Of sobriety and text messages and the real wonder of the world

You cannot make a man sober by act of Parliament, goes the old adage.
Governments, over the decades, have failed to accept this simple truth.

And you cannot make a wonder of the world by totting up text messages.
You cannot make Shilpa Shetty a great actor by totting up text messages.
You cannot make Sanjaya a great singer by totting up text messages.

Consumers, over the next few decades, will fail to learn these simple truths.

And media houses and telecom companies, over the next few decades, will make fortunes because, as Barnum might have said a few decades ago, a sucker is born every minute.

And that, my friends, is a wonder of the world.

Why I’m not saving the Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal’s pride of place as one of the wonders of the world is under threat because of people like me. I haven’t voted for it to be included in the new, improved, list of wonders. Millions of Indians need to vote to keep the Taj hanging in there, and now people are getting upset with my irresponsibility.

On CNN IBN, India’s Joint Secretary , Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Leena Nandan exhorts me to vote: "There is time, so vote for the Taj and your vote is going to be the deciding factor. So each of us needs to think that way and that will really bring a momentum to the efforts of so many people."
Continues the CNN IBN report: “Among the few celebrities who have pitched in is AR Rahman, who has composed a song for the India Unites campaign to vote for the Taj Mahal, but that's not enough.”
Says lawyer and conservationist MC Mehta, "The apathy on the part of the Government of India and the state government is visible when you see that the Agra city itself is stinking today."

All I have to do is to SMS “TAJ” to a short code number. But I won’t.

Because the fine print in the ads in something like 4pt size tells me that premium rates apply.
And we have India’s Joint Secretary urging you to send a premium priced message, you have AR Rahman doing so, and you have a conservationist doing so. All making you feel guilty as sin that you haven’t done your little bit.
When you mugs out there have voted to save the Taj, do ponder on this for a moment: who’s raking in the moolah?
The larger worry is the Government supporting what, surely, is private enterprise.

The ICC World Cup, Commercials, the Internet and call to action

Interesting, the number of commercials which highlighted a web address or had a call to action. The ones listed are those which aired in the first half of the game, when the West Indies batted. I guess it’s enough to call it a trend.
Commercials include: Nokia (http://www.nokia.co.in/), Candyman (http://www.mycandymanclub.com/), The Mobile Store (http://www.themobilestore.in/), Maruti Zen (http://www.marutizen.com/), Hyundai (http://www.hyundai.co.in/), Motorola (http://www.hellomoto.com/), Mountain Dew (http://www.dewdares.com/) and TVS Apache (http://www.nowornever.in/) .

http://www.monster.com/, http://www.licindia.com/, http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/, http://www.99acres.com/ and http://www.clickjobs.com/ ran no spots but bought supers and interstitials.
The blue billion contest, where there was a call to action to http://www.bluebillion.com/ or an SMS to 2525 just disappeared off the screen.

Other decent Call-to-action efforts included Kotak’s 8558 insurance super and Luminous 6161 highlight. Hutch exhorted viewers to dial 123 to receive their horoscopes. Cool. Not.
Thomas Cook asked me to SMS "Europe" to a number I couldn’t catch. BSNL had a toll free number that viewers could contact.

Those who didn’t attempt to send traffic to their websites include Gilette, Thomas Cook, BSNL,Airtel, Mayur, Luminous, NECC, VIP (innerwear), Sony, Sprite, Pepsi, Kingfisher (water, dummy), McDowell (soda, dummy), Hero Honda and Videocon. And the one that surprised me the most? Aditya Birla Group.

Why India will rule football

I’ve written about this before.
And Shilpa Shetty wins the Big Brother 100,000 pound jackpot and I’m reminded of it again.
To me, this was a no-brainer. Jade Goody or Jackson against an Indian? Notice, I didn’t say against Shilpa Shetty, I said Indian.
And we’re not racist.
But we are mobile phone junkies, and we are suckers for any SMS vote-in announced by any two-bit channel for any two-bit show.
And, Indians are a formidable percentage of the population of virtually any country in the world, except China.
And while we’re not racist, we love our own. And when one of the candidates is a fellow Indian, we vote like crazy. As Indians have done for Shilpa Shetty.
And, not so far in the future, an Indian will be in the squad (and will start once in a while, and play a few minutes in a few games) of Manchester United and Liverpool and Arsenal and Chelsea.
Because these clubs will not be able to ignore a simple truth: Indians will buy season tickets, and SMS packages and T-Shirts and other merchandise because an Indian is playing for the team.
Not because we’re racist; only because we love our own.

And, one day in the next couple of seasons, when one of the top four football teams in the English Premier League announces an Indian in the team, I will say, “I told you so.”

And the Time Waster of the Year Award goes to…

Take your pick. Any of the media houses that have announced Indian of the Year Awards.
And that’s a shame.
Because there’s so much that they could have done, being powerful media entities.
To prove my point, I’ll do a poll that asks readers on this site who the Indian of the Year as decided by three major media houses one month from now, and results WILL prove little or no recall.
Yet, most respondents will remember the Time Person of the Year.
Because of the attention to detail, because of the importance they attach to the award, because the process is transparent.
Living in India as we do, it should be easy to figure out how to make people respect and believe in elections.

1.You need an impartial arbiter
2.You need a transparent process
3.The public needs to know when the elections are being held
4.The public needs to know who the candidates are
5.The public needs to know who is eligible to vote
6.The public needs to “see” the elections being held
7.The public needs to be informed who won

All the Indian of the Year awards fail on one or more of these fundamentals. Because the owners of the award, brashly, decide that the rules that they think of are the rules that matter.

And they institute awards that no one remembers.

Sad.

Are TV channel polls irresponsible?

Back to one of my pet peeves.
News channels and their polls.
1.They never tell you how many people voted.
2.They only give you a choice of Yes or No.

And these two issues, combined, get on my nerves. And I would like to believe, get on the nerves of a lot of people.
For example, I surely want to know how many people think, say, a minister should resign. NOT a figure in per cent without an idea of the polling population, which might be only 10 viewers. Similarly, I would respect people who weren’t sure, not force them to say yes or no.
Today, providence gave me an opportunity to underline my point. As I was surfing, I came across a poll on a blog, powered by magikwidget. I went there, signed in and got the right to try out 25 widgets, absolutely FREE!
Here’s the first use I make of these widgets. A poll that will tell anyone how many people voted, and a poll that factors in people who have an opinion other than Yes and No
Since the traffic on my blog is not too hot, and since I post fairly regularly, I’ll cheat a bit with this one, and keep changing the date stamp so that the story stays on top for a few days.

Not allowed to vote? Magikwidget tells you why:

Chances are you have already voted in your poll. Security features built-in to MajikWidget polls will remember that your IP address has voted and will not allow you to vote more than once in a single poll. Therefore, it defaults to the poll results when it recognizes your visit as a previous voter.

This causes issues with some corporate environments where many different people have the same IP address. Our developers are working on ways to combine other methods with the IP address method to address this specific issue.

Snappy answers to stupid QsOTD

With the Sanjay Dutt judgement due, one expected the media, especially the news TV channels, to go overboard.
But CNN-IBN’s Question of the Day (QOTD, plural QsOTD), asked by the channel after the verdict was delivered, took the cake:
“Is this the best that Sanjay Dutt could have hoped for?” the channel asked.
And thousands of poor suckers will send in their SMS opinions, and watch the graphs on the screen go up and down as if their individual votes have caused the movement.
My QOTD to CNN-IBN: How on earth can I know whether this is the best Sanjay Dutt could have hoped for?
I can have an opinion on what I had hoped for, or what I had anticipated, or what I had expected, or what Bejan Daruwala might have predicted in a newspaper I might have read.
But how the blazes can I know what Sanjay Dutt had hoped for?
How?!
Reminds me of a Mad magazine column called snappy answers to stupid questions.
So, here’s the question again, followed by a few answers of mine. Please send in your suggestions for the channel, too.

“Is this the best that Sanjay Dutt could have hoped for?”

No, he wanted a life sentence, so he’s deeply disappointed.
No, he was hoping he would hang, because Afzal is getting all the publicity.
No, he was hoping for a guilty verdict on all counts, because he prefers the jail environment to his Pali Hill residence.

Please, please send in your suggestions!

pigsandwings questions for TV channels

On live programming, you run interactive exercises that ask viewers to send you text messages.
When these programmes are repeated, the announcements (often through anchors, sometimes through supers) calling attention to the SMS polls or contests or whatever cannot be erased from the video or the audio.

What happens to these messages?
Are they still charged at premium rates to the viewers?
Can you overlay another super asking viewers NOT to vote as the text messages would be wasted?

Hello?

Reality show scams: "Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player"

During his 1883 tour of the United States, Oscar Wilde saw this saying on a notice in a Leadville, Colorado, saloon.

And who cares about Oscar Wilde, and who cares about the Wild West, and who cares about shooting the messenger.

And what’s all this got to do with the price of fish? Or a blog on media and advertising?
Lots.
We’ve got this debate going on about Nach Baliye contestant Manav Gohil and his wife Shveta buying 200 BPL Mobile SIM cards which they gave to friends and urged them to send text messages in their support.

Someone figured this out, and Manav and his wife were branded cheats. In parallel, a witch hunt began for BPL Mobile, the unfortunate service provider to have been chosen by Manav as the solution to his popularity problems. How did BPL Mobile sell him so many cards? Is the show rigged?

The simple truth is, BPL Mobile had every right to sell 200, or indeed 2000 or 20000 cards to Manav, as long as the paperwork was in place.

The simple truth also is, Manav had the right to send 20 messages from each one of these cards to the short code number assigned by STAR.

And finally, the simple truth also is that STAR had the right to allow Manav to send 20 messages from each card that Manav had bought.

If we get out of this reality show nonsense, and find a parallel in the real world (I know this is complex, but you know what I mean), STAR is the equivalent of the Election Commissioner, Manav the equivalent of the candidate, and BPL Mobile (or any other mobile service provider) the equivalent of the ballot paper.

The Election Commissioner frames the rules: that the candidate can canvass for votes, and each eligible voter (in this instance, a mobile phone number) can use up to 20 ballot papers (in this instance, text messages).

So where’s the problem? None. The Election Commissioner, the candidate and the ballot papers are all within the rules and parameters framed.

If I am stupid enough to send 20 text messages to ANY number, that’s my problem. If, as Sameer Nair says (not quite, I've paraphrased and dramatised it), these 4000 votes wouldn’t make a damn of a difference, and he felt sorry for Manav, that’s Manav’s problem.

And the media has gone after BPL Mobile as the biggest culprit in this non-issue.

It’s gone back to the old days, they’re shooting the piano player.