages, airlines information and phone numbers, spell check and translation of web pages. Google to stay ahead in the competition and to become one of the most innovative companies, Google used PageRank and Hypertext-Matching Analysis technologies to provide reliable, fast and accurate information.
Google – NameWhen Larry Page and Sergey Brin established Google, the prime focus was on developing a ‘perfect search engine’ as Larry Page, defined Google as some thing that, ‘understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want’.
The name ‘Google’ was derived from the word ‘googol’ which meant a mathematical term for 1 followed by 100 zeroes (Googol means 10100). The company was named by nine year old Milton Sirotta, nephew of noted American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, “Mathematics and the Imagination” by Edward Kasner and James Newman. The name Google itself portrayed the company’s mission to organize information available on the internet. The name and meaning of the name reflected the company’s mission to organize virtually all the information available on the web and make it easily available free of cost. The word Google portrayed both technological and scientific supremacy and not an improbable, silly word.
Google – USPThe unique selling proposition of the Google brand was its searching specialization. Contrary to other search engines, which was evolved as media portals, Google remained a search engine. The four elements based on which Larry Page and Sergey Brin positioned Google differently from the rest of the companies were speed, accuracy, objectivity and easy usage. The easy usage and benefit transformed Google from a search engine to one of the most successful global brands.
Google – Logo
In 1998 Sergey Brin designed the logo of the company, to portray the essence of a cheerful, innovative and technical brand. Sergey Brin wanted Google to carry the fancy and fun Image which reflects in its name, image and logo of the company. The colorful rounded edges depicted that the company is approachable and friendly but at the same time means business and was serious about its work. Google, backed by a great idea and concept, supported by a service that delivers and portrayed by a fun logo and a relevant name, the company enjoyed high brand loyalty.
Google – Brand ExpansionBy 2000, Google piggyback on the four elements – Speed, accuracy, objectivity and ease of use became the largest Internet search engine. With time only one aspect of Google brand changed, which was done in a careful manner. It extended its philosophy from online internet search to easy availability of information, without considering the mode of delivery. Google retained its core online search engine as a separate brand identity and launched a separate brand for its different product category. (I will discuss Google – Brand Expansion in detail soon)
In 2004, Google created new product categories and forayed into unrelated areas viz. social networking, email services, Google earth, Google mini. The Google Search Appliance, the new hardware of Google also signified the brand image of Google.
Google – word-of-mouth wayIn 2006, Google became Generic brand with its unique model of service. Google also became synonymous for online search. Google became a household name and attained a power brand status without any advertising expenditure. The company did not spend anything on print or electronic media or online banners. Google, instead of developing the brand through the traditional way of advertising, focused on experience – user experience, customer experience or searcher experience. Google is a classic example of a power brand built on word-of-mouth. Google has strong word-of-mouth because it delivers on its uncomplicated promise. Its reputation spread with word of mouth from millions of satisfied users of Google as a search engine and helped the brand building process.
Google – Marching Ahead
Google has developed an emotional character that transcends cultural, geographical and language barriers. The inherent strength Google has built with time helped it in surviving and competing with industry power house like Yahoo and Microsoft. Google has focused on its strength by constantly projecting solutions to problems first rather than making money.
Google with a simple and uncomplicated business model which was supported by a simple brand and logo was the main prerequisite for the company’s success. Google portrayed itself as a company of 21st century and amazed many companies with its meteoric success.

Google built on Acquisition

Google built on Acquisition
It is a popular believes that Google is born and built on innovations, which is true. The making of Google is not only based on innovation but acquisitions also play a critical role. Google bought companies and worked on their properties to develop better product. The end goal of acquiring a company may be aligned with Google’s overall mission. Google bought companies to grab global database, make that data useful and accessible, attract users attention and loyalty towards the database, and most importantly to increase profit from ads displayed with the data.

2001Deja , Usenet which helped Google develop Google GroupsOutride , Web search engine which helped Google develop Google Personalized Search

2003Pyra Labs , Weblog software which helped Google develop BloggerNeotonic Software , Customer relationship management which helped Google develop Google Groups, GmailApplied Semantics , Online advertising which helped Google develop AdSense, AdWordsKaltix , Web search engine which helped Google develop iGoogleSprinks(a division of Primedia) , Online advertising which helped Google develop AdSense, AdWordsGenius Labs , Blogging which helped Google develop Blogger

2004Ignite Logic , HTML editor which helped Google develop Google Page CreatorBaiduA , Chinese language search engine which helped Google developPicasa , Image organizer which helped Google develop Picasa, BloggerZipDash , Traffic analysis which helped Google develop Google Ride FinderWhere2 , Map analysis which helped Google develop Google MapsKeyhole, Inc , Map analysis which helped Google develop Google Maps, Google Earth

2005Urchin Software Corporation , Web analytics which helped Google develop Google AnalyticsDodgeball , Social networking service which helped Google develop Google Mobile, Google SMSReqwireless , Mobile browser which helped Google develop Google MobileCurrent Communications Group , Broadband internet access which helped Google develop Internet backboneAndroid , Mobile software which helped Google develop AndroidSkia , Graphics software which helped Google develop AndroidAkwan Information Technologies , Search Engines which helped Google develop Internet backboneAOLB , Broadband internet access which helped Google developPhatbits , Widget engine which helped Google develop Google DesktopallPAY GmbH , Mobile software which helped Google develop Google MobilebruNET GmbH , Mobile software which helped Google develop Google Mobile

2006dMarc Broadcasting , Advertising which helped Google develop AdSenseMeasure Map , Weblog software which helped Google develop Google AnalyticsUpstartle , Word processor which helped Google develop Google Documents@Last Software , 3D modeling software which helped Google develop Google SketchupOrion , Web search engine which helped Google develop Google Search2Web Technologies , Online spreadsheets which helped Google develop Google SpreadsheetNeven Vision , Computer vision which helped Google develop Google MapsYouTube , Video sharing which helped Google develop YouTubeJotSpot , Web application which helped Google develop Google SitesEndoxon , Mapping which helped Google develop Google Maps

2007XunleiC , File sharing which helped Google developAdscape , In-game advertising which helped Google develop AdSenseTrendalyzer , Statistical software which helped Google develop Google AnalyticsTonic Systems , Presentation program which helped Google develop Google DocumentsMarratech , Videoconferencing which helped Google develop Google TalkDoubleClick , Online advertising which helped Google develop AdSenseGreenBorder , Computer security which helped Google develop Internal usePanoramio , Photo sharing which helped Google develop Blogger, MapsFeedBurner , Web feed which helped Google develop Google ReaderPeakStream , Parallel processing which helped Google develop Server (computing)Zenter , Presentation program which helped Google develop Google DocumentsGrandCentral , Voice over Internet Protocol which helped Google develop Google MobileImage America , Aerial photography which helped Google develop Google MapsPostini , Communications security which helped Google develop GmailZingku , Social network service which helped Google develop Google MobileJaiku , Micro-blogging which helped Google develop Google Mobile

2008DoubleClick , an online advertising
Historically, the focus of Google while acquisition is on technology and data acquisitions, which helped it emerge as the Power brand.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org

The Google Economy

Google has come a long way; from one of the Internet search engine to the worlds most popular search engine. It is preferred over search engines which are one among the pioneers of the search engine such as AltaVista, Infoseek, Netscape and Lycos.
Google piggyback on its innovative strategy to generate revenue by placing advertisements on sites which contain information related to those ads has indeed made Google highly profitable. The revenue model, almost since beginning, has been successful in giving its competitors a run for their money. In a short span of time, Google has become the best search engine by eating into the market share of Yahoo AltaVista, Infoseek, Netscape and Lycos.
Google always focused on product development which is user friendly and offers great customer experience. No wonder, Google, since inception came up with innovative ideas like Blogs, AdWords, video search and many other features on its search engine, which offered great user experience. It also helped, Google developed an emotional character that transcends cultural, geographical and language barriers. This inherent strength of Google in initial days helped survive in industry which was dominated by industry power house like Yahoo and Microsoft and later on helped it emerge as the winner. Google has focused on its strength by constantly projecting solutions to problems first rather than making money.Google hasThe BirthThe beginning of the story, Google started when Sergey Brin and Larry Page were doing their Ph.D. at Stanford University in computer science, as a part of research group called MIDAS (Mining Data at Stanford). Sergey Brin, with his Professor Rajiv Motwani started experimenting on finding ways to extract information from large chunks of data. Larry Page, at the same time spent time with the search engines (Altavista, Yahoo etc.) on Digital Libraries Project to find how they analyzed data.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, after teaming up started downloading the web onto his desktop and even devised a method he called PageRank that would assign priority to websites with quality links. The PageRank, going forward would be backbone of the search engine Google.
In 1997, Page developed a primitive search engine called BackRub which was later renamed Google. The duo left Stanford University in the fall of 1998 moving their search engine to a nearby garage. On September 07, 1998, they established the Google Inc. The duo started experimenting on the Google’s web design to make it look more polished with high speed.
The Early DaysThe search engine became quite popular through word-of-mouth, e-mails and instant messages. In 1998, PC Magazine had chosen Google as the top 100 web sites. By 2001, Google was on its way to become a lexicon in the dictionary continuing to offer 100 million searches per day making it one of the top notch quality services to people across the world.
Google started with difference and positioned it as no-nonsense search engine. Google, unlike traditional search engines which place search ads mixing them with search results to make money, started delivering accurate results to the keywords placed in search. They found the idea of placing ads in the site more commercialized and will ultimately dilute the main purpose of the search engines.
In Search of Revenue ModelThe duo realized that only great product will not generate revenue they have to work on the revenue model. But at the cost of revenue generation they were not in favor of compromising on the search results quality. The duo after much brainstorming with Google team finds out a source to earn revenues. Google develop its business around two revenue streams – online advertising and search services. Google has been generating enough revenue from its AdWords, AdSense and Gmail service. The revenue model was well received by the viewers and the users.
The difference between Google and Yahoo is the revenue factor. Yahoo gets its revenue from Yahoo mail, ads, and some other features where as Google gets almost 85% of its revenue from ads. Google’s success has incited Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo to develope their own commercial search offerings
Google – More than a Search Engine
In early days of search engine growth when most of the online search engine companies spent a lot of money on marketing to build their brands, Google, focused solely on building a ‘better’ search engine. Everything Google did from the development of advanced technology to the design of user interface was focused on delivering the best search results. The effort to develop a better search engine help Google develop a brand.
When Google entered the online search market, Yahoo was the market leader. Their persistent efforts towards that objective proved fruitful as, in a span of five years, Google placed itself ahead of Yahoo in the search engine market. In 2002, Google pioneered the concept of AdWords and AdSense, and thus created a sensation in the field of online advertising.
Now, Google is much more than a search engine, it offers various other features for its users. List of the services which Google offers to its users apart from the search engine are:
Google Desktop : Search and personalize your computerGoogle Earth : Explore the world from your computerGoogle Finance : Business info, news, and interactive chartsiGoogle : Add news, games and more to the Google homepageImages : Search for images on the webGoogle Maps : View maps and directionsGoogle News - now with archive search; Search thousands of news storiesGoogle Scholar : Search scholarly papersGoogle Video : Search for videos on Google Video and YouTubeGmail : Fast, searchable email with less spamGroups : Create mailing lists and discussion groupsOrkut : Meet new people and stay in touch with friendsPicasa : Find, edit and share your photosReader : Get all your blogs and news feeds fastSites : Create websites and secure group wikisGoogle Talk : IM and call your friends through your computerGoogle Translate : View web pages in other languagesGoogle YouTube : Watch, upload and share videos
Google is increasing its revenues with introduction of new features.
Google – growing with Strategic Partnerships and AcquisitionGoogle has served various strategic partnerships with companies like Yahoo!, AOL, Earthlink, and Ask Jeeves. The strategic partnership in place, its ad business was showing signs of good growth.
Read: Google built on Acquisition to know more about Google Acquisitions in past.
Google grew to such an extent that it was very tough replicating its network or business for its competitors. The constant innovation at Google is the real motive for its services.
ConclusionGoogle will remain the best and popular company both electronically and emotionally. The company employs brilliant mathematicians, engineers and technologists to tackle all the problems. The Google team, have developed a firm that doesn’t need any introduction or promotion. It has replaced Microsoft with its rapid pace of innovation and mantle of leadership. Google has placed itself in a special position in the hearts and minds of many people throughout the world.

Dasavatharam: India’s most ambitious film

The release of Kamal Haasan’s magnum opus Dasavatharam was probably the most awaited event after Rajinikanth’s Sivaji – The Boss. The release is also important as Kamal Haasan has no release since August 2006. Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu, Haasan’s last released in August 2006 was a huge hit.

Dasavatharam is India’s most ambitious film in terms of budget and scrip. The film was released on June 13 2008. Ravichandran decided on the project in 1996. It took a lot of time to get the film together. Almost after twelve years it was released world-wide on June 13, 2008 in the Tamil language, with a simultaneous dubbed version released in Telugu. The film is set to be dubbed into Hindi and released later in the year.

Role

In the movie Haasan appears in ten different roles, breaking the record for an actor’s portrayal of the most different characters. The movie also has Asin in a dual role and Mallika Sherawat, who plays lead role. Kamal Haasan has played ten different roles in Dashavatharam - US President George Bush, Balaraman, a brahmin, a tall Afghan, a Lankan Tamil, an old lady, a doctor, a police officer, a Japanese, and a Daler Mehndi look-alike.

Music

Himesh Reshammiya has composed the film’s soundtrack, and Devi Sri Prasad has given the background score. The soundtrack to Dasavathaaram was released on April 25, 2008, which became the largest audio launch for a film in the world. Prominent film personalities across the world including Jackie Chan, Amitabh Bachchan, Mammooty, Vijay and Madhavan attended the function

Distribution

In the recent past, most big-budget films be it Hindi, or any other regional film, producers have adopted a revenue model where the investments are typically recovered before the release of the film. The producer of the movie, Ravichandran, took the different route and decided to distribute the film himself. He has ensured that the film is released in as many screens as possible. The film overall will have 1,300 prints which will include the Hindi version as well. Tamil Nadu alone had 275 prints with Kerala and Karnataka accounting for 85 and 80 prints respectively. The Telugu version of Dasavatharam had as many as 260 prints. Around 1,100 prints will be released domestically while the rest will go abroad in countries like UK, US, Europe and Singapore.

Revenue
In terms of money that came Ravichandran’s way before the release of the film, it was Rs 2 crore from Sony-BMG for selling the music rights and another Rs 4.5 crore for Kalaignar TV for the satellite rights. That adds up to just Rs 6.5 crore. The Ravichandran has distributed movie himself and is confident that the movie will do business worth Rs. 300 crores.
Reviews

Dasavatharam has been declared as the Blockbuster of the year due to its huge and mega opening worldwide in Indian film history. The film is anticipated to rake in close to Rs. 100 crore as its theatrical revenue at the end of this week, as Chennai theatre owners state that the bookings for the next 10 days are house-full. If compared to Rajnikant’s Sivaji the film grossed over 25 crore in its first one week. Given the current figures, Kamal Hassan is currently one up.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com, www.dasavatharam.info, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Saregama to produce films

The film industry is growing and undoubtedly is the sunrise industry of India. The corporates are venturing into the film industry in various verticals viz. multiplex, film production, film distributions and those who already have presence is expanding their horizon like PVR are venturing into film production, film distribution a migration from film exhibition Reliance Big Entertainment is consolidating its position not only in Bollywood but also in Hollywood.

Latest in the offering is the music distribution company Saregama venturing again into film production. Saregama India Ltd, the entertainment arm of the Rs 13500 crore RPG Group, would invest up to Rs.150 crore in film production and other businesses over the next two years in producing seven movies. RPG has plans to pick up a minority stake in one of the event management companies in India. The event management vertical will help Saregama popularize its movies and the characters in the movies post release.

Saregama India for its film production venture has tied up with Rituparno Ghosh to direct Bengali movies. Apart from theatrical releases the company will also bring out CDs and DVDs of the movies.

Hoping that this is yet another new beginning of the Indian corporates venturing into film industry. The other corporate houses evaluating the option of either venturing or expanding the horizon in industry are Reliance Industries, A V Birla Group, and Tata’s.

Reliance Big Entertainment and Amitabh Bachchan

The $1 billion deal between Reliance Big Entertainment and the production firms of Hollywood
stars Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt and film-makers Chris Columbus and Jay Roach to make films was the beginning of the Anil Ambani’s journey towards transforming his company into global filmmaker. It seems the hunger of Anil Ambani is getting bigger by the day.

Reliance Big Entertainment, just after negotiation with Hollywood bigwig Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks where Anil has planned to infuse about $600 million he also convinced the legendary Amitabh Bachchan.

The deal could be worth $200m-$300m (final figure is not yet known) and would include film production, television series, reality shows, internet and mobile content besides live shows. Reliance Big Entertainment will look after managing marketing and the distribution of projects, and the Bachchans - Amitabh, Jaya, Abhishek and Aishwarya would come up with the creative inputs and would be handling the entertainment aspect of the project.

The joint venture will use brand Bachchans in films, production, TV series, internet, reality shows and mobile content. The other directors who have been signed up to direct films for the joint venture are Balakrishnan, Sujoy Ghosh, Rohan Sippy and Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi. No wonder the deal is in line with Reliance Big Entertainment strategy to tie up with the leading Indian and international creative talent, to build a new-age, future-ready global media and Entertainment Company.

The creative genius – Bachchans and the business genius – Anil will create magic and take entertainment to a different level. The joint venture and our strategy to tie up with Indian and international creative talent will help the company build a new-age global entertainment conglomerate.

Multiplexes: the latest craze

The journey of multiplex which was started in 1997 with inauguration of first multiplex Priya Village Roadshow (PVR) Saket in New Delhi is currently at crossroads roughly a dozen players have entered in the business in small or big way. New players are trying to enter this sector and the existing players are busy expanding their horizons. The multiplex has gone beyond the metros to redefine entertainment in Tier 1 and 2 cities like Lucknow, Indore, Nasik, Aurangabad, Kanpur, Amritsar. The good news is at present roughly 70 percent of the total box office collections in the country come from non metros.
Understanding Multiplex Business
In last few years, strong economic growth, fall in interest rates, increase in real estate price, and increase in consumption levels, are constantly fueling multiplex boom in India. Moreover, multiplex operators are attracting movie enthusiasts, by combining movie viewing with food courts, branded food and apparel outlets and gaming that provided high quality viewing experience.

The multiplexes are often characterized by a good ambience, comfortable seating, air-conditioning, modern infrastructure. The multiplex has various halls with different seating capacities ranging between 200 to 500. This allowed the Multiplex operator to choose a theater depending upon the movie’s potential which help them utilize higher capacity utilization. Multiplex also help utilize show timing based on the screening duration, the number of shows could be maximized. Moreover, depending on the movie’s performance, the exhibitors had the option of moving it to theatres with different seating capacities and show timing. The multiple movie options also offer moviegoers the opportunity to see the movie of their choice.

Multiplexes offer several economic like better occupancy ratio, greater number of shows. They make more revenues in the first week of release by showing movie on more screens and reduces the number of shows with decreasing demand. The other multiplex advantage comes out of sharing facilities such as the basic amenities, F&B and manpower.

The multiplex model was built around a primary anchor – movies, though the revenue flow also happens through several income-generating channels other than box-office collections. The other revenue generation channels are food and beverage, product launch rentals and various other promotions by companies. In the recent past luxury multiplexes have come up with new experiences like partying in the theaters while the movie is running.

Multiplex owners, try and increase their income and reduce the expenses to increase their profitability. On the one hand the primary sources of multiplex income are: Patron’s spending viz. ticket sale, F&B, and parking, Advertisement Income, Management fee and Revenue sharing. On the other hand the prominent components of expenses are: Cost incurred for the working of a multiplex are: Distributor Share, F&B Cost, Lease Rentals, Other Operating costs, and Entertainment Tax. The multiplex owners are working on different business models to increase their reach and profitability. Business models are:

Ownership Model: In the case of fully owned model the multiplex owner buys the land and constructs a multiplex or buys a part of a shopping mall and sets up the multiplex within. In the ownership model, capital cost is high but the multiplex operator benefits from escalating real-estate prices. This model works where lease rentals are very high and capital costs are low as the escalating realty prices could force higher rentals adding to fixed costs.

Leased property model: In Leased property model, an operator invests in only fit-outs and not in the whole property and pays a fixed rent to the mall owner. This model is more prominent in areas where mall development is slow but the property location is ideal for movie exhibition. In the lease model multiplex operator has mostly variable expenses but company shells out more money on rent, thus decrease profitability. Majority of the multiplexes are coming up in leased properties, they can expand at a faster rate with less capital requirement and break even faster.

Theater management model: In this model the multiplex operator provides management services to the third party operator. In this form of business both the parties work on revenues sharing or fixed fees for property management or a combination of both.

The Major Players
Multiplex, in India is witnessing unprecedented growth. A few big corporate house have already entered the business and others are planning to venture in the business through acquire existing players. However, industry experts rule out any consolidation in the industry. They believe market is still in the growth stage and there are enough opportunities for the existing players. In current scenario competition is heating up among the existing players. Adlabs, PVR, IOX, Fun, Fame , DT Cinema, Satyam Cineplexes have chalked out big expansion plans to increase the number of screens in the next few years to get better share of movie revenues.

PVR Limited is the oldest player in the multiplex business in India. Ajjay Bijli, Managing Director of PVR Limited, after bringing the multiplex concept to India, has created the largest multiplex chain in the country. The company currently operates 24 cinemas with 95 screens across 14 cities, and expects to have another 50 multiplexes operational by end of 2008. They are developing five multiplexes in association with Prestige Group at Bangalore, Kochi, Hyderabad and Mangalore.
PVR works across spectrum from PVR Premiere which is designed for the urban elite, with ticket prices ranging from Rs 150-750 to the PVR Talkies which is low-cost multiplex in towns such as Aurangabad and Latur, where tickets are priced at Rs 40. The various multiple formats that straddle across income segments enable them capitalise on increasing footfalls and revenue. What makes PVR special is that it has been profitable right since inception.

INOX (Indian Oxygen) Leisure Ltd was a diversification venture of the INOX Group, a 100% subsidiary of Gujarat Flurochemicals Ltd. INOX has 24 multiplexes with a total of 84 screens in 18 cities – Pune, Vadodara, Kolkata, Mumbai, Goa, Bangalore, Jaipur and others. They have plans to expand into other cities like Chennai, Hyderabad, etc. by the financial year 2008. Inox has one of the highest ticket prices per seat in the country and, yet, has one of the best occupancy rates in the industry. No wonder Inox is the most profitable player in multiplexes business.

Adlabs Films Limited is India’s leading motion picture processing laboratory, set up the country’s first IMAX Dome Theater in Mumbai. Adlabs has 163 screens spread over 61 cities in India besides an international network of 220 screens spread in the East, mid-West and some parts of the United States. They are actively looking at expanding its business in countries like the U.K, Australia Malaysia, Nepal, Mauritius, and Singapore.
Adlabs Cinemas has launched 6D cinema experience at Agra, which is designed to cutting-edge visual and audio effects allowing audience simultaneous experience of sight, smell, sound, touch and motion.

Fame a part of Shringar Group which runs single screens and multiplexes. Fame has 14 properties and 48 screens operational. It plans to take the total screen count to 75 by 2008. They have plans to have presence in 60 sites with 250 screens by financial year 2011.

Fun Multiplex has uniquely positioned their cinema properties as epicenters of new economy suburbs in each city. Fun Multiplex offers the finest entertainment experience provider, enabling superior cinema viewing and real time leisure experiences to its patrons by combining the best in technology, comfort, leisure and hospitality.
Fun Multiplex holds a leading position in the Indian multiplex market. It operates 53 cinema screens in 13 cities and sixteen locations – Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Agra, Jaipur, Bangalore, Panipat and Gulbarga. The company was planning to construct 35 multiplexes with 140 screens and these were expected to begin operations by the financial year 2008. In addition, the company has planned to acquire additional screens and increase its screen count to 1500 by 2011.

Satyam Cineplexes, another popular chain, is part of the Superior Group. Satyam Cineplexes is planning to infuse around Rs 250 crore to set up 104 multiplexes across the country. The 104 screens planned by Satyam will be in cities like Indore, Ludhiana, Dehradun, Kolkata, Rohtak, among others. Satyam is targeting tier II cities in the country instead of having more screens in the metros. This is mainly because of the high real estate prices in the metros.

CineMax, the Kanakia Group theatre, is one of the largest exhibition theatre chains in India operating 19 multiplexes with 56 screens. CineMax has strong presence in Mumbai and they are planning to expand nationwide rapidly. CineMax offers premium services with recliner seats, massage chairs, any time tickets machines, luxurious and expensive interiors and the best of customer service. CineMax to enhance the customer experience started a call center hub at Mumbai called “Noline” to provide information about screenings at its theaters, enable telebookings, etc.

DT Cinemas, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the DLF Group, operates multiplexes in Delhi, Ludhiana and Jalandhar and Gurgaon. DLF planning to set up another 120 malls in different parts of the country, and DT Cinemas would be the chief attraction in most of these malls. Today DT Cinemas has seven operational multiplexes with 22 screen and they have plans to invest Rs 1,250 crore to open 500 screens in the next 4-5 five years. DT Cinemas has presence in NCR Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Chandigarh and apart from the north Indian cities, DT Cinemas also plans to set up multiplexes in Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Goa and Kolkata.

Apart from the existing multiplex chain the industry veterans like Mukesh Ambani is also venturing in this sector. Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail and Yashraj Films may float a 74:26 JV to set up multiplexes, run entertainment channels and produce content for television channels. The will use the upcoming malls of Reliance Retail nationwide to set up multiplexes. Wave cinemas, yet another multiplex chain promoted by the Chadha group, had multiplexes in Lucknow, Noida and Kaushambi has aggressive expansion plans.

Sustainability
Technology improvements are likely to be at the forefront in driving the growth of the Indian Film Industry into the future. Going Digital would be the mantra for s industry over the next two-three years. It will help multiplex deliver quality content to consumers at a faster pace and at a more economical price. Though multiplex has favorable environment for growth but there are a few negatives working against the growth of the multiplex industry in the country.

Entertainment Tax withdrawal is one of the biggest concerns for the multiplex industry as success of a multiplex business model in terms of financial viability hinges to a great extent on the entertainment tax exemptions being received by them. The other serious concern is risk of timely execution of planned projects. PVR, Fame, INOX, Adlabs in past have faced problem of delay in handover of the completed civic shell by the developer and delays in getting the necessary clearances from the government. The other big concern is movie piracy, which has reduced the theatrical window period. The movie piracy eats film industry revenue by almost 14%. This has encouraged the industry to reduce the theatrical window period and release the film faster on other movie viewing platforms like satellite, DVD. Moreover, Multiplex revenues are seasonal in nature as the production houses prefer to generally release big-budget films during the summer holidays or during the festive season to attract maximum umber of patrons to the cinema halls.

Conclusion

Multiplex, in India, is the new business model for the film exhibition industry. It is transforming movie viewing habits in India. It is set to take over a significant slice of the entertainment market of India. Today multiplexes constitute just 1% of the total number of cinema halls, and 4-5% of the total screens in India. The industry experts believe that it is beginning of the end of single screens in India as the multiplexes with certain advantages such as multi-screen potential, flexibility in operations, scope for other commercial viability will rule movie exhibition business in Indian.

Plagiarism in Bollywood - Ethics of Bollywood

A few writers and musicians in bollywood have been known for plagiarism. They copy ideas, plot, tunes from sources close at hand from other Indian films or Hollywood or other Western movies. This has lead to constant criticism towards the film industry. The Indian classic like The Burning Train released in 1980 was inspired by Shinkansen Daibakuha; 1988 release Khoon Bhari Maang was inspired by Return to Eden. The movie which made Shahrukh Khan the Hero, Baazigar was inspired by A Kiss Before Dying. There are many more such movies here I present a list of movies produced post 2000 which are inspired by the Hollywood or other Western movies or we can say a list of movies alleged to contain plagiarism:

2000
Har Dil Jo Pyar Karega was inspired by While You Were Sleeping
Dhaai Akshar Prem Ke was inspired by A Walk in the Clouds
Kahin Pyaar Na Ho Jaaye was inspired by The Wedding Singer

2001
Ajnabee was inspired by Consenting Adults
Kyo Kii… Main Jhuth Nahin Bolta was inspired by Liar Liar

2002
Humraaz was inspired by A Perfect Murder
Kaante was inspired by Reservoir Dogs
Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin was I nspired by Analyze This
Chor Machaaye Shor was inspired by Blue Streak
Deewangee was inspired by Primal Fear
Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai was inspired by My Best Friend’s Wedding
Raaz was inspired by What Lies Beneath

2003
Ek Chhoti Si Love Story was inspired by A Short Film About Love
Footpath was inspired by State of Grace
Inteha was inspired by Fear
Jism was inspired by Body Heat
Qayamat was inspired by City Under Threat and The Rock
Saaya was inspired by Dragonfly

2004
Aitraaz was inspired by Disclosure
Hum Tum was inspired by When Harry Met Sally
Mujhse Shaadi Karogi was inspired by Anger Management
Phir Milenge was inspired byPhiladelphia
Paap was inspired by Witness

2005
Black was inspired by The Miracle Worker
Sarkar was inspired by The Godfather
Ek Ajnabee was inspired by Man on Fire
Zeher was inspired by Out of Time
Main Aisa Hi Hoon was inspired by I am Sam
Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya? was inspired by Cactus Flower
Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena was inspired by Confidence
Garam Masala was inspired by Boeing Boeing
Bunty Aur Babli was inspired by Bonnie & Clyde
Chocolate: Deep Dark Secrets was inspired by The Usual Suspects
Deewane Huye Pagal was inspired by There’s Something About Mary

2006
Naksha was inspired by The Rundown
Zinda was inspired by Oldboy
Phir Hera Pheri was inspired by Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
I See You was inspired by Just Like Heaven
Tathastu was inspired by John Q
Malamaal Weekly was inspired by Waking Ned
Aap Ki Khatir was inspired by The Wedding Date
Taxi No. 9211 was inspired by Changing Lanes
The Killer was inspired by Collateral

2007
Awarapan was inspired by A Bittersweet Life
Bheja Fry was inspired by Diner de cons
Naqaab was inspired by Dot the I
Fool n Final was inspired by Snatch
Partner was inspired by Hitch
The Train was inspired by Derailed
Welcome was inspired by Mickey Blue Eyes
Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal was inspired by Green Street

Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan (Amitabh Harivansh Srivastav), born on October 11, 1942 in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh is one of the most prominent Indian film actors of Bollywood. Amitabh Bachchan is known for his deep, baritone voice. He before entering the film industry applied for a job with All India Radio for the post of a news announcer, for which he was rejected – probably a destiny’s call. The actor also did Playback Singing for The Great Gambler, Mr. Natwarlal, Lawaaris, Naseeb, Silsila, Mahaan, Pukar, Sharaabi, Toofan, Jaadugar, Khuda Gawah, Major Saab, Sooryavansham, Aks, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Aankhen, Armaan, Baghban, Dev, Aetbaar, Baabul, Nishabd, Cheeni Kum, Bhoothnath.

Amitabh Bachchan has been a narrator, a playback singer film producer, presenter for numerous programmes, and Television anchor. He was also elected member of the Indian Parliament from 1984 to 1987. The actor Amitabh Bachchan holds the record for the most number of Best Actor nominations at the Filmfare Awards and has won three National Film Awards and twelve Filmfare Awards to date.

Mile stone 1 – Saat Hindustani and Anand

Bachchan made his film debut in 1969 in Saat Hindustani, a film directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. Though the film was not a financial success but Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Newcomer. In 1971 was awarded Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award for his performance in Anand. In 1973 director Prakash Mehra cast him in the leading role for the film Zanjeer as Inspector Vijay Khanna which established Amitabh as the angry young man of Bollywood. Later Bachchan played the role of Vikram in the film Namak Haraam, a social drama directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and scripted by Biresh Chatterjee addressing themes of friendship. In 1975 he acted in a variety of film genres from the comedy Chupke Chupke, the crime drama Faraar to the romantic drama Mili. However 1975 was the year when he appeared in two landmark films of Hindi cinematic history – Deewar and Sholay.

Mile stone 2 – Sholay and Amar Akbar Anthony

After the phenomenal success of Sholay, Bachchan had consilidated his position in the industry. In between 1976 and 1984 he receive an unprecedented number of Filmfare Best Actor Award Awards and nominations. Sholay cemented Amitabh status as Bollywood’s pre-eminent action hero but he was flexible with roles. He played the romantic lead in Kabhie Kabhie and comic in Amar Akbar Anthony and Chupke Chupke. In 1977 he won the Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in Amar Akbar Anthony. 1978 was possibly the most remarkable year of his career and he starred in all four of the highest grossing films of India in that year. In 1979 for the first time, Amitabh was required to use his singing voice for the film Mr. Natwarlal. His performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Award and the Filmfare Best Male Playback Awards.

Mile stone 3 – Injury during filming Coolie

The fatal injury of 1982 while filming Coolie was the turning point in Amitabh’s film career. Amitabh while shooting for the film had taken the liberty to perform his own stunts. In one of the scene he was required to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen. He was operated and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, and at times was close to death. This was the time when world realized Amitabh’s star power.

The film was released in 1983 and partly due to the huge publicity of Amitabh’s accident the film was a great boxoffice success. Amitabh’s illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics.

Mile stone 4 – Politics and Retirement

In 1984, Amitabh took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of long-time family friend Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad’s Lok Sabha seat against H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and won by highest victory margin in general election history (68.2% of the vote). However, in 1987 he resigned after three years, leaving his term incomplete.

In 1988, Bachchan returned to films after a three year stint in politics and played the title role in Shahenshah, which was a box office success but his subsequent films failed. In 1990 he won his second National Film Award for Agneepath. In 1991 Hum looked like it might reverse this trend, but it did not happened and after the release of Khuda Gawah in 1992, Bachchan went into semi-retirement for five years.

Mile stone 5 – Producer and Actor

Amitabh Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement period and setup Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (A.B.C.L.) in 1996 with the vision of becoming a 10 billion rupees premier entertainment company by the year 2000. ABCL’s operations included film production, film distribution, production and marketing of television software, celebrity management, and event management. The first film produced by the company was Tere Mere Sapne which failed to do well at the boxoffice. ABCL produced a few other films viz. Ullasam, Mrityudaata, Major Saab, Aks, Viruddh none of which worked at boxoffice. ABCL was the main sponsor of the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore and lost millions due to the poor management of the event. Bachchan later attempted to revive his acting career and had average success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan and received positive reviews for Sooryavansham.

Mile Stone 6 – Television career and Return to prominence

In 2000, Amitabh stepped up to host, Kaun Banega Crorepati. The program piggyback on Amitabh’s charisma gained intense success. It strengthened Amitabh and his family financially and morally after the ABCL’s collapse. In 2000, Amitabh regained his prominence when he appeared in Yash Chopra’s box-office super hit, Mohabbatein directed by Aditya Chopra. The films like Ek Rishtaa, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham,Aks, Aankhen, Khakee, Dev, Black, Bunty Aur Babli, Sarkar, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, Baabul, Eklavya, Nishabd, Cheeni Kum and Shootout at Lokhandwala were few of he film which established him again. As an actor, he continued to exploit a range of characters suiting with his profile, receiving critical acclaim for his performances. His first English language film Rituparno Ghosh’s The Last Lear premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2007 for which he received positive reviews from critics.

Family and Friends

Bachchan is married to Jaya Bhaduri also an actress. They have two children, Shweta Nanda,and Abhishek Bachchan, who is also an actor in Bollywood and is married to Aishwarya Rai. He sees great friends in Anil Ambani and Amar Singh.

Amar Singh helped him during a financial crisis due to the failure of his company ABCL. Anil Ambani’s Reliance Big Entertainment and Amitabh Bachchan got into the deal which could be worth $200m-$300m (final figure is not yet known). The new venture would look after film production, television series, reality shows, internet and mobile content besides live shows.

Kamal Haasan

Kamal Haasan is an actor, producer, director, screenwriter, lyricist, playback singer and choreographer has won a total of 172 awards which is more than any other actor in the world living or dead. He was named as “kalaignani” – an idol of art, by M. Karunanidhi for his classical work towards Tamil cinema. The kalaignani was born on November 7, 1954 is the youngest of four children born in to an Iyengar family to Rajalakshmi and Srinivasan.

Early career: 1960s – 1970s

Kamal Haasan began his career as a child artist at age of six. In the 1960s, he made his screen debut with film Kalathur Kannamma, produced by AVM production and directed by by A. Bhimsingh, and won his first National Award for Best Child Artist. He acted as a child actor in five other Tamil films in the subsequent few years.

In 1972, after completing his education, Kamal Haasan returned to films and played supporting roles to more estblished actors. In 1974, Naan Avanillai final establishing him as a lead actor and in the same year he received a regional Filmfare Award for his role in the Malayalam movie Kanyakumari. The next four years, he won six regional Best Actor Filmfare Awards, including four consecutive Best Tamil Actor Awards.

Kamal Haasan in most of his late 1970s films, was usually the hero, with Rajinikanth as the villain. He reached stardom in 1979 with multiple classics and mass blockbusters. A huge factor behind Kamal’s success is his versatility.

Growth career: 1980s – 1990s

In 1981, Kamal Haasan’ acted in 100th film Raja Paarvai, which also marked his debut in film production. The portrayal of a blind session violinist earned him a Filmfare Award. In 1981, he incidentally ventured into direction. This was his first attempt at direction, which came through an unfortunate turn of events with the demise of director T.N. Baalu during the filming of Sankarlal. Kamal Haasan’s next acting role, in Ek Duuje Ke Liye, became his first Hindi-language film. In 1985, his performance in Saagar, won him both the Filmfare Best Actor Award as well as the Best Supporting Actor Award, making him the first actor to win both awards for a single film in the award’s history.

In 1987, Mani Rathnam’ directed him for Nayagan, commonly referred to The Godfather of Tamil cinema. The film helped Kamal Haasan bag a Indian National Award. The film was nominated by India as its entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards in 1987. in 1990, Kamal Hassan received India’s fourth highest civilian honour, the Padma Shri for his services to Indian cinema.

Unlike the eighties, Kamal Haasan films in the nineties lost sheen and were unsuccessful, barring Thevar Magan, Michael Madhana Kamarajan, and Avvai Shanmugi. The 1990s saw Kamal Haasan breaking out of the romantic hero mould to explore some more gritty, unconventional roles. In 1996, he acted in the police cop story, Kuruthipunal, which met with a strong critical reception. The success in Kuruthipunal, was followed by Indian which helped him bag him third National Film Award for Best Actor. Kamal Haasan’s second attempt at direction came through another unfortunate turn of events when the original director Shantanu Sheroey failed to do a good job while filming Chachi 420 in 1997.

New century – A new beginning

In 2000, Kamal Haasan filmed his second directorial venture, Hey Ram. He also donned roles of the writer, the lyricist, the choreogrpaher and the producer for the movie Hey Ram. The decade also saw his third directorial venture, Virumaandi. In 2006, Kamal Haasan’s long delayed project, Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu became a blockbuster at the box office. Kamal Haasan latest release, Dasavatharam has got positive response of audiences. He is set to direct his fourth directorial venture under the production of Walt Disney Pictures. The film tentatively titled Marmayogi, is believed to be set in the 7th century and feature several leading stars in the lead roles alongside Haasan. The film was announced with a higher budget than Dasavatharam.

Hollywood Inspiration

Kamal Haasan’s remakes are usually inspired by Hollywood originals, but the story and screenplay are customized for Indian Audiences viz. Nayagan was inspired by Godfather, Avvai Shanmugi and Chachi 420 were inspired by Mrs. Doubtfire, Anbe Sivam was inspired by Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Sathi Leelavathi was inspired by She-Devil, and Magalir Mattum was inspired by Nine to Five.

Awards

Kamal Haasan is a three-time winner of the National Film Award for Best Actor for the films Nayagan, Moondram Pirai and Indian. He also won the national award for Best Child Actor for his performance in Kalathur Kannamma. Six of his movies have been sent as India’s official entry to the Oscars. He has won the Filmfare awards 18 times. He was awarded the Padmashri in 1990. He has won a total of 172 awards which is more than any other actor in the world living or dead. He was named as “kalaignani” – an idol of art, by M. Karunanidhi for his classical work towards Tamil cinema. In 2007, he was conferred with “Living Legend” in the film business by FICCI, India.

Source: http://www.chakpak.com, and http://www.imdb.com, http://www.screenindia.com, http://www.apunkachoice.com,

Indian Premier League

The Indian Premier League is cricket competition created by the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India). According to the IPL format each teams play two times in a round robin system – equal number of home and away matches. The top four ranking team of the league matches will progress to the semi-finals and the winner of the semifinals will play the final match. 18 April 2008, was the starting date of the first season of the Indian Premier League. It lasted for forty-five days and ended on 1 June 2008 with the victory of the Rajasthan Royals in the final at the DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai.

The eight teams which participated in the first season of The Indian Premier League are Kolkata Knight Riders, Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians, Hyderabad Deccan Chargers, Rajasthan Royals, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Delhi Daredevils, and Kings XI Punjab. The Indian Premier League. after the success of the first season, has proposed to add two new franchises based in Ahmedabad and Kanpur. The new franchisee will join the IPL in 2010, increasing the total number of teams to 10.

Television and Sponsorship Rights
BCCI is known as the richest board in world cricket. The IPL has brought the BCCI a sum of US $1 billion, which makes it more powerful and lucrative. The sponsorship revenue is part of the Central Pool. The sponsorship revenue will be divided among IPL, franchisee, and prize money in the ratio of 40:54:6 till 2017.

A consortium of Sony Entertainment Television Network and Singapore based World Sport Group bagged the global broadcasting rights of the Indian Premier League for the period of ten years at a cost of US $1.026 billion. As part of the deal, the consortium will pay the BCCI US $918 million for the television broadcast rights and US $108 million for the promotion of the tournament. The Sony Entertainment Television Network and World Sport Groupthen re-sold parts of the broadcasting rights geographically to other companies. Apart from this deal The IPL negotiated a contract with the Canadian company Live Current Media Inc. to run and operate its portals. The minimum guarantee has been negotiated at US $50 million over the next 10 years. The IPL has different revenue sharing formula for the money it earns from the media rights.

Team Rules
The IPL has defined team rule, and the rules of competition, which offers equal playing field for all the teams. Some of the Team composition rules are:

The IPL teams is constitute of 16 players plus one physiotherapist and a coach. The team can have foreign players, at most four players from the playing XI, minimum of four local players must be part of the team, and not less than four players from the BCCI under-22 pool in each team. Moreover, team can have maximum of eight foreign players. The IPL board has also accorded icon status to five indian players, they are – Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag. Icon players are to be paid 15% more than the highest paid player in their respective teams. The IPL apart from the team structure the franchisee have assigned budget to spend on buying players. The total spending cap for a franchisee in the first player auction was US $5m. Under-22 players are to be remunerated with a minimum annual salary of US $20,000 while for others it is US $50,000.

To know more about the rules please visit http://www.iplt20.com/rules-of-the-competition.htmla

There were a few instances when the teams had difference of opinions; otherwise the IPL was a huge success. All teams played the game well within the defined IPL rules.

Franchises
24th January 2005 The IPL announced the winning bidders for the eight franchises. The official list of franchise owners announced and the winning bids were as follows.

• Mumbai Indians  - Reliance Industries - $111.9 million
  
• Royal Challengers Bangalore  - UB group - $111.6 million
  
• Hyderabad Deccan Chargers  - Deccan Chronicle - $107 million
  
• Chennai Super Kings  - India Cements and N Srinivasan - $91 million
  
• Delhi Daredevils  - GMR Holdings - $84 million
  
• Kings XI Punjab  - Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia, Karan Paul, and Mohit Burman - $76 million
  
• Kolkata Knight Riders  - Shahrukh Khan, Juhi Chawla Mehta and Jai Mehta - $75.09 million
  
• Rajasthan Royals  - Emerging Media: (A.R Jha, Lachlan Murdoch, Suresh Chellaram) - $67 million
  

Franchise Earnings
The first season that concluded on June 1 2008 was a huge success for the IPL. It should be noted that during the first season no one had expected the franchises to break even since most of them had invested huge amounts, but even then the table below shows that some of them are already profitable from Season one. Commenting on the financial performance and success of The Indian Premier League, Lalit Modi, Chairman & League Commissioner says: “I’m no financial analyst, but given the huge success of the league, and its future potential, I would venture to say that franchisees bought assets that were heavily under priced.”


All Figures are in crores
Mumbai Indians - Net Loss - 16 Crores(To be profitable in season 2)
Revenues
a. Broadcasting Rights - 35
b. Team Sponsors - 20
c. Gate Receipts - 14
Total Revenues(a+b+c) - 69
Expenses
a. Franchise Fees - 45
b. Team - 20
c. Advertising & Admin - 20
Total Expenses(a+b+c) – 85


Royal Challengers Bangalore - Net Loss - 43(To be profitable in season 4)
Revenues
a. Broadcasting Rights - 35
b. Team Sponsors - 0
c. Gate Receipts - 10
Total Revenues(a+b+c) - 45
Expenses
a. Franchise Fees - 48
b. Team Expenses - 22
c. Advertising/Admin - 18
Total Expenses(a+b+c) – 88


Hyderabad Deccan Chargers - Net Loss - 18 Crores (To be profitable in season 3)
Revenues
a. Broadcasting Rights - 35
b. Team Sponsors - 17 ;
c. Gate Receipts - 12
Total Revenues(a+b+c) – 64
Expenses
a. Franchise Fees - 45
b. Team Expenses - 24
c. Advertising/Admin - 13
Total Expenses(a+b+c) – 82


Chennai Super Kings
Revenues
a. Broadcasting Rights - 35
b. Team Sponsors - 25
c. Gate Receipts - 12.8
Total Revenues(a+b+c) - 72.8
Expenses
a. Franchise Fees - 36
b. Team Expenses - 24
c. Advertising/Admin - 13
Total Expenses(a+b+c) – 73


Delhi Daredevils - Net Loss - 6.6 Crores (To be profitable in season 2)
Revenues
a. Broadcasting Rights - 35
b. Team Sponsors - 20
c. Gate Receipts - 15.4
Total Revenues(a+b+c) - 70.4
Expenses
a. Franchise Fees - 34
b. Team Expenses - 23
c. Advertising/Admin - 20
Total Expenses(a+b+c) – 77


Kings XI Punjab - Net Loss – 2.4 Crores (To be profitable in season 2)
Revenues
a. Broadcasting Rights - 35
b. Team Sponsors - 22
c. Gate Receipts - 9
Total Revenues(a+b+c) – 66
Expenses
a. Franchise Fees - 30.4
b. Team Expenses - 25
c. Advertising/Admin - 13
Total Expenses(a+b+c) - 68.4

Kolkata Knight Riders - - Net Profit INR 13 Crores
Revenues
a. Broadcasting Rights - 35
b. Team Sponsors - 34
c. Gate Receipts - 20
Total Revenues(a+b+c) - 89
Expenses
a. Franchise Fees - 31
b. Team Expenses - 25
c. Advertising/Admin - 20

Total Expenses(a+b+c) – 76

Rajasthan Royals - Net Profit INR 6 Crores

Revenues
a. Broadcasting Rights – 35
b. Team Sponsors – 16
c. Gate Receipts - 8
Total Revenues(a+b+c) - 59
Expenses
a. Franchise Fees - 27
b. Team Expenses - 13
c. Advertising/Admin - 13
Total Expenses(a+b+c) – 53


This is how the franchises made money in IPL season one, to discover it better please refer to Business Today May 14 -July 03, 2008 Issue. <>

End of Season One
Modeled on English Premier League, The Indian Premier League season one was great success. The over all success of the concept in long run is dependent on the creation of club culture. Creating club culture is not a one day exercise. It will take some time. The Indian Premier League organizers and franchisee are looking forward for the similar success of The Indian Premier League in season two. Lalit Modi, Chairman & League Commissioner, Indian Premier League, with high expectation announced that the tentative dates for the second season of the DLF Indian Premier League. The second season will start from April 10th, 2009. The format of the tournament would remain unchanged from the 2008 season format. The eight franchisees will first play against one another in a league on home-and-away basis. The top four teams will then figure in the two semi-finals and a final.

Akbar Birbal remixed

Rajshri Media

Rajshri Media is the digital entertainment arm of the 60-year old Rajshri group, one of India’s oldest, largest and most successful Film and TV Studios. It also has successful operations in TV production and music publishing. The group has produced over 50 films till date many of which have attained significant commercial and critical success.

Rajshri Media is one of the leading Internet and Mobile Studios of India. The company runs India’s leading broadband video streaming and download portal http://www.rajshri.com their Internet and Mobile videos are also available at their Youtube channel – http://www.youtube.com/rajshri.

Akbar Birbal remixed: A new beginning

Gone are the days of TV serials; its age of Internet and mobile serials. Rajshri Media, India’s leading Web and Mobile Studio, has launched Akbar Birbal remixed. The Akbar Birbal remixed is 3 minute a piece 90 episode series. The Akbar Birbal remixed, set in the by-lanes of Bhendi Bazar in Mumbai.

The show revolves around a loud and brazen don – Akbar Anna, and his intelligent , witty and ever-bankable sidekick – Birbal Bhaiya. Each day, to them, begins with it a new nut to crack. Doesn’t it sound like Akbar-Birbal, and Muna Bhai – Circuit combination? The first 10 episodes are live on http://www.rajshri.com and their Youtube channel which is http://www.youtube.com/rajshri. In addition, it will be launched soon on MMS and SMS via Idea Cellular.

Rajshri would reformat the content for audio and text and will be distributing it to Idea for 3 months, thereafter going live across other operators. The content will be released initially on Internet and mobile and subsequently formatted for TV, home video and Radio.

Mobile Value Added Services demands Level playing field with Telecoms

The value added services industry has contributed significantly to the growth and adoption of mobile telephony in India. It has also helped telecom sector clock additional revenue. Hence, it is imperative to have a level playing field between large telecommunication and small Mobile Value Added Services companies. Based on the fact the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has sought a level playing field between the telecom operators and the value added services companies. They strongly believe that it is imperative for the growth and sustainability of mobile telephony in India.

IAMAI has asked for a faster process of obtaining shortcodes, standardisation of the terms and conditions of access and interconnection and a transparent revenue sharing model between operators and Mobile Value Added Services players. IAMAI has also said that there should be some additional obligations on the current licensees in terms of maintaining a level playing field, otherwise, the MVAS industry should be treated as the single largest users of telecom services and their rights should be protected.



Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

ACL Wireless Limited

ACL established in 2000 is a privately owned company funded by IAVM, with strategic investments from Naspers/MIH. It employs over 240 people and is headquartered in Delhi.
ACL Wireless is a mobile VAS player in managed mobility and community messaging service across 21 countries. It works with Airtel in India, MTC-Vodafone in Middle East, Claro in Brazil and AIS in Thailand. ACL Wireless offers interactive SMS & voice response along with permission based SMS broadcasts & alerts. ACL wireless offerings also includes service creation and operation for enterprises and operator VAS, billing & content aggregation. Its community & messaging services suite includes: mobile chat, mobile social networking, mobile photo sharing and internet messengers on mobile available across GPRS & SMS mediums.
ACL has partnerships with Gemalto, Smart Trust, Eposs and Unified Communications which enable it to develop cutting edge products and distribute them globally.

Bharti Telesoft

Bharti Telesoft, established in 1999 is owned by Bharti Enterprises, venture capital investors Sequoia Capital and Cisco. Bharti Telesoft offers software products and services to wireless and wireline operators.
In 2002, Bharti Telesoft acquired CellCloud Technologies, a leader in the field of prepaid recharge solutions and in 2007, acquired Jataayu a leading player in the mobile Internet space, to bolster its portfolio of Internet and VAS applications for mobile operators and handset manufacturers. Bharti Telesoft has deployed solutions for over 100 mobile operator customers in more than 60 countries worldwide. Its solutions help power services to over 500 million mobile subscribers globally. It has a strong sales and marketing focus in the Asia Pacific region, Russia and the CIS, the Middle- East, Africa, Europe and Latin America. It has its R&D facilities at New Delhi, Banglore and Mumbai.
Bharti Telesoft is works on number of services including SMS router, voice SMS, SMS chat, and Live video services, P2P transactions including balance transfer, music sharing and videos sharing. mCommerce and Live TV to mobile are the key focus areas for future growth.