WATBlog Panel On Digital Convergence Opportunities For Entrepreneurs (An Analysis)
WATBlog Panel on Digital Convergence- Opportunities For Entrepreneurs was held at NMIMS College in Mumbai on 20th December, 2009.
The panelists were:
- Akshay Garg, Co-Founder and Business Head, Komli Media
- Jai Maroo – Director – Shemaroo Entertainment
- Manoj Dawane – Chief Executive Officer - Mauj Mobile
- Vivek Bhargava – CEO and Founder of Communicate2
The panel was kicked of by asking each panelists opportunities and trends they see in their own space.
Manoj Dawane on Opportunities In Mobile VAS
Entrepreneurs should not run after glossy businesses like facebook or twitter but much rather focus their energy on real problems and solutions to the same. India is such a large country that you take any problem and there will be a large enough target audience for the same. The following sectors that mobile vas could service and are potential opportunities in the mobile VAS space:
- Video
- Education
- Healthcare
- Insurance
Jai Maroo on Opportunities in Digital Entertainment
The biggest opportunity lies in the prosumer category which is in between a consumer or amateur content creator and a professional content creator. Prosumer is a huge opportunity but as there can be many prosumers and the entry barrier is low the real task is on how you differentiate yourself. Also with regards to entertainment Indians are big consumers and producers themselves. In singapore there are just 10 films a year while India is one of the only countries where more films are produced in a year than Hollywood. Indian content is gaining acceptance globally and many people in international markets are paving the way for Indian entertainment content. I believe bigger opportunities lie not in the end product but the entire value chain. Entrepreneurs must ask not how I can create content but how I can facilitate content in the entertainment space.
Vivek Bhargava on the Opportunities In Digital Advertising Space
The future is digital advertising and if you look at the last 3-5 years the growth has been many time over the growth of the previous years put together. In my view the next 2 years would take digital advertising to the next level India has a 7400 crore tv advertising market and a 400-600 crore Internet market. There are 60-80 million Indians on the internet and its a known fact that consumers are spending more time on the internet than on TV. Utility oriented services like railway ticketing have even got the chaiwala on the internet. I see big for young entrepreneurs to leverage social media applications and build global reach through these applications.
Akshay Garg on the Opportunities In Digital Advertising
The tipping point in digital advertising hasn’t yet arrived but its close. If you talk to brands you would know that they are serious about Digital advertising. The total revenues from digital advertising may not have grown as fast as we expected but if you see the number of ads or ad units and the number of advertisers as well then both those numbers have grown exponentially. My advice to entrepreneurs would be to focus on execution. A lot of entrepreneurs focus on ideas alone which is where they lack.
Digital Convergence and what it means to you?
Manoj Dawane – Lets take the example of marriages. 50% of India falls into the marriageable age and lets take for example 200 million Indians i.e. 100 million marriages in the next 5 years are waiting to happen. If one has to reach 200 million people and their relatives i.e. a total of 500 million people then there is no single medium that can reach them. This is where digital convergence comes in. At shaadi.com we use mobile apps, PC, Voice over IP, sms and even DTH inorder to have seemless communication from one platform to another.
Jai Maroo – Fundamentally I don’t believe convergence exists. This is because the premise of convergence is that there will be just one device which is wrong. iPod was a hit when there was a mobile phone with music player existing. So a specialized device still works. Tv never killed radio and internet wont kill TV. All devices will co-exist but their usage shall get polarized based on what time and where they are being used.
Vivek Bhargava – Just the way electricity powers all of our devices and we take it for granted soon internet will power most devices and we shall take it for granted too. Users don’t see the convergence we marketers and technologists put devices and their usage in different silos. For users it does’t matter what the backend technology is as long as its convenient and serves his purpose.
Akshay Garg – I expect to see content being duplicated across platform as the biggest hindrance to digital convergence and the challenge lies in making content available across platforms.
Some quotes by Panelists during QnA Session
Vivek Bhargava – ‘Advertisers are media agnostic. They will shift media spends based on ROI’
Manoj Dawane – ‘30% of all new mobile connections in India are taken by an audience which is media dark i.e. they have no exposure to any other form of media’
Akshay Garg – ‘Major portals expect the next wave of internet audiences to come from Tier 2 & 3 cities’
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Hi,
I had attended this event. It was fantastic. The explanation of digital convergence by Manoj Dawane with the example of matrimonial service was very good.