nanni munni bachi teri mutti mein kya hai?

What the common man in India needs is not phone and TV. Give them good job (means wages not really work) and rice - used to be the slogan of the communist parties in Kerala during the Rajiv Gandhi era.

Ten years later. A lot has changed and everyone is now on a mobile phone. Communist Party office was said to be giving instructions to Police chiefs over mobile phone on how to handle a BJP bundh in Trivandrum.


Back in Bangalore, one day I was rushing to office in the morning and pulled in to a petrol pump to quench the thirst of my car. There rings my Nokia 1100.

"Good Morning sir, I am so-and-so from so-and-so company" goes the sweet voice
"Good Morning......."
"Sir sounds like you are at a gas station now. Shall I call you later"
Please do not. Finish off and go to hell ..
"that's fine, go ahead"
"Sir, we have a great loan offer for you......."
"Oh! Sweet. Is that an interest free one?......."

Since I had been in the lowest rent scheme from my carrier - Airtel - probable that these telemarketing guys made more business than Airtel from my connection? Credit Cards. Loans. New phone connections. Vacation packages.......

Targeted sales is not a new concept. Many niche industries were doing this. But with the widespread coverage of mass media, everyone started to sell to a general market with limited success. And huge sales expenses. The same got repeated onto internet during the big bubble during 90s. Free homepages. Only thing is they can host a free ad on your page. The free ad could now be for a free photo hosting page. That will be sponsored by another ad. Another free service? The link continued and finally burst.

Google is now in the process of - if not fully succeeded in- bringing targeted sales to the internet mass media. Let it be the news you read, the search you do or the emails your friends send you, they put related ads. What about a resort in Cochin, asks my friend in a mail and my gmail page is full of Kerala resort ads. Adsense makes sense, right? Concept is simple. Like earlier, do not assume the basic usage of the web service as a revenue generator. Use these as windows to people. Now Google went one step ahead. Understand the guy and then sell him what will best fit. Track what he reads, what kind of mails he sends, what all searches he does, what are his vacation schedules from his calendar, which are the communities he is involved with etc. Now create a character code for him and match the ads. I am not sure how Americans are allowing Google to do such a deep study of someone and keep a database of his character!


Softbank Japan has bought the ailing Vodafone KK (Japan arm of Vodafone UK) for a huge sum. The new company will be called Softbank Mobile in a couple of months from now. Softbank already has proven to Corporate Japan that they think better ways and means. And after the takeover, Softbank demonstrated what they mean by quick actions by having Vodafone offices move to Softbank premises in just two days! Vodafone KK has been losing their subscriber base for a long time against DoCoMo and au. What does Softbank has in hand - other than $$$ - to revive this ailing business. What is the motive behind entering the limited size, already at max penetration market, and again by buying a loss making carrier?

Being in the industry, this is a good food for thought for guys like me. Some recent analysts thinking are interesting. Just look at what Softbank did with the ADSL magic. The little thing that the Yahoo! BB guys and gals distributed in front of all railway stations has made ADSL a huge success. They not only routed VoIP and internet connections but slowly started into providing more Yahoo and BB services. Like Yahoo Auctions which is unbeatable for eBay in Japan. Like the new BB-TV with so many channels to chose from. All on the same ADSL. Get a guy, give him basic services for zero or minimal fee, then sell him additional higher value services. While Google provides a platform for ads, Softbank directly arranges to sell the services.

Looks like the same concept might run on Softbank Mobile too. You get the Yahoo homepage (Softbank holds majority stake in Yahoo) as the mobile handset background image. Then a host of services. Net shopping. Softbank might prefer the end to end control like the Japan style it seems. Not just selling platform. The cell phone will no longer be a cell phone per se. It will be a personal device that has a mobile phone function. A WLAN function. VoIP function. PDA function. GPS function. Camera function. Digital TV function. Embedded Credit card function. Embedded railway pass function. That lets you access many things at home and elsewhere. And would let many Softbank services reach you. How is WLAN, PDA, Camera, and DTV functions going to help the carrier? Unless they have their own services to tap this? I think this is what Softbank is targeting. Provide the infrastructure. Create business using the infrastructure.

Now if Yahoo Japan wants to add an Adsense kind of targeted ads too, I guess it is a huge potential on a mobile than it is on the web. It can track where you go (GPS), whom do you talk to (Well, that's what the device was known for), what TV programs you watch (DTV), how much money you spent in what kind of shopping (Embedded credit cards) etc. in addition to what is available on the net.

Wait and see. Or may be another bubble waiting to burst?? What if you are getting more ads than you can afford to buy? Specifically the google adsense have no idea of the buying potential. With more and more internet connectivity in the third world, we are getting a good chunk of the ads - and do we buy?? May be Softbank is better positioned with their mobile handset (not mobile phone anymore).