What’s all the fuss about Big Data?

Big Data is a term that gets bandied around a lot these days. What does it really mean and how is it going to make a great difference to the way business is conducted around the world? Well the thing is that it is possible in the digital age for most organizations to collect a gargantuan amount of data, but that by itself won’t amount to much, unless one is able to analyse it and derive whatever is useful out of it.

If one can do that, one will obviously be able to run the affairs of one’s organization far more efficiently with regard to both strategic management and day to day decisions. At the heart of Big Data are the three Vs propounded by renowned industry analyst Dough Laney-Volume, Velocity and Variety.

There are several ways in which data can be collected in today’s times-business records, various kinds of research and experiments and increasingly via the Internet of Things. Furthermore Big Data may be structured or unstructured. In order for one to effectively leverage Big Data, one needs to enhance the computing infrastructure. If one were to try and accomplish that by using servers those would have to number in the hundreds and thousands to achieve the desired velocity. This can obviously not come cheap. The more practicable alternative is to use public cloud computing to facilitate Big Data Analytics projects.

Though there is a lot of debate about the inevitability of adopting Big Data, there is also  underlying fear and confusion about what sort of monster might one be unleashing here. One would do well to go back to the basics and understand what Big Data really is and what it stands for.

Well Big Data is a sum to total of data of both traditional and digital origin sourced from both within and outside an organization that can be used for continuous analysis and discovery. That data comes in both unstructured (text, metadata and social media posts, etc.) and multi -structured forms (from myriad data formats) and is a mine of potentially extremely beneficial information.

Therefore it is incumbent upon all organizations to get their act together and understand the full implications of Big Data-what it is, what it can do for them and the sheer advantages of data oriented marketing. Once you get the hang of it with a little practise you will be able to witness a paradigm change in the way you customer engagement is enacted with immense benefits accruing to both the online and offline universe.

           

The Internet of things, artificial intelligence and robotics

Nothing is going to change the way we live our lives more than the Internet of things, artificial intelligence and robotics. While these technologies will make life a lot easier and businesses more efficient and profitable there is a huge flip side as well. This has to do with employment prospects and if some prominent scientists are to be believed artificially intelligent machines might one day turn on their creators and destroy all humanity.

The Internet of things is expected to connect people, data, processes and devices on a gargantuan scale by the end of the decade-a whopping 50 billion connections. Before one starts worrying about the prospects of humanity being at risk from a take-over by machines, one needs to figure out how the opportunities presented by the Internet of things are put to optimal use, which in itself will require some doing.

The biggest existential threat to us will not be from sci-fi movie like scenarios where artificially intelligent machines and robots will rebel against humans, but by the security vulnerability that this mass scale convergence could give rise to. A less than perfectly designed system could for example impact upon the whole network and lead to disastrous consequences on an unprecedented scale.

Considering that real artificial intelligence is presently at an infantile stage, it is rather silly to be tilting at wind mills when we worry about the danger it poses to humans. Let us learn to fully reap the benefits that the Internet of things, some rudimentary artificial intelligence and smartly evolving robotic technologies bring to us. When the time comes we will ourselves find the solution to any potential threat in the future. We always have.

In the meantime we need to prepare our youngsters to handle these emerging technologies as this will help them find employment in the times ahead. There will of course be job losses for some on account of the increase in all round automation, but there will be other opportunities aplenty for those who anticipate and prepare for the paradigm shift in the way businesses and organisations will conduct their affairs in the times ahead.  We are entering very interesting times indeed.

The best kind of content.

Everybody agrees that great content is a great idea. The question is what constitutes great #content. In the first instance what is content? Is it an amalgamation of written, audio and audio-visual messaging and data? How is content stored? In documents and audio and video files, some would say. But don't we have content stored in our heads, which we can retrieve as and when we require it?

It follows that content by itself serves no purpose. You may remember all the verses of a holy book, but they would serve no purpose unless you were a priest who needs to recite them at religious ceremonies. Similarly for a farmer, albeit a modern one a play by Shakespeare would probably hold little value(unless he is inclined towards the literary arts) while the weather alert he receives on his phone in the shape of text messages would be.

So it would seem that when it comes to creating relevant content, marketers need to follow the horses for courses approach. That being said each type of content has its specific advantages.

1. #Written Content: This is the most prolific kind of content that we have known as man has kept written records of activity since the early days of civilization. All that mankind has learned over thousands of years has been possible with the help of written content. Every subject known to us-history, science, geography, religion and literature was propagated with the help of written content and this continues till today.

Written content gives one the luxury of understanding complex issues and phenomena at length and at a pace that the reader is comfortable with. Besides, this is the cheapest form of communication and provides one with a permanent record for future reference. This is possibly the reason why most official documents in the world are in written form.

2.# Audio Content: Audio content has always been in vogue and in fact predates written content. We could hear someone speak, even before we learned to read and write. The modern era saw radio being put to great use by leaders to broadcast their message simultaneously to vast multitudes of people, something not possible prior to that.

Politicians and entertainers were quick to grasp the potential of this new medium of communication and used it with telling effect for propaganda and publicity. Then of course there is the advantage of being better able to communicate with the visually impaired and those with poor education. That apart it is a pretty efficient and cost effective means of quickly communicating with large masses of people

Telemarketers who are trained to pitch skillfully on the telephone are a great example of audio content being put to efficient use. Of course with the advent of the Internet and chatting software audio content can be transmitted seamlessly across the world.

3. Audio Visual Content: In terms of receptivity and retention, this is definitely the most impactful means of communication. That is possibly the reason why Shakespeare's plays, which were essentially meant to be an audio visual form of communication courtesy the medium of theater, became so universally popular.

The advent of cinema showed how truly powerful this medium was with masses of people literally hero worshipping the actors and actresses who essayed myriad parts on the silver-screen. Television further extended the reach of this the audio visual format and today with the advent of social media and the Internet, it has assumed a life of its own with anybody being able to create and promote audio visual content.

Audio video content has grown in importance tremendously because of technology aided ease of creation and this has led to its being the flavor of the season for all kind of marketing. Audio #video content or video content has inherent advantages that make it a more potent tool than any other form of communication. Firstly video content comes closest in simulating real life situations and is therefore able to immediately connect with the audience on a more emotional level than any other form of content.

Video content closely approximates word of mouth advocacy which is statistically the best way of promoting anything. This is the reason why social video campaigns generate billions of views worldwide. If people are really taken in by a video,they tend to share it and that is what explains its popularity. That is why more and more companies are embedding videos on their websites. Who knows that their content may go viral and bring them millions of customers?!

The Role of Social Media in PR

The advent of the Internet has been no less revolutionary for the way people relate with the world around them, than the discovery of the use of fire or the invention of wheel was for early man. Among the most important advancements in communication technology that was spawned by the Internet revolution is the introduction of social media channels of communications.

While on the one hand these have diminished the importance of traditional media to communicate on behalf of brands; they have on the other hand provided communicators with a very powerful medium to reach out one's message in quick time to an extremely focused and targeted social media. What's more the effectiveness of the message can be measured on the basis of real time feedback from the recipients.

This has caused a paradigm shift in the way PR or Public Relations professionals have begun to practice outreach on behalf of their clients. The traditional rigmarole of shooting out press releases, holding press conferences, organising interactions and an occasional Op-Ed will no longer do. In an era where newspapers and TV channels struggle to survive and assorted bloggers, online news portals, and social media messaging redefine the rules of the game all the time, up-skilling is the need of the hour for communication and PR professionals.

The last Indian General Elections saw the now Prime Minister Narendra Modi leverage the power of social media to communicate directly with his target audience-young aspirational India and blow into smithereens the reputation and electoral chances of the more than a century old Congress party which had lorded over the country for more than sixty years. Modi continues to see no use for the cantankerous and noisy traditional media and treats them with the contempt they probably deserve. No more do you hear of expensive overseas junkets to self important journalist who think no end of themselves. Instead he would rather engage with the government owned Doordarshan or wires like PTI and ANI. Above all he continues to rely on social media, which keep him in direct and daily touch with millions of his followers in India and abroad.

There are a number of advantages that accrue to a communications professional, PR consultant or marketer by leveraging the use of social media-
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1. You can publicly address an issue on an immediate basis:
If a car company has noticed that a lot of complaints have been coming in pertaining to issues with the brakes on a certain model of car, they can immediately address the owners of that particular model on social media, advising them to suspend the use of their car, and wait for the company to contact them for carrying out a rectification of the problem.

This could prevent a crisis in the making and forestall the necessity of an expensive recall across several models.

2. Mass sharing of information:
A company or for that matter a politician can show their concern for their constituency by sending them updates that concern them. A mobile phone manufacturer can let its customers know about upgrades that they can download or new models they can purchase online.

A politician can let the people know of the initiatives they have taken, and what else to expect going forward.

3. Direct and interactive access:
I was once informed about the cancellation of my flight a mere three  hours before departure and it took a great deal of effort to somehow get myself a ticket on another airline to make it back home in time. As I wasn't too happy with the way the cancelling airline handled the issue I tweeted about it.
By the time I landed, I had received a response from the airline's customer services department apologising for the inconvenience caused and expressing their desire to speak to me about it and assuage my feelings!

4.Inexpensive:
If you are a self published author who know that you have a masterpiece on your hands, yet don;t have the monetary muscle to publicise your work, get on board the social media marketing and PR express and see how with a relatively small sum of investment you can reach out to hundreds and thousands of prospective buyers.

PR practitioners have to master the art of creating engaging social media posts for their customers, Tools like Hootsuite enable one to post across multiple channels in a manner of minutes, thereby granting the ability to manage the social media campaigns of a large number of clients. What's more one no longer has to pitch to the mighty mandarins of traditional media hoping that the powers that be see merit in the message you want them to carry.

Social Media give you the wherewithal to send out the message that you want without having to worry about journalist oversight. Any tempering that your content might need will come from your intended target audience and not some self appointed arbiters of the kind of messaging that is right for your target audience.

The Changing Contours of PR

The way that people consume news has completely altered since the advent of social media. From being the main source of news and considered opinion, conventional media comprising of newspapers, magazines, television and radio are now referred to after the news has been consumed online in real time mostly from social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. The primacy of traditional media is therefore fading right before our eyes.

In the case of India things are a little different in that the growth of literacy accompanied by the growth of purchasing power has seen an explosive growth in vernacular print media. However in so far as the urban centres are concerned online and social media are beginning to rule the roost like elsewhere in the world.  With a gargantuan telecom subscriber base of 933 million, 117 million of which are smart phone users the reach of online and social media is not to be scoffed at. Internet connectivity as a whole is available to a mammoth 300 million Indians.

However it seems that Indian PR practitioners are yet to wake up and smell the coffee in that they still deploy most of their resources in chasing journalists representing traditional media. With bottom line pressures buffeting much of the traditional media outlets, objectivity and a professional approach to news inputs is quite often not quite visible. How many traditional  journalists care to attend press conferences these days? Besides even in the case of one on ones and interactions there is no guarantee that story will see the light of the day.

Rather than continue doing things the old way, PR practitioners should educate their clients about the advantages of online and social PR. Online news portal journalists and bloggers are generally not only more approachable, but in many cases better able to understand the nuances of the story and are able to render it better. Besides they always reach the right target audience. The ultimate PR vehicles in my opinion are social media with their enormous reach that can be targeted with infinite precision.

There are a whopping 112 million Facebook users in India, 33 million Twitter users, 26 million LinkedIn users, and 5.5 million people on Pinterest. The circulation and readership figures of most newspapers and magazines are almost puny in comparison. The key to leveraging these media lies not in cultivating indifferent and sometimes ignorant journalists, but in the ability to create and post relevant content on behalf of the clients.

This makes the task of the PR practitioners a lot less thankless, and they no longer have to  simultaneously contend with capricious clients and journalists. Social Media PR requires the regular creation of germane content, targeted with precision at the right target audience. There are tools that let you post simultaneously and quickly on multiple sites, while others help you give the posts a boost. The results are quick to come and can be easily tracked and analyzed.

This kind of outreach is far more dynamic and lets the client interact with their target audience in real-time and in a manner that is personal and intimate. In comparison the outreach obtained by traditional media is very vague and dispersed and one has no idea how the target audience perceive the message. Online PR is truly the not so distant future.

Getting Famous Online

The Internet can be used to get famous. Really famous. There are several ways of doing that. Some have been well documented and in the last chapter we discussed the attributes required to get famous. Given below are five unknown, very fun, but highly effective ways of getting famous, leveraging the potential of the Internet.

Videos that go viral

We come across these supposedly accidentally shot videos of someone doing something remarkable without noticing  that they are being filmed. The person may be doing somersaults on the roof of a high rise building practising his flips right next to a sheer 100 foot drop, oblivious to the danger and enjoying his routine. Somebody uploads it and the clip has millions of hits online. Soon the man’s identity is known and he becomes a household name, and the media are at his door with interview requests, and he is even asked to lecture school kids on the benefits of exercise. Sounds far fetched but this is how the phenomenon of viral videos pans out. And mind you these are invariably pre-planned and anything but spontaneous.

Now what is noteworthy here is that a viral video can make you very famous in the proverbial overnight time span, and if you can successfully effect one you have had it made. If one were to learn from the various examples of successful viral videos one will realise that it is not really that difficult to pull it off.One of the ground rules to follow is that the length has to be kept short what with people’s short attention spans and the veritable deluge of viral videos that has descended upon us.

 It has to be remembered that a video is not inherently viral. It has to be worked upon and made that way. A whopping 3 billion videos are viewed on YouTube everyday! How do you make yours viral in such a scenario. The content needs to be reached to the right target audience first for it to receive the right push that will make it viral.

To ensure that the video gets the initial attention, it does of course have to create a

good first impression. Then the description or transcription that accompanies the video is important too and the key words should be chosen with care. Remember that YouTube is also a social medium. So get the conversation flowing back and forth by initiating it and actively participating in it. Get the traffic flowing so that it eventually it reaches viral proportions.

Take the case of the Star Wars kid video which got viewed a 900 million times. And what was it about. A fat kid foolishly waving his stick about again and again proving that there is vast market even for stupidity. See how much better you are then. You probably have something useful to showcase. Justin Bieber apparently had the same idea when his video of the song Baby was put up on YouTube, paving the way for him to become the pop sensation he is today. He started off with 50 million page views. The examples are umpteen actually

Or take the case of Amber Lee Ettinger whose video depicting her love for President Obama was viewed 14 million times. Then there is the case of Ted Willimas, the man with the amazing voice who got a job as an MSNBC anchor thanks  to his viral video on YouTube. So we see that viral video are a proven and extremely effective way of gaining fame, provided one is able to use it the right way

Go Blog

Blogging is one of the simplest and most effective ways of getting famous, and the best part is that you could be anybody-the average Joe or the wiz-kid of the block; both of you have an equal chance to hit it big by blogging. The basic premise is that there have to be numerous people who are more or less like you and would respond positively and appreciatively to what you put up on your blog.

The way to achieve success is by updating your blog on a regular and consistent basis and by focusing on quality. It might take some time for you to build up your audience, but you will get there if you persevere. The trick is to socialise. Comment on other people’s blogs and get them to comment on yours. Let people know about your blog but do not over do it. Use the right vehicles like Facebook and Twitter to reach your message to a vast audience in an unobtrusive way.

It might also be a good idea to enable sharing buttons on your website. That apart you can share links with other websites. When you do that traffic gets diverted from your site to the ones that are linked. Those sites will get to know of this through a ping back and they may in turn get interested in yours. This way you create a virtuous cycle. Putting together a side-bar embellished with link widgets takes you a step further.

While it is all very well to be blogging regularly you should monitor the direction that your efforts are taking. Find out what constitutes the major portion of your traffic, and customise your posts to cater for that section. It also pays to be a bit smart. For instance you can closely study the strategy applied by the most successful bloggers and try and replicate it. It might work wonderfully for you and in double quick time too.

 Another way of getting noticed by the right people is to occasionally blog as a guest on other sites, which have synergy with your blog. This will put you in direct contact with just the target audience you have always drooled over. This will be your chance to win them over.

In essence blogging is something where time is on your side and you can and will willy nilly make a great success of your blog, if that is what you want to do. Really one of the best ways to get famous.

The truth of this is borne out by the many success stories of bloggers who have become celebrities in their own right by the very power of their blog posts. The most famous blog in the world is the Huffington post, which specialises in breaking news pertaining to a wide array of subjects-world news, entertainment, business, politics and fashion. Started by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerra and Jonah Perreti in 2005, the blog was acquired by AOL in 2011 for $315 million. Then there is the Micahel Arrington founded technology blog Tech Crunch with a whopping $4.5 million subscribers, which was again acquired by AOL for $25 million in 2005. You have traffic, the biggies will be waiting in the wings to pay you a huge some for your coveted blog. That is the way the cookie usually crumbles if you can show substantial traffic to your site.

For the gadgets aficionado there is Engadget, the blog started by the former Gizmodos editor Peter Rojas, provides information on everything that there is to know about electronic gadgetry. The popularity of the blog can be gauged by the fact that it operates ten other blogs in English and six other languages. This blog too is one of the famous purchases of AOL.

The point in sharing these examples is to showcase the tremendous power of a blog in terms of how famous it can make you and the kind of revenue you can possibly generate. Now not everyone will possibly be this successful, but one can understand that a fair degree of success is possible for anyone who is able to follow the methodologies discussed above. The degree of success of course depends upon the degree of innovation and capacity to leverage displayed by the individual.

 Nothing like Entertaining

If there is anything that people take to instantly, be it the offline world or online world it has to be entertainment. Music, dance, food, fashion and culture make the world go. And if you can put up stuff online that people find genuinely entertaining you are set to achieve success, fame and wealth.

If you are a comedian or a singer or perhaps a painter there is no better way of acquiring a fan base, than being on the Internet. People have this urge to know the smallest detail about famous entertainers-their hobbies, their food habits, their hang out joints and what it is that they wear. If you can get a sizable group of people genuinely interested in your craft, you will have them eating out of your hand, by leveraging such information on the Internet.

Get across to your target audience by writing blogs about your performances, posting videos. Give them a glimpse into your life- your joint performances with other artists, any new deals you may have signed;the works. 

You have got to remember that your success and livelihood depends upon your fans being happy. So take full advantage of this interactive platform and get to know your fans up close and personally. Respond to their comments and criticism, chat with them online, send them mails, do everything it takes to keep them hooked on to you and see where that gets you.

The thing that is of paramount importance for you should be of identifying the right niche and segment that you want to focus your energies on. If for example you are excellent at rock ballads but can sing hip hop too, rather than diluting your image by catering to both the segments, it would make sense to focus on your core competency. You will naturally attract more and better quality traffic with something you are really good at rather than in dabbling in several things you are only average at. In economics this is referred to as the theory of the comparative cost advantage.

Once you are sure of your genre, you have got to give it your all. Use blogging, social media,  and YouTube for all its worth and try and form associations everywhere. A multi pronged online approach will create opportunities which will sometimes exceed your wildest expectations. A singer might be approached by a multinational record label,  and a cookery blogger might get approached by a TV company for his own show.

The online world has so many examples of people fulfilling dreams of a lifetime simply by being on the Internet. The website College Humor was founded by  Baltimore high school friends Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen as a means of keeping in touch. Today it has grown significantly and receives 8 million male visitors between the ages of 18 and 24 every month. And how do they entertain? By popularising a novelty foam hand by parodying the well known ‘We’re no 1’ foam hands sold at sporting events. 

They actually used an inside joke of college students and turned it into something else. Last heard they had signed a deal with Paramount Pictures which has to do with making movies on college humour.Take the unique case of self proclaimed ‘pirate’ George Ouzounian or Mddoz who hails from Salt Lake City, Utah. He created the website, The Best Page in the universe-the name has its origin in the now defunct Yahoo policy of blocking sites which had the word best as part of the title. 

So this started off as a form of protest and took on a life of its own and eventually made one of the most controversial and visited sites because of its often vitriolic content that targets detractors. The point to be noted is that notoriety is the flip side of fame, but as long as you get the traffic and don’t break any laws, you will be attractive to marketers who will want to be a part of the action.

A similar example is that of Rotton a website dedicated to morbid curiosities. Revolting perhaps, but there are people who are drawn to this. It was started in the California Bay Area in 1996 and has grown into this great purveyor of the macabre with a dedicated fan base. Now there are regular entertainers like actors, singers, performing artists, fashion designers and of course regular people like you and me and not just the weird  eccentrics, who use the Internet to entertain, inform and engage.

You think  you have what it takes to become an entertainer make the Internet your friend. It is cheap, easily accessible and can put you in instant touch with your prospective audience. Plus you get real time feedback on your performance which you can effectively use to improve your act and make it more in line with what people want. If you get it right, in time you are bound to grow big.

Be a specialist

The Internet is a world that is teeming with people’s posts, blogs, articles, pictures, videos, e-books, games and some not so savoury content. How do you get noticed in this bewildering maze of content. Going back to the economic theory of the advantages of comparative cost, by specialising in a particular niche. Now what can that niche be? It is something that you are particularly good at. Something that you can call your own. You are so good and adept at providing that product and service there is no one else who can replace you.

The online world is driven by content or information. If you are effectively meeting specific requirements of a set of people better than anyone else be it in the shape of music that your produce or game that you create, then for that particular niche you are irreplaceable. The fact of the matter is that your target audience expects you to be an expert. So you had better be, by doing research and refining your skills. Make it your niche and yours alone and nobody else’s. 

Once you have the above sorted out and have traffic in place you can go ahead and make money from this traffic. This can be done by signing up for an affiliate program that lets advertisers place their advertisements on your site for a consideration. Not only do you make money by marketing the product or service, you also specialise in leveraging the traffic to your site to earn more money-a win-win situation for you.

You can learn from the examples of others  who have done wonderfully well for themselves by focusing on the right niche. You would be surprised that some of the best examples of niche marketing are not small timers but large corporations. Take the case of the remarkable revival in the sales of its computers by Apple. They designed silver boxes as replacement for the old black boxes which were perceived as boring and Steve Job went after designers and  Microsoft geeks and eventually re-established Apple. Or take the case of Groupon which made online coupons fashionable in preference over boring old paper coupons. Their niche? Local businesses whom they wooed with their creative writing style. Or take the case of Etsy which came as a godsend for  crafters and buyers. No longer did crafters have to depend upon summer markets and farmers markets for their income.

A classic example is Hotmail the pioneering email service provider. Sabeer Bhatia the Indian immigrant techie in the United States quickly realised the humongous possibilities by making the email a ubiquitous service that it is know. From being nearly broke to having Microsoft buy his small set up in a multi million dollar deal, Sabeer Bhatia’s is a classic tale of how correctly identifying a niche for you to exploit can one day make you a fortune.

Be special

Following up on the above where one talked about creating or discovering one’s own niche; this cannot and will not happen unless your product or service is unique and in a class of its own. Before you come to as to what makes you or your offering unique, we need to address a more basic question. Who are the people that you plan to serve? For example if you plan to be an author, you cannot be writing about everything under the sun and expect to make any headway. There would be so many like you who wouldn’t have the slightest clue about what the profile of their average reader would be. 

However if you want to be known as an author who writes books whose characters hail from Brisbane, you would be able to identify your target audience-the people of Brisbane. Now you can go all out and woo the people of Brisbane. How many authors would there all of whose characters would be from Brisbane? That would make you unique. You would be able to through you books on the city explore different facets of it. Its history, its people, its culture, its cuisine,  its entertainment hot-spots and so on.  You could literally go to town with snippets from your forthcoming books, information about the real life people and events that inspired you, the part of Brisbane you grew up in and other like trivia. By and by you would create a unique position as the definitive voice on Brisbane.

I

f you are looking for examples of uniqueness saving the day for websites, the successful ones are all unique. Take the case of Facebook which propounded a unique model of online social networking. Today there may be many copycat sites. But can they replicate even a tiny fraction of the success that accrued to it? Not a chance!. Because they were clearly not unique.

Well Facebook may be a legendary example, but there are many many more which validate the contention that being unique is the first step taken towards online celebrity and fame. Take the case of Saddleback Leather, the leather bag company par excellence. There is no other lather bag company that manages to have its aura, its personality and its fan base. Log into the website and you will come across bull fights in Mexico, travel in third world countries, the everyday joys of life and heart warming anecdotes about the owner’s pet Labrador Blue. What further touches a sympathetic chord with its core audience: ‘They will fight over it when you are dead!’

If there can be so much passion and uniqueness attributed to handbag The Mast Brothers can be forgiven their obsession with hand crafted chocolate. For that is indeed their USP,  marketing jargon that stands for Unique Selling Proposition. Rick and Michael Mast convey that “we’re from the 18th century, back when craftspeople were revered and took pride in working with their hands.” That line conveys their uniqueness unequivocally.  They drive in the uniqueness of their product by travelling by sailboat to foreign shoes to being home the best cocoa possible for their chocolates. Now wouldn’t their clientele be theirs and theirs alone for life. They naturally have gone to town on the Internet publicising the uniqueness of their products in the most unique way possible.

You may think that this is an over the top and eccentric way to prove that you are unique, but when the stakes are high can it be otherwise? Work out your uniqueness quotient before you even begin to think of making mass contact. That being said, there is nothing in this world that stops you from finding your niche.  The Internet universe is a much fairer and more democratic organism than what has ever evolved over the eons, and everybody has a fair chance at communicating with like minded individuals. This is the Internet’s greatest strength. Make it yours

Young Internet Millionaires Harnessing The Power of the Web: New Age Entrepreneurship

We have all heard stories about obscure teenagers turning into huge celebrities overnight. They are children who, by the time they came into their teens turned their  everyday hobbies and passions into multi-million dollar enterprises; all by reaching out to vast numbers of like-minded individuals on the Internet.

Before we begin to understand what it takes to bring about these tremendous transformations, let us begin by going ahead of us and taking a sneak preview into what sort of lifestyle changes a (formerly) regular person experiences, as a result of becoming an online celebrity.

Somebody like Marck Zuckerberg, the billionaire founder of Facebook cannot step out onto the street without attracting a crowd of photographers, journalists, tourists, autograph hunters and possibly a posse of policemen for their security. Then there are others like dating columnist for Times Out New York, Julia Alison, who even if not in Zuckerberg’s league, has more than 10000 people devouring her blog every day..What’s more, she has been profiled by New York Times and the New Yorker crowned her with the epithet-the most famous young journalist in the city.

You become an internet millionaire at a young age and the world is your oyster. The best cars, snazzy mansions, incredible holidays, and the best people to date-you will get all that and more. If you are really at the top of the heap every newspaper and magazine, worth their salt, would like to feature you, and there will be offers to write books (perhaps your autobiography which can be turned into a book). Large multinational corporations would like to sign business deals with you and you will be a youth icon and role model for the young of the world.

Successful Online

There are a number of people who have made a mark for themselves by skilfully using the internet to promote themselves or their business models. You will find that a great many of them started off fairly young, sometimes in their teens. All of them shared a strong belief in their conviction that they had the right product and service for which there existed a healthy market, and they gave their all in its pursuit.

If one were to look for examples, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of social networking site, Facebook , is easily at the top of the heap. Founder and CEO of his company, Mark has a personal fortune of about $6.9 billion dollars! And to think that he started off in Middle School and boy, has he grown! Today he is one of the most widely known human beings in the world and, recently, there was a Hollywood blockbuster that documented his rise.

This is an example of a rare and unprecedented growth, but there are many many others who may not count among the world’s richest folk, but still have grown exceedingly rich and famous by any standards of the world. The success story of immigrant boy, Gurbaksh Chahalais, who was born in India and raised in California is quire inspiring. Dropping out of school at 16, he set up gWallet, and is today personally worth more than a hundred million dollars.

Quite honestly, the examples are far too numerous, but what is striking is that most of these individuals began with an original idea at a very young age and made their millions while still under 30 years of age. Never in the history of mankind, since the advent of civilisation, have so many young people made such prodigious amounts of money at such a young age.

The influence of young, happening and vivacious people with an attitude, who have the ability to influence vast numbers of their peers is borne out by the success of blogs like Missmalini where irreverence, fun and a devil may care attitude are the defining flavour.

At the same time, a highly creative and competent team that contributes to the blog, disseminates information greatly in demand by hordes of young people across the country-in the shape of real time blogs, photographs, guest write-ups, fashion and Bollywood content etc. And to think that this was started as a lark by radio DJ and gossip columnist, Malini Agarwal, who is, today, feted by film stars and revered by Huffington Post which calls her India’s most famous blogger.

It is the power of the internet which has given wings to the imagination of these new age entrepreneurs and given them the ability to soar. Truly the invention of the internet must rank as highly as the invention of the wheel, the electric bulb and the automobile, in as much that it’s impact has been epochal.

What is in it for me?

What can success on the internet give you? This is a question which has many parts and you may wonder as to what it is that becoming an internet success would hold of special significance for you? Is it about the money, the fame, the adulation, the popularity, the convergence with likeminded people, or is it about notoriety?

Well, the fact of the matter is that the internet and internet millionaires are a recent phenomenon and the judgement is yet to be out as to whether it is all good, or whether it is a mixed blessing, and, no doubt as the years go by and the golden boys of this era add a few grey hairs to their temples, sociologists and psychologists will write their theses and treatises on the subject but right now it suffices to say that the internet provides unprecedented opportunity, but along with it comes the pitfalls, which are really part of the territory if you are looking at a blazing a trail and making a name for yourself.

Consider this. The internet is a vast ocean of information which you can harness and put to use to further your own objectives. Now, your objective may be something as simple as help in your homework assignment, or you may want to run an online pizza delivery business. You may even want to write your autobiography and try to make it reach as many people as possible, across the globe. The internet empowers you to go ahead and accomplish this.

The internet will let you communicate with whoever you want, anywhere in the world. This means that you can work and be entertained with likeminded people, when you want and where you want, without being at a disadvantage because of your age, sex nationality, religion or geography. Now, this can be a tremendously liberating thing. You are free to choose who you want to work with, at what time and on what terms. The same applies to recreation and entertainment.

What this means is that the very paradigm of living life as we know it has changed. For the first time in the history of mankind, one has the truest personal freedom of choosing one’s career, where you choose your own schedule and give full rein to your creative imagination.This does not, of course, mean that there is no flip side. Of course there is, just as it is there in everything in life. There is danger of spamming, identity theft, pornography and vicious virus attacks.

But these are illegal activities and you should take all measures to protect yourself against them. If you indulge in such activities yourself, you do so at your own peril as you are breaking the law. Then there are other pitfalls, not the least among them being Internet addiction. The internet is a tool that you can use to get ahead in life and also indulge in for some harmless entertainment. If you make it the be all and end all of your life, then you will have no life to talk about.

Your online friends can never fill in for real, physical contact and interaction. Neither can online gaming take the place of a game of basketball. You have got to put things in perspective and you will be alright. Take the case of Facebook- a great way to socialise and re-establish contact with long lost friends. But you know what? Don’t be the fool who lives to update his or her status on it. Who wants to know what you had for breakfast today? Try Facebook to launch your business career or for finding employment. It lends itself very nicely to such things thanks to its vast reach.

The internet can empower you like nothing else, but you’ve got to be focussed on your goals and not get side-tracked by its many distractions. It’s like life itself. The choices you make decide where you go. You can use the internet to sell your skills and get rich. If fame is your thing, the internet gives you access to a vast audience, and if you are up to no good and indulge in dirty tricks and sleaze- well, the internet can provide notoriety too. As they say: to each his own.