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Orkut beefs up, Facebook no. 1 in India

August 31st, 2010 admin

Orkut, social networking site of Google, will delight its users with new features in order to provide more control over data sharing. Orkut recently lost the number one ranking in India to Facebook, its global competitor.

Facebook registered a growth of 179 percent in July with 20.9 million visitors in India, while Orkut registered only 16 percent growth to 19.9 million visitors in India.

From Economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Orkut will now allow users to define and customise group settings. This means that users can choose if they want certain content to be viewed only by a specific group of people.

“Orkut is continuing down the path of innovation with a complete transformation in product DNA that began just last year. We’ve created this new functionality to give Orkut users more privacy and control over how they share content,” Google Product Director Victor Ribeiro said in a statement.

These changes let users connect with social groups and they will want to interact even more now that they have more control over who has access to their updates than ever before, he added.

Even though Google enjoys the status of being the most popular search engine globally, the same hasn’t been the case for Orkut.

India was one of the few countries where Orkut enjoyed the top spot amongst social networking websites. However, Facebook jumped to first rank in terms of site traffic in July this year, according to research firm comScore.

India represents one of the fastest growing markets in the world of social networking, according to comScore Executive Vice-President (Asia-Pacific) Will Hodgman.

Time to change traditional marketing pitch

August 28th, 2010 admin

Blame it on the recession or not, traditional marketing pitching is a common sight these days in the world of cutthroat markets. It has to be, however, stopped and marketers should take every possible step to research the market, request a quote, and select a contractor.

Emma Harris, sales and managing director of Eurostar, said that the pitch process is a rewarding way for avoiding cronyism.

From Economictimes.indiatimes.com:

The recent trend for marketers to hold pitches for every project brief, as well as running cost-based, eBay-style e-auctions, is causing an unprecedented level of unrest among agencies. As a growing number of brands look to benchmark their marketing performance through these often lengthy and expensive processes, so the argument for a fresh approach to managing pitches gathers pace.

“There have always been clients that behave badly in pitches and there always will be,” says Kerry Glazer, chief executive of intermediary AAR, which has more than 20 years’ experience in the pitching business. Despite many agencies taking a contrary view, Glazer does not believe that the situation has worsened because of the recession.

Some in the industry argue that pitching should be stopped altogether and marketers should do what plenty of other industries do: research the market, request a quote and choose a contractor. However, as Eurostar sales and marketing director Emma Harris points out, the pitch process is a valuable way to avoid cronyism.

The best way out is probably to be taken by agencies in walking away from badly run pitches by encouraging better behavior among marketers.

General Motors keen to shed Government ownership

August 21st, 2010 admin

General Motors Co. on Wednesday took a significant step towards shedding government ownership by filing the first batch of paperwork required to sell stock to the public.

The 700-page filing will lead to an initial public offering (IPO) of General Motors’ stock. The paperwork brought into notice the reasons why GM would prove to be attractive to the investors, and what all risks the company face or can possibly face.

From Timesofindia.indiatimes.com:

GM didn’t say how many shares would be sold or when, although experts say the IPO could come as early as October. It also didn’t say how many shares GM’s majority owner, the US government, plans to sell. Those sales would eventually lead to the government shrinking its big stake in the automaker, something GM is eager to see. The company’s outgoing CEO, Ed Whitacre, has said government ownership has hurt GM’s public image and sales.

Under the plan filed on Thursday, GM said its stakeholders initially will sell common stock, while GM will sell preferred shares, which are like bonds and include dividend payments. GM said it will use proceeds from the preferred stock sale for general corporate purposes. It offered few other details.

GM would have to bring in $70 billion just to pay back all of the automaker’s stakeholders. That could come in several sales over months.

Francis Gaskins, president of IPOdesktop.com, said GM’s decision to sell preferred shares rather than common stock is a sign that GM is facing trouble in attracting investor interest and felt the requirement to sweeten the offering with the preferred dividends.

Dividend preferred over income by frustrated investors

August 19th, 2010 admin

Investors who have became frustrated souls after watching their incomes getting evaporated because of plunging bond yields are turning up to dividend-paying stocks, and they’re being rewarded for it.

In the recent times, the pendulum is shifting to the salvation of dividends with benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields near 17-month lows.

From in.news.yahoo.com:

In the first half of this year, there was a net inflow of $194.4 million for income-producing equity mutual funds following three years of outflows, according to Lipper, a Thomson Reuters company.

The inflow is in contrast to the $18.4 billion net outflow from all U.S. domestic equity funds, according to industry trade group Investment Company Institute.

“Given the heavy outflows from most equity fund classifications this year, positive flows into equity income speaks to investors’ desire for increasingly elusive income,” said Jeff Tjornehoj, U.S. and Canada research manager at Lipper.

The bet is working out so far this year.

The S&P Dividend Aristocrats index, which tracks S&P 500 companies that have boosted dividends for 25 straight years, has outperformed the S&P by roughly 4.5 percent year-to-date.

Since 1926, dividends have accounted for one-third of all total equity returns.

Daniel Peris, portfolio manager of the Federated Strategic Value Dividend Fund in Pittsburgh, said a lot of interest can be seen for dividend-paying stocks as they meet a real near-term need for income.

No family successor for the Tatas

August 14th, 2010 admin

The Tata Group, which is the oldest and best-known Indian business, has decided to make a difference by not opting for a legal heir to its chairman, 72-year-old Ratan Tata who is due to retire by end-2012.

Ratan Tata has no apparent successor, which means that the business founded by his great-grandfather is left potentially vulnerable presently.

From in.news.yahoo.com:

But his decision to look within the company, as well as abroad, will go some way in dispelling some of the negative notions of family firms in India, highlighted by the bitter five-year feud between the billionaire Ambani brothers.

“Change has taken a while; they’re evolving relatively slowly because business is seen as an emotional link between founders and their assets, and they tend to want to pass them on to the next generation,” said Frank Hancock, managing director of advisory at Barclays Capital and an India veteran.

The Ambani feud has been held up as an example of how blood ties can affect business: lack of succession planning, opacity, and erosion of shareholder value.

These are perceptions India’s top family firms, which have dominated the country’s corporate landscape for over a century, are trying to shake off as they face more competition, tighter regulations, and a new generation of leaders takes the reins.

Michiel van Voorst, senior portfolio manager at Robeco in Hong Kong, which has 30 million euros ($38.7 million) of a 700-million-euro fund invested in Indian firms, said that succession is a concern as it is worrying to see someone put in a seat not because of competence but family ties.

Hassle free online personal loans with yourbadcreditloans.com

August 12th, 2010 admin

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Plan for Job Search Personal Marketing

August 10th, 2010 admin

If you are about to go on job hunting and want to stay ahead of the rest, this YouTube video is a must-see for you. In this video, you will find how to access and optimize benefits of a personal marketing plan to stay close to the dream job without making much effort. This video is highly recommended for those about to enter the world of employment or seeking job change.

Mobile phone calling costs to get regulated in NZ

August 7th, 2010 admin

The government of New Zealand is about to regulate the cost of calling competing mobile phone networks in response to a recommendation from the competition watchdog.

Shares of the second largest listed company in New Zealand last traded down one cent to 2.01 New Zealand dollars.

From Timesofindia.indiatimes.com:

Communications minister Steven Joyce said regulations would ensure cheaper mobile phone calls and more competition than the voluntary undertakings from mobile operators Telecom Corp and Vodafone NZ to reduce the costs over time.

“I look forward to New Zealand mobile users enjoying more competition between operators and better prices,” Joyce said in a statement on Wednesday. The price that Telecom and Vodafone can charge to carry calls over their networks, known as mobile termination rates, will be set by the Commerce Commission. The regulator has changed its position on regulating mobile costs twice in the past year.

This move is expected to bring considerable relief to mobile consumers through cheaper mobile phone calls because of competition.

The New World of Online Marketing

August 3rd, 2010 admin

The commandments of building brands & advertising are being challenged today with advertising strategies getting revolutionized.

This puts online businesses in a spot from where they need to always make sure that advertising efforts made by them are not only truthful but capable of evoking attention of the targeted audience.

From Economictimes.indiatimes.com:

What has changed?

To begin with, the source of control is shifting dramatically. It is moving more rapidly to the consumer. The internet is quite like swapping stories around a campfire, only fizzier and better. A recent study of 475 active online consumers revealed that 91% of consumers rely on the Web to get current news or information and about 60% personalise their home pages by adding features like specific content feeds or RSS. Nearly 70% of these consumers read blogs regularly and about 67% regularly watch videos online. The fact is that the internet promises and delivers the fizziest array of entertainment and the most intense amount of information on any subject, with a degree of informality that represents true freedom and liberation for the consumer.

And not just that. Today, considering that the young consumers are becoming increasingly immune to clichéd prime-time television advertising and prefer to spend intimate, one-to-one time with their PCs, truly makes the internet the ‘hottest real estate’. The global economy has also made the notion of personal intellectual space a reality. And while we still lounge with the Sunday paper, the almost second-by-second frenzied analysis of relationship status on Facebook profiles faces us as a stark truth.

All in all, the online stage is a platform that helps online business entities to create awareness about the brand, shape them to perfection, and make the best use to think ahead of the rest.

Dell not moved by challenges

July 29th, 2010 admin

Dell Inc. recently said that it is squarely focused on enhancing the level of profitability and diversifying its business even though its investors are expressing concerns over efficacy of turnaround plans of the company.

Shares of the company fell 6.4 percent outpacing a decline of 1.6 percent in the S&P computer hardware index as Dell laid out its strategy during its annual analyst day meeting.

From in.biz.yahoo.com:

The company said it is well-positioned to reap the benefits of a strong refresh cycle among commercial customers as they replace aging personal computers and servers.

At the same time, Dell is still grappling with rising component costs and volatility in international markets, and its margins have been an area of concern for Wall Street.

Collins Stewart analyst Lou Miscioscia said investors are not sensing that Dell is making progress.

“What they’re hearing is not much different than what they heard two years ago,” he said. “It’s the same set of challenges.”

Dell executives said the company is aiming to increase operating income with better execution and supply chain management, and cost efficiencies, even as it strives to become less reliant on its low-margin PC business by greatly expanding its services, server and storage segments.

The company said its hopes to grow both its $16 billion enterprise solutions business and its PC segment faster than the overall market.

“We’re on a growth strategy,” Chief Executive Michael Dell said during the analyst meeting. “Last year was a challenging one for the global economy … but this year we see the growth really coming back.”

It was remarked by Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden that there are signs of weakened demand from European consumers while average selling prices are improving. It was also remarked that foreign currency volatility and component pricing continue to be challenges.

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