Kartik Kannan on a Talk Show

I was invited by the student of Asian College of Journalism, a guest on their morning Video Show " Hello Chennai" on the 17th of March, 2011 to speak my thoughts on the World Cup. Do let me know, your feedback on the conversation.

My Cricket World Cup Coverage

Do check my articles at my alternate Blog

Status Message Marketing-Part 2

I am participating in the Airtel Real Fans Challenge, and its been an interesting build up to the end of the competition. Here are some data that I observed for my video

• It pays to submit your video the earliest, for a slight first mover advantage. This way you will also get clicks from Youtube reccomendations and the top videos when people come to the competition site. Add a few more clicks purely from the perspective of having spent more time in the gallery.

• You need to really promote yourself really well to get many clicks. This is where the strength and depth of your social network matters. I generally participate in 2-3 competitions a year which involve public voting, but even then I guess my friends would be fatigued seeing my entry for some competition or the other.

• I started my promotions with Gtalk Status messages, requesting them to share my link on their status. This helps as a status message stays for a longer time and pops up whenever you sign in and sign out. A Facebook status or a twitter status doesnt catch your attention quickly, as it may be submerged in a zillion other updates, but Facebook has a better hit rate when it comes to friends being influenced and perusing your link. Gtalk is incremental growth channel as it involves your friends only, and if it is compelling content, friends of friends may want to have it also as a status, while Facebook is an exponential growth channel.

• When I started off, I did my math as follows to set the expectations.On Facebook- 700 friends, 10% of whom may want to pass the link(70 people). 70 people having an average of 400 friends, means reaching a potential consumer base of 28000 people views. Now given that reality lies between 5-10%, the page view numbers expected from Facebook could be around 2000. It now turns out that the total views are 2000 so far, and Facebook has contributed around 750 views. So just as every marketing launch plan, I over estimated the strength of the network, but nevertherless its interesting to go and see what makes a viral tick.

• 18 friends shared my link on Facebook, I wrote on the wall of about 20 friends, and I gave 2 reminders on the contest on my wall. With my link shared 40 times, I have noticed Facebook contributing 36% of the page views. It matters at what time of the day friends post your link. It generally helps if friends post between 7 pm and 10 pm on weekdays and anytime between 4 pm Friday and 10 am Saturday(Post that, everyone is out for the weekend, away from the virtual world).
• I noticed that having Youtube embeds helps, as opposed to just posing a short URL external link on Facebook. I guess the preview of the video and a short description helps in people click on the content.
  

• Since You dont want to be the scourge of your friends on Facebook by spamming them, I did a few incremental activities to help drive traffic. I sent out emails to friends, sent messages on Orkut, Wrote articles for other social media sites with a subtle hint of my link, wrote comments on other cricket based facebook groups where I had to wait patiently in the conversation to provide my video as a relevant link.

• One learning is that unless you have compelling content, its going to be tough to sell the video and get clicks and go viral. Promotion on Youtube is largely binary. It is either slow incremental growth( of about 150 views a day) or exponential growth of about 500 or more views a day. I belong to the former, where I see that the growth is linked to marketing. Initially heavy marketing, gets you page views and then any amount of marketing doesnt help, as most in your social network have seen the video, and your clicks come largely from Youtube reccomendations and from other videos.

• Today, on Friday the 3rd September, I have about 1950 views, at number 7 and in reckoning for a trip to South Africa. The contestants who are ranked 1-6 have managed to do heavy promotion on youtube and through their social networks to get page views in the range of 2600-5800 page views. I realise its tough to grow further and even beat the guy who is 6, but I guess if my growth is just enough to be at the poistion where I am by Sunday evening IST, I should be and also hope that numbers 8 9 and 10 dont really scale up. If they do scale up, I'd just have to surrender to the fact that I have been washed away in this tsunami of page views, and I'd need to understand the web much better to manage a promotion, sustained for 3-4 weeks.

So here's hoping that I manage to win this contest and travel to South Africa for the Champions League Final. Meanwhile do check out www.fanlogue.com, a place where I have decided to write articles for this edition of the CL20. Its good to be in touch with writing articles all over again.

On Status Message Marketing

I had created a video, 3 days back(with help from Arvind and Janani) and my mandate was to get about 5000 page views by September 6th. for this contest. I have some interesting observations to share. Kept a target of 192 page views a day for the first 3 days, and I am so far on track. I would need to go home tonight and check, how can I increase this number. Its a new challenge I am facing, and I seem to be loving it, as I am partially able to track where I have got my viewers from.

The human social network is an interesting place for a viral to form. What will make it succeed. well that needs a different post with some data. Wait on for this evening and let me know, if my social media marketing needs a tweak

India off the Boil

India were knocked out of the Micromax cup yesterday. It was sad to see the side lose the way it did. India have often lowered their guard after starting to get the momentum. There isnt a problem in the strategy to send a second string side, unless they are ready replacements. There is a fair degree of difference between the gods of domestic cricket and they need a certain protective entry on the international stage, with the seniors supporting their prescence. It is unfair to blood youngsters, where 2-3 players make their debut together.

India needs to get back to playing more 'A' side tournaments with other boards, and players from such sides need to be picked after consistent performances at that level. Australia have a consistent system where their academy trains the Australians for attitude,mental toughness and skills. Indians are naturally talented but dont quite have the wherewithal to last at the international circuit, because they are not exposed to the science behind prolonging their careers through a mix of skill and attitude.

Skill and Talent open a number of doors, but beyond a point, its attitude that determines the longevity. India need to pay importance to this fact, as most of the matches that they have lost since the IPL has been because they have been off the boil towards some of the matches and have lacked the intent to win.

Its time we started to look back and observe our attitude and mental toughness towards the game, and maybe that can be the right step to focus on a bunch of 30 talented youngsters to build a team for the future.

Dont Drop MSD

The Indian cricket team's performance has been a rude shock, that was long coming. This was required for the men in blue to remind them that there are areas in their armoury which has a gaping chink, and such chinks need to be corrected if they need to win the war over the long term. Australia have been a succesful side, because they objectively looked at the areas they were not doing well, and strove to become better. Australia a few years back, had been accused of choking in the newer formats of the ICC Champions trophy and the T20 World cups. They won the champions trophy in 2006 and 2009 and have looked the side to beat in this edition of the T20 world cup.India need to use this oppurtunity to iron out the flabs and go ahead in picking themselves up. I dont quite think, relieving Dhoni of the captaincy is going to solve a lot of issues. He has had a great run as a captain and has done justice to the role by having a stupendous 60% winning ratio in tests and one dayers. The T20 bit is where India need to pull up their socks, and have horses for the courses. What India missed in both the T20 world cups are batsmen with some technique who could settle down and handle the bowling. Their approach to playing the bowling was the suicidal bit which let them down. If the selectors do decide to do away with Dhoni and bring in Sehwag to lead, it would be a reactive and retrograde step.

My Latest Article at Crickblog

Neccesity is the mother of inventions, is what the proverb says, but in Cricket, when you suddenly require a youngster to fill in somebody's boots, it cant be done instantly. The only way of ensuring a transition and ensuring healthy bench strength is by experimenting with raw promising youngsters at home. India seem to have a pretty balanced scorecard, on this front. The following article tracks India's ascent since 2005.

England 0-2 Down! Whats the Road Ahead

I had written this article a couple of days back for Crickblog. If you find some 3 minutes to thumb through, I'd suggest you click here

Nice Interview!

Just chanced across this on In.com http://www.in.com/active18/watchnow/watchvideo_mc.php?autono=357158

An Interview with Harsha Bhogle! He states that his first commenary stint was in 1983, while he was a student at IIM-A, and its 25 years since he started getting into this field of cricket/television journalism.

Over the week, liked a couple of other links that has started the week on a good note. Loved both those speeches by Harsha. I regard him very high, as there is a certain romanticism i assosiate with his simplicity and when he comes on air. I've literally grown up watching Harsha Bhogle since the early 90's when he was handling ranji trophy matches for ESPN.

Check this and this

Irani Trophy

Its that time of the year, that the Irani trophy is played. To know more about it, its history and a speculation on its future, I'd suggest you to check my latest article

Sports Marketing- Can We Look Beyond Cricket?

That's what my latest article explores. Read my article here

Ramayan Finally!

Ramayan meant only thing for me- Rama DEFEATING Ravana and on a similar Note India conquering Sri Lanka. Somehow It never happened in a bi lateral series over the last 3 decades. Finally Dhoni's men paved the way for a Ramayan script. What was different this time around?

I suggest you check my latest article which explore more of that. Click here to read the article

My New Article on Chaminda Vaas

How-Vaas-Zzzat is the title of the article, and it was published a couple of hours back on Crickblog. I'd reccomend you to click here to read the article.

Dhoni- Time to Make a Man out of the Boy?

Dhoni must be in a fix after yesterday's loss, but I still feel that the test captaincy must go to Dhoni, and India, need to regroup their core unit to form a great team. Reminds me of the time of the mid 80's when the Australian Team had a absolutely new team. Great decisions then reaped in benefits as the teams after Border's men, went on to reach lofty heights. Building a team for the future, didnt seem to help the Windies much, as after Richards and Richardson, they just werent able to fill in the void.

I've written a piece on why Dhoni would be the right choice. Do flip through it when you find some time.

Anil Kumble- Has the Sun Set Over his Illustrious Career?

Anil Kumble has been India’s unsung hero, but is it time to salute this warrior and try developing more warriors in the current crop of fringe spinners? An in-depth look at his bowling stats reveals a lot more than just numbers would.......................
Read the full article here.

The week that was!

My mother seems to have taken a huge liking for the PJ's of these cartoons on 9xm

Evening at Bandra Fort, next to the constructions of the Bandra Worli Sea Link

Run for cover. The Rains are here! Thats me and my classmate Arunachalam!

Navneet's umbrella has just turned upside down in the heavy winds and rains that came down suddenly


and if you have some time, do peep in to my new article on Indian Cricket

Afridi Ignites Long Lost Passion

The last 12 balls that Afridi has bowled, he has vociferously appealed thrice. All those 3 were very good shouts for leg before appeals against Yousuf Pathan and Raina. Twice it looked out. What was exciting was the ferocity and Afridi's desperate face while appealing. This was what India Pakistan clashes were lacking. Yuvi now responds with a six... and the nelson's scoreline was safely avoided.

117/4 in 19.1 overs... I want Pakistan to feel desperate and I'd love another close t20 like finish with India on the winning side! Back to fanatical cricket nights :-)

Interview with Albie Morkel

Albie Morkel seems quite a recognisable bowler operating in International cricket as part of team South Africa and the Chennai IPL Team. He was quite unkown when I interviewed him last year on my mobile. I found it through some random search on Youtube.

Check out excerpts of my interview with him

IPL-All fun and no substance

The IPL is attractive, by mixing entertainment and cricket. I liked the music in the stadum, between intervals.It kind of keeps you pepped up on energy, but whats the point of preparing batsman friendly tracks with 200+ totals becoming a norm. Its just like playing cricket 2007 on my laptop, where the game becomes predictable. I guess we need more contests that would present an even contest between bat and ball. I still enjoyed some Jayasuriya's and Robin Uthappa's strokes.The sound of wood on leather seemed pleasant. I was also impressed with the way Manpreet Gony bowled(plays for Chennai Super Kings).

The heat and sultry weather in Chennai sometimes just gets to you. I had a nice view from the F stand(Covers-Long Leg view), but the heat in the stadium made me feel miserable. The cheerleaders team were pretty ordinary compared to the ones seen at Kolkata/Mohali/Mumbai. It was like Pamela Anderson against one of those Bahu characters.

Heading for IPL Today

Will be watching the Chennai vs Mumbai match today at the Chepauk Stadium. I want to watch Sachin at his best today. I am not so-much into supporting local teams, as the game is generally interesting if a fixed identity of nationalism comes, but not regionalism(at least so far). Chennai superkings hardly have anybody from Chennai, save 3-4 people. Anyways, going today to the D stand, paying 500 bucks, thanks to my classmate Shankar pulling out, due to some domestic commitments.

Going to a 1 day match at Chepauk after 6 years. The last full-one day match was India vs England, as the other matches in 03,04,05 and 06, were marred by rain.