Mobile Based Kisan Credit Cards – Will It Succeed This Time Around?

                      Of all there is said and written about the rural opportunity in India, one thing that continues to plague the rural ecosystem is lack of an efficient financial services model. Despite all the advance, agriculture is and will remain a key component of the rural community but farmers continue to be bogged down by lack of an adequate and efficient financial services system especially when it comes to loans.

                      The impact that lack of capital and the inability for farmers to pay that in time is not new and even after decades, there is a nexus of the in-house bankers in the form of “jamindars" (landlords) who play on the lack of knowledge of farmers. 

                      Banks have managed to replace the landlords when it comes to lending money but it is out there that they haven’t been really successful given the peculiarities in ability of farmers to pay their loans. For e.g. lack of rains or a natural calamity makes it impossible for farmers to pay the loans in time and their plight becomes worse.

                       In a bid to revive the credit situation when it comes to farmers, NABARD is piloting a new Mobile based Kisan Credit Card (M-KCC),

NABARD has funded Rs 44.66 lakh to regional rural bank Pallavan Grama Bank, which is conducting a pilot study to launch mobile-enabled Kisan credit cards for farmers in Villupuram district, with a view to reduce transaction costs and improve efficiency.

                      The pilot aims to reinvent the wheel and take a fresh look at Kisan Credit Card which have been launched in the past without much success.  

                      Pallavan Grama Bank is the one to start the pilot and as many as 400 cards have been disbursed already. The improved element here which I think the authorities are betting on is the mobile enablement of these credit cards which is not surprising given the improving mobile penetration in rural India

The concept as such has its merits and could prove beneficial if its take off at a larger scale. For one, farmers would be able to conduct all their transactions right from their mobile phone saving them trips to the bank. 

                        Additionally, this could help the banks reduce the physical staff thereby saving some costs and passing that to the farmers in the form of more subsidization (A long strech but feasible).

                        However, the most important benefit of mobile Kisan Credit Card could be in the form of financial inclusion. If the mobile interfaces are intuitive and user-friendly and farmers can get their way around it, there is a possibility that more and more farmers will adopt the same. This can prove instrumental in well documented records of monetary transactions the farmers make over a period of time.

                         Not only will this bring more transparency there is a possibility of mining that data to develop a recommendation engine. The recommendation engine could draw from the transactional data and help farmers understand better ways of capital expenditure and utilization.

I personally think that any rural targeted banking product needs to have a educational/ awareness component linked to it to ensure that farmers can be enabled beyond just capital disbursement.

What are your thoughts on Mobile based Kisan Credit Cards?  

Do you think they can be successful this time around?

5 reasons the ‘make money online’ bubble needs to be busted!

                        Not in our wildest of dreams would we have imagined a decade back that the internet would be flooded with ‘make money online’ campaigns and advertisements. While making money online may be a reality for a few (infact, very very few) in India, it is still a distant dream for others who’ve pinned their hopes and savings into the idea of working from home and making money.

Here are 5 reasons why the make money online bubble needs to be busted and people need to get back to looking for real jobs.

The idea of making money online is often misleading

                    Whether it is earning through affiliate programs or advertisement revenue, the thought of making money is very over-rated. The advertisements promise the Indian IT savvy surfer that they would become rich and start earning thousands within the first few weeks. Unfortunately, these tall claims about making money online are far from true and are creating unnecessary hype. 

People are quitting real jobs to jump into the unknown

                  The stories of engineers and doctors turning to the internet to make money online are not uncommon these days. And who can we blame for that except the make-money-online bubble?

These massive job switches happen due to the lure of quick and easy money without even acquiring any skills of Internet Marketing. This ignorance is only causing the bubble to inflate more.

Options of making money online do not make you rich overnight

                   Like any other profession, the business of making money online does not make anyone an overnight millionaire. In fact it is much worse, because unlike jobs in the real world where you get your salary or income no matter what, your business online will not pay you until it picks up.

If you’re relying on blogs and websites that show you how to make money online, go splash some water on your face!

Students are ignoring studies over this bubble

                  Are we really surprised that students are trying out their hands on this bubble of making money online? Many university students remain logged in from their computers all day and all night scouting forums and looking for that next big idea about making money online. 

                Unfortunately it is not until they’ve wasted a lot of time, effort and money that they realize that making money online is often a glorified ideology and requires the patient effort of many years, or months, if one is lucky. 

Abuse of social media websites

               Social media websites are also facing the wrath of the make money online bubble, especially in India. Fake IDs, misleading usernames, inappropriate pictures and false advertising are doing the rounds of virtually every social media and networking website. Little does the ‘real person’ on these social media website know that by clicking on such links, they are only promoting the cause of unscrupulous elements floating around on the internet.

             Having said all this, we still stand with the fact that it is possible to make money online through various dedicated means, but it not a moolah churning machines that everyone is assuming it to be. There is a reason why only few marketers emerge successful out of the thousand who enter this business. 

 

And that’s why, the make-money-online bubble needs to be busted and how!

How Facebook helped an aspiring artist with his career!

This is a true story and by no means over.

 

                  The guy in question happens to be one regular lower middle class individual who grew up selling combs to confectionery to augment the family income. He spent his childhood in the company of comic books. He wasn’t alone. For kids growing up in early nineties comic books was an attractive and very economical option of entertainment because those were the days where there were no 24 hour cartoon channels and animation was limited to 2 hours of fun time every Sunday morning on DoorDarshan.

                 So when this guy grew up comics became his passion. He graduated from Indian super heroes to Marvel and DC. But comics remained his first love. And then he discovered the world of computers and Internet. At first he didn’t understand a thing. He couldn’t afford a computer so he would visit his friends and would visit web sites of his favourite comic publisher. He got intrigued by the world of comic art. He became interested in the process. He took a particular liking to the coloring process of the comics. He started asking people how the vivid colors of the comic pages were created and somebody mentioned Photoshop to him.

               So the guy joined a course at a local institute and learnt Photoshop. He was helped by a couple of his friends who were in the designing field and he started honing his skills. He even managed to buy an old computer to practice. He would procure black and white drawings from the Internet and colour them and he would show them to his friends. That was all about it for a while. It would have ended there and he would have continued to sell biscuits for commission to local shops. But then something happened.

Somebody introduced him to Facebook…

           And that changed his life. He didn’t understand it in the beginning. He did not know what that site was, or what its features were. One of his friends helped him create a profile and taught him how to upload images and how to make friends. The first thing he did was he befriended the publisher of the comic book which he had been reading since his childhood. 

          Then he started uploading his colouring works on Facebook. And every time he would upload it, he would tag everyone in his friends list in the image. He didn’t know what he was doing. Someone just told him to tag people and he followed it religiously. It had a profound effect. Because the editor he tagged was friends with hundreds and thousands of other people and every time he tagged him, his image appeared in the timeline of that person. So all his contacts would see that work.

         His free uploads on Facebook were now being seen by hundreds of people. And he started receiving feedback and friend requests from strangers. He accepted everybody’s request and the more people became his friend, he started reaching a larger audience. He would post a recent artwork he had coloured and he would get instant feedback and encouragement. That kept him going.

And very soon his efforts were noticed by an upcoming publisher. And he offered him colouring assignment. With the encouragement and guidance of his mentor who had made a good name for himself in the field he accepted it and soon his name was printed as a colouring artist on hundreds of comic books.

              He was elated. He had spent his life loving his comic books and now his name was there on a real comic book! Although he still wasn’t a professional artist cause it still wasn’t paying him much and he had to continue with his travelling salesman job, he had found a start. His continued posting refined samples of his artwork on Facebook and another publisher approached him and more work poured in. And then one day he landed the most prized assignment of his nascent career as a colouring artist.  

He got an offer to colour the comic version of the upcoming Bollywood Superhero movie.  

            Although it was because of his mentor that he got the assignment, Facebook was responsible for taking him to that stage.

Facebook gave a new lease of life to this aspiring artist. 

          

            Without Facebook he might not have got the wide platform to showcase his talent. For lack of feedback and encouragement he might have given up on his ambition. And Facebook’s photo tagging feature was instrumental in getting him the huge audience that eventually landed him a paying assignment for doing what he loved. Even his mentor who is a successful artist now wishes if he had Facebook when he had started out.

             His story is by no means over, he has just started. He is working on 3 comic books right now and has even got a job offer from another comic publishing house at a salary that is double of what he is making as a travelling salesman.

He owes his career as much to Facebook as he owes it to his mentor.

Note: He is a friend of mine and the mentor I am talking about is not me. I am not into comic artwork, I am a programmer. I am not disclosing the name as I think it may (or may not) affect him adversely!

Microsoft India offers Free Windows 7 Phone for Student App Developers!

                    Looks like Microsoft is leaving no stone unturned to push its Windows 7 mobile OS amongst the masses. Microsoft India has launched a program i unlock joy that promises lot of freebies to student app developers that includes a Free Windows 7 Phone as well.

                   But, before you run to get your hands on it – there are obviously some rules to participate in this program.

You are eligible to participate only if

• You are 18 years of age or older; and
• You have been actively enrolled as a student at an accredited educational institution that grants high-school or college/university (or equivalent) degrees for at least 3 months between 1^st January 2011 and 18^th November 2011; and
• You are not an employee or intern of Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd. or Microsoft Corporation, or any of their affiliates; and
• You are not involved in any part of the execution or administration of this Program; and
• You are not an immediate family member of (parent, sibling, spouse, child) or household member of a Microsoft employee, an employee of a Microsoft affiliate, or a person involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Program.
• You are a registered member of Microsoft DreamSpark Program for students.                 
                  The last point being the most important one “You should be a registered member of Microsoft DreamSpark Program ”, which essentially is a very similar platform to what Microsoft’s very popular Bizspark program is for startups. Microsoft offers their software’s free of cost to students to registered members of these platforms encouraging them to develop Microsoft based applications.
                 So, if you are eligible for “i unlock joy ” program, you will have to build apps to get your hands on the freebies offered by Microsoft. If a registered student is able to develop & submit a one verified Windows 7 phone app to Windows Phone Marketplace by December 18th, then you get a Merit Certificate, Windows Phone T-Shirt & 2GB flash drive.
  
  If you manage 4 apps within that time frame, you can get your hands on cool new Windows Phone!
  
  
  
                    There is no doubt that Microsoft is pushing hard to popularize Windows phone OS and one of the basic requirements for OS to succeed will be a it’s huge app market place.
  
                    Microsoft obviously does not have a developer community like say Android or iOS. But by introducing such programs to students, they are surely pushing hard to build a community that will be basis for their success in coming years. It is interesting though, that it has been opened for Indian students only – It puzzles me as to why it has not been opened worldwide!
  
  Whether they will be successful or not, only time will tell!
  

Amazon Kindle: A Marketing/Sales Engine Like No Other!

                     You are the largest e-commerce website in the world. You also happen to be one of the largest cloud based infrastructure service provider in the world. What do you do next? Hey, why not get into the hardware business and launch a simple yet slick e-reader. Wait, why stop at that? Why not expand the portfolio of hardware products to introduce a feature-rich multimedia consumption device. But why?

                    Well, that’s Amazon for you after the recent announcement of Kindle Fire along with price variant Kindle versions. The tech press has had a field day and the launch has managed to get the attention parallel to what only Apple product launches garner.

                      Kindle Fire has been called many things right from ‘iPad killer / competitor’ (which it is not), ‘Android Tablet Killer’ (which it might be) but there is a basic idea that excites me the most. By the way, before we get to my interpretation of what Amazon’s family of Kindle products stand for you should read Sriram’s piece on The Good, Bad and The Ugly Of Kindle Fire. 

On to the title of the post now. From a core business standpoint, Kindle(s) don’t seem like a prudent business segment channel for a e-commerce vendor. It’s another thing that Kindle continues to sell like hot cakes and the attractively priced Kindle Fire seems set to shake the tablet market.

For one, there have been reports that Amazon stands to lose a cool $50 for every Kindle Fire sold.

                    Now, which business can afford to lose so much on a new business segment. But Amazon is taking the bite and if you ask me this is too less a price for what Amazon stands to gain from Kindlezing (sounds similar to scandalizing but its not) the world. Here’s why I think Amazon has uncovered one of the coolest marketing and sales channel with Kindle.

Marketing:

                    A typical e-commerce vendor markets through a plethora of ways on the web. Banner advertising, inbound marketing and what have you. But despite the growth of high conversion advertisement channel and improved targeting, customer acquisition is a costly affair.

                   Consider the typical case of banner advertising, I spot a banner ad of Amazon for a popular book and I click through. However, I do not intend to buy the book and end up closing the landing page without buying.

                   Amazon has already paid but does not get a customer. However, I buy a kindle to read books online and it stays with me. Every time I fire up the kindle, that’s Amazon marketing its huge inventory to me – Every Single Time.

                   So, for every $79$139/$189 kindle Amazon sells, it gets to market to me for the entire lifecycle of the product. The same goes for the newly launched Kindle Fire which not only markets e-books but a whole range of multimedia products for me to purchase.

                  An apt analogy for the same has been the ‘Gillette gives the razor for free to sell its blades” which has been doing the rounds. Yes, an age old trick but what a way to pull it off. The sheer marketing value that these devices provide to Amazon will make up for the $50 hit on every Kindle Fire sold.

Sales:

                Well, an extension of marketing of sorts but making the conversion a much more frictionless process. In a way these kindle devices are akin to your traditional brick-and-mortar Point-Of-Sale terminals or kiosks. Only here, the kiosk has pretty much an unending inventory. Millions of books, TV shows and movies.

               All inventory can be browsed right from the device and bought then and there in a few seconds. Kindle is the perfect platform for Amazon to create a revolutionary sales channel which complements Amazon’s e-commerce website superbly. Business needs to be where the consumer is. So, with consumer uptake for mobile devices increasing Amazon has made sure it is present on customer’s preferred channel. I haven’t personally bought stuff on Kindle but if the experience is any way closer to the Apple AppStore we all know it is a killer sales channel.

              In addition, there is also the Silk Browser on the Kindle fire for doing stuff which apparently runs on EC2 (Amazon’s cloud based servers). Now the jury is out there on the whole privacy issue around it but if it means that Amazon gets to deep dive into customer behavioral patterns, that’s a huge bonus. Mining this data could provide Amazon incredible insights into customer preferences which it can then implement across all its channels.

 All in all, Kindle to me seems like a stroke of genius. What are your thoughts on Amazon’s real vision behind its Kindle family of products?

Tablet Sales in India – An Overview!

How many tablets are sold in India? 

The answer largely varies. 

               There could be anywhere between 1 lakh tablets to half a million tablets, though half a million seems a little far fetched. We can never get the exact sales figures, but we can try to get close to the reality. Research firms like CyberMedia Research are trying to help us.

As per the CyberMedia Research recent figures, 158,000 tablets were sold between Oct 2010 and June 2011 (3 quarters).

 

                      That translates to 17,000 to 18,000 tablets being sold every month.  Of which Samsung sold 46% of the tablets, Blackberry surprisingly sold 21% of the tablets and Apple sold 18% of the tablets. The rest of the tablet makers grab the remaining 15% of the share -that includes Olive Telecom which introduced India’s first tablet.

All’s well right? With that little graph. Except that all’s not well.

                   CMRI has released sales figures for India’s tablets just a month back. As per that release, 85000 tablets were sold between Nov 2010 and March 2011 and Samsung had 84.7% share, Apple 5.9% share and Olive has 8.2% share. Blackberry did not even exist, rightly so because its Playbook wasn’t launched in that period.

                    If we overlap both the reports, as both are from the same source, we will find some anomalies.

• Samsung share dropped from 84.7% to 46% : Now between the two reports there is a difference of 4 months. The latest report includes an extra month of October in 2010 and an extra quarter in 2011. Samsung sold 71995 tablets in the period of Nov 2010 to March 2011. And it sold 72680 tablets in the period of October 2010 to June 2011. Which means in 4 months – October 2010 and between April 2011-June 2011, Samsung sold just 685 tablets. It is even more surprising because Samsung started its ad campaign for its Galaxy Tabs in this quarter.
• Blackberry didn’t figure in the first study. Whatever sales it made has to be come from the quarter of Apr 2011 to June 2011. A total of 33180 Blackberry Playbook’s were sold in this period. It’s a good number, but when compared with iPad sales, Playbook numbers are unsurprisingly high.
• Apple sold 5015 iPads in the period of Nov 2010 to March 2011. Assuming there are no sales in October 2010, Apple sold 23425 tablets in the period of April 2011 to June 2011, the same period in which Blackberry sold 33180 Playbooks.
• If we overlap the numbers from the both the reports, even if Olive didn’t sell one Olivepad in the last quarter, it will still have 4.4% market share based on its sales in Nov 2010 to March 2011. 

                  Samsung selling 685 tablets in 4 months, Blackberry selling more tablets than Apple are defying conventional wisdom. I need something more than this to convince me that these numbers aren’t total hokum.

                    The report also projects a total of 275,000 tablets to be sold in 2011, but I’m in no mood to talk about that.

The Flexible Smartphone becomes reality with Samsung Skin!

                            Remember the flexible smartphone from Samsung which you can squeeze in whichever way you want? That phone is called Samsung Skin and should be out in Q2 2012. That’s pretty fast production for a phone which is ahead of the time and which is so sci-fi.

Samsung Skin bends it better than Beckham

                             Samsung Skin is a super flexible AMOLED phone concept which has a bendable touch screen. The phone is so flexible that it can take almost any shape you want making it a highly desirable phone.

 

Specifications

• 4 inch flexible AMOLED screen
• 1 GB RAM
• 1.2 GHz processor
• 8 MP rear camera, VGA front-camera
• 1500 mAh battery
• Bluetooth, USB, WiFi.
• Might run on Android JellyBean
• 8 mm thickness

                          As per this, Google might actually make a special Android build called Android Flexi for Samsung Skin. That would be cool.

                           I know iPhone 5 is just around the corner,  but would you rather wait for Samsung Skin? Is this your next smartphone?