Why Yoshitha Rajapakshe on FB SLmemes page is so significant?

Whole Sri Lankan online community was talking about one thing yesterday. President's son and his girl friend commenting on a meme in Sri Lankan Memes Facebook page about them.

The meme was about an astrologist predicting the president that his about to become a grandfather, MR saying his kids dont even have girlfriends & then showing pics of Yoshitha,his girlfriend, some baby. Its a superb meme anyways. (If anyone wants to see the meme,pls comment below i will send the link)

Within few minutes President's sons girlfriend has commented phrasing the meme (in the meme language), followed by Presidnets son himself commenting saying "HILARIOUS". This was a first time that we noticed a highlevel VIP personally commenting on a public forum. Both of them commented in a very light way, showing the PR qualities of the President.

This isn't something that we have seen in Sri Lanka so far. But is a common phenomenon in other matured internet markets like India or even US where celebrities & VIPs comment, tweet like normal people in the communities. I assume one of the reasons why India has a huge followership in Twitter than Sri Lanka is because their celebrities are actively on Twitter. I know certain Sri Lankan girls who have joined twitter,just to follow their bollywood celebrities in India and some of them have even got replies from the likes of Shah Rukh Khan on Twitter (Do you see the pas coming out? #IfYouKnowWhatIMeanMeme)

This kind of celebrity/VIP participation on social networks can lead to increase in community members for Sri Lanka - my point is that after hearing the news

• More people will want to join Facebook and 
• More people will want to be active on this pages to interact with their celebrities
• Will encourage more celebrities/VIPs to come on board social media and interact with their fans

for e.g.Increase in Facebook and specially an increase in Twitter users since celebrities in Twitter are easily reached than in Facebook.  Such an increase would mean better internet atmosphere with much more local content around the web. Will Yoshitha commenting on Facebook meme be the turning point of Sri Lankan celebrities/VIPs in social communities?

Next up : "Cold war between popular Sri Lankan Facebook 'share' pages"

Brands Boutique in Sri Lanka - Review

Update : 
Address : No.299, Galle Rd, Colombo 03
Directions : In the Galle Road, about 250-300m from the Colpetty Junction in the land side.

Small review on branded clothing shop in Colpetty (Right in the Galle Rd - So easily accessible). I got this voucher from the daily deals site (word Best should come in front of daily deals site, let me do a separate post on that) - www.anything.lk for a H&M Denim and had to go collect it. As the name suggests clearly - its all about big brands. Quite high quality stuff and with the name comes the price.

Brands
Following is courtesy of my brand conscious friend - They have basically 3 denim brands and one casual wear.H&M - Hennes & Mauritz AB (operating as H&M) is a Swedish retail-clothing company, worlds 2nd biggest network of stores with the strongest presence in UK.Wrangler - Is a US based brand owned by VF corporation who also owns LEE. Lee -Is again US based. Mainly into jeans. Then they have this italian brand called black Arrow or something (Can't remember exactly) which i've seen in other retailers as well. And there might be other brands - they didn't mention me.

Pricing
Everything above Rs.3000 - Yap, no extra zeros. Three thousand. With quality, with brands comes the price.

Choice
Very limited choice if you are small made (Im not - Just saying :-P). But for average guys - No problems. And depends on availability also.

Service
Got very good customer service. Even processes and payment options are fine. Accepts all types of cards.

Overall
Pros - Good quality clothing, Good customer service
Cons - High prices, Not much choice in terms of size (If you are small made only)

Feel free to comment below anything related or anything you know about the brands or the store - so anyone searching only will have something credible to make an informed fashion choice. 

Tweet In Sinhala Day - Best days of Twitter in Sri Lanka

It was one of the most memorable days of Twitter in Sri Lanka - where a bunch of people agreed to tweet mostly in Sinhala - Bringing lots of fun & entertainment to the community.

One day morning @kattasambal tweeted the idea and i replied. We told few people but couldn't get it off the ground. One December Pravin&his better half was making love in Twitter in Sinhala - Umesh replied to them in anger which resulted in declaration of Today - 6th Jan 2011 as the #TweetInSinhalaDay hopefully #TweetInSinhalaDay 1.0. Below is the chief organizing whip - Umesh answering @InduNan s question about how it all started -

It's good to see how a bunch of young guys want to carry our unique culture & language forward. Thanks to everyone, specially Umesh,Pravin&his better half and Katta for the good work.

Below are some of the memorable tweets to enjoy & to archive, Otherwise they will be erased automatically. (I'm afraid to mention your names&handles - If you are ok with it, comment below and i will update the post - Also if you want your handle/tweets taken off i will instantly - Just tell me).

#ThatAwkwardMoment =  #එමචාටර්මොහොත 

We finally came up with the Sinhala equivalent for hash tag #ThatAwkwardMoment = #එමචාටර්මොහොත 

E.g.

සෝස් බෝතල් දෙකම කල් ඉකුත් වී ඇති බව දැනගන්නා #එමචාටර්මොහොත 

Here's how we arrived at the hash tag.

Hide conversation

Fulton89: #awkwardmoment එකට මොකක්ද කියන්නේ බන් @Binku @nnulk10:11am, Jan 06 from Web

Binku: @Fulton89 # කැරිසීන්එක#චාටර්මොහොත @nnulk10:12am, Jan 06 from Web

Fulton89

10:17am via Web

@Binku hhahahha #චාටෙර්මොහොත hodaie ne @nnulk

#AluthRuwanWeki
This hashtag is for the modern Sinhala proverbs. Following is something i came up with, after seeing Fulton failing downloading wrong Torrent for like 4 times

• බාන්න පෙර රිවීව් බලනු 
• එක ඇන්ග්රි බර්ඩ්ගෙන් ඌරෝ දෙන්නය්
• ඇන්ග්රි බර්ඩ්ට මල පැන්නා වගේ..

#OddSinhalaTranslation

These is a historical trend we had longtime back - To translate English terms (Literally) to Sinhala. One of the most funniest hash tags in Sri Lanka ever. Check out some of the tweets we got today (Most from @Praveenie)

• ජෛව සටහන = Bio on your twitter profile
• සීමිත සංස්කරණය = Limited Edition,
• තොපෙ අම්මව හදි ගැහිච්චි හැටි = How I met your mother
• රීරි පිසාචයාගේ දිනපොත් = Vampire Diaries

Few other good ones

• Girls වනාහී 70 දශකයේ මෙරටට ගෙනා කලුසුදු TV වැනිය.. කොයි වෙලෙත් සෝ සෝ ගායි..
• මල් ඔතනෝ.. අපි මල් ඔතනෝ.. වට පිට බල බල මල් ඔතනෝ..
• දොඩම් ගෙඩියක් රුපියල් දහයය් නම් දොඩම් ගෙඩි පහක් ගත්තම කීයද..?
• රා.සේ.පි. = රා බොන සේරම පිරිමි

Tweep below is begging Justin Beiber to give a Retweet (Amplify) his tweet so #TweetinSinhalaDay will trend worldwide - Hilarious!

Poorna1989 ♛ Poorna Chathura☜☆☞

RT Plz @justinbieber බීබරයෝ රීටීට්ටුවක් දියන් මයෙ අම්මා...,චූටි කුක්කු පැටියා,උබ සුදු කොල්ලනෙ. #TweetInSinhalaDay

Please feel free to comment below with some other good #TweetInSinhalaDay tweets .

Web Sites to Buy&Sell online in Sri Lanka

My tech savvy friends must be thinking why go so surface level topics in my posts. Because of idiots like the following who made a Facebook profile for his "TownAce Van for Sale" and educating laymen is part of our responsibility.

Above is very primitive because - Visibility is very low (People wont add you as a friend), wrong medium (Generic Facebook is social - i.e.Anti Sales) and its illegal. I don't know what on earth that guy was thinking - when there are so many other useful tools/web sites in Sri Lanka.

BTW - If you want to buy the van contact me - Only 2% broker charge (Just kidding).

Following are some of the best places to buy and sell online in Sri Lanka from my knowledge (I have brought my P990 phone (In 2007, Which i still use), A camera and a laptop for my brother and the Galaxy tab i use currently - None of them had issues). Mind you - I'm going through only the general classifieds sites (Not specific selling like - Automobiles, Real Estate - That i will go through in a separate post)

Suntel wow classifieds
Owned by Suntel, this used to be one of the most active sites back in the days. For a long times it hasn't been updated to the new technology. And they have added an approval process that delays displaying of an ad during holidays. But i think still up to date this is the most active web site. The future of WOW classifieds is questionable with the Dialog acquisition of Suntel.

Facebook marketplace
Is a simple Facebook app. Have seen lot of activity. And since it has Facebook login and features quite easy to use. Another major plus is that it can filter ads by your friends and by "friends of friends" so it naturally builds trust which is lacking in other buy & sell sites. The only negatives are that you need to add it as an application and since it's secured they are not listed in Google search.

Dialog Tradenet
Is the Dialog run web site. Haven't used it - But looks more modern than Suntel wow. I do not see lots of ads like in WOW - so not a lots of visitors. Cannot compare traffic because Alexa shows for the whole Dialog.lk web site instead of  tradenet.dialog.lk (Graph below - I have compared the 3 sites with Gossip Lanka, Sri Lankas most visited web site).

Other small time web sites
There are so many others such as buyandsell.lk, Sri Lankan ebay.etc which are not very popular.

Well - The above is only from my knowledge. Please comment below with any useful sites for classifieds in Sri Lanka & any good/bad experiences with buying and selling ads online in Sri Lanka.

Facebook "Share" button is going to be the next big thing

What is this Share link/button?
After Facebook changed it's home page - News feed layouts - one of the major highlights was the share link. It appears after all your public shares like status updates, photos and videos. it was already there for web sites but wasn't significant until the news feed change. See below

After introduction this has been one of the mostly used features in Facebook. It can be called the RETWEET button of Facebook. Why its mostly used is because 

• You like the content 
• Your friends might not have access to it directly  

Once shared - The original post shows the no.of shares - See below

This can be a good measure for viral aspect of content in Facebook.

If the same links is shared by many people it will appear as one story with lots of share links like below. This can be a handy tool for video sharing - specially videos from youtube.

Next line of viral videos in Youtube will use Facebook share button to go viral in Facebook.

What will happen in days to come?
Looking at the current trend this is going to be a key feature of  Facebook. More and more users and brands will make use of the share button in following ways


Brands

• Brands will use photos/videos and try to make them viral through the share button
• Brand web sites will focus on putting the share button on their pages

Facebook Users

• Users - Your day to day Facebook friends will post more quotes, photos, videos.etc with the intention of sharing

Few People already using the share button effectively

Kajuwattha Eksath Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/Kaju.Waththa.Eksath

Whats up Colombo Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/WhatsUpColombo

Don't know whether intentionally or by random because not many people are talking about this (Globally) yet. 

First it was comments, then came likes, now the buzz word is going to be "SHARE". Feel free to share your thoughts about the future of this feature on Facebook by commenting below. 

What is iOS and Whats new in iOS 5?

Everybody’s rushing to download the new version of Apple operating system. For those who are new to the scene, iOS is an operating system like Windows XP, Linux which is made for Apple handheld gadgets  like ipods,iphones and ipads.

Though Sri Lanka is a Microsoft Windows dominated country interms of OS, Apple handheld devices are penetrating in to the market very well. This is clearly shown by low prices in second hand iphones and ipads.Used iPads are going even at 40,000-50,000 Sri Lanka rupees. I predict iphones and ipads to capture a significant phone and tablet market in Sri Lanka by end of 2012. Only thing remaining is for major carrier to offer iphones – But that looks like lots of work for a country like us.

Like I explained in iphone 4S SIRI article,im going to point out whats new in iOS 5 the latest version which was made available to public today.

1. New notification system – This is the biggest upgrade. Notifications are the notices about new receivables like SMS, Tweets.etc and how they are shown to the user while he’s using another application.
2.   iMessage – Blackberry BBM was the most popular internal messaging platform in phones which got crashed all over the world yesterday. In a previous post I explained how London rioters used this secure messaging Apple is also entering in to the market with this chat-email-MMS like feature with new iMessage service. Im sure this is going to be a hit because there are many chat freaky iphone users than Blackberry professionals.
3.  Twitter Integration – The popular social network – only second to Facebook is directly included in iOS5 so you can tweet while using other applications.
4. Better Photo capabilities – iOS5 has made it lot easier to take photos by getting volume control buttons to be used in taking a photo. And photo editing and sharing has been made lot easier for all you artistic dodgers.

How are you finding your new update in ipod, iphone or your ipad? Feel free to share.

Apple launches slightly improved new iphone with cool feature - SIRI

Everyone was so hyped out about the anticipated iphone 5 launch held yesterday - October 4th. Some were disspointed that its iphone 4S and not iphone 5 exactly. Bascially what they have improved is

1. Faster processor - 7 times faster than the previous iphone 4
2. Better camera - 8MP camera, iphone 4 had only 5MP
3. Voice recognition ability - SIRI
4. Price :  iphone 4 is only $199

Faster processor & better camera are minor additions - So no surprises why current iphone users are dissappointed. But i find the voice recognition feature interesting. It can read your SMSes, reply, search wiki.etc. So cool - Watch the video below.



(Following is for people who have no idea what an iphone is)
I mean i know Nokia has the best phones. Whats I-Phone?
Its basically a phone made by Apple computers. A trendy phone that was marketed so well that it created an i-culture around it. The key was the app-store which gives you all different types of apps. See the Sesame street video about iphone apps - There's an app for everything.



Are you still dissapointed about iphone 4S? Feel free to comment below.

A post about iphone market/prices in Sri Lanka coming up...

Reasons why Facebook changed the news feed (Facebook Home page)

Im sure its no news that there was a major change of the Facebook home page or technically known as the news feed last week. Following are some of the major reasons for the change.

1. Lack of activity 
Im sure many of you have seen the complaints like "Facebook is boring". There were even Facebook pages opened on the topic like the one below.

The main reason for this was what i call the "Facebook updates vicious cycle"

This cycle led to all the people complaining – Facebook news feed is boring. The result was people moving to much faster platforms like Twitter where you are compelled to update more often.

Initially Facebook tried to solve this by introducing the recent updates link. But since “most important” was default many people didn’t know about it. How Facebook has tackled this issue is by introducing the ticker which shows dynamic updates. And also by introducing the fast feed which constantly shows you “more updates” just like in Twitter.

2. Competition
On 20th September Google+ opened to everyone. And there was huge enthusiasm amongst those who didn’t have Google+ profiles. I can remember in certain forums those who didn’t have G+ talked really big about it – not knowing it was idling for those who have. Facebook should have really wanted to steal the momentum.

If you think there are more reasons/other reasons – Feel free to comment below

All your Facebook profiles to be changed to the new Facebook Timeline

Everyone is asking nowadays "what's this Facebook timeline all about?". Few people still asking me and getting to know that some knows nothing about it made me explain it.

Well - its a total new look to Facebook profile pages. It was on testing period last couple of days and that how you saw some geeks putting up album like screen shots. Here's mine.

Q : Dude, You are a geek too - Tell me in black & white what this is?
A : Here are the basics - Unlike the walled profile page you had, you will have a time scaled page which will span from the day you were born till today. There was a nice joke that Facebook wants to own your past-present and your future.

Without having one single wall, your page will be divided in to two which will contain boxes of all sorts of updates (Reminding of old hi5 boxes concept). There is a possibility of back status updating, which means you can go back to some day and update your status on that day (I'll come up with a seperate post on that later).

Q : Fine. What should i do?
These changes that are now applicable only to developers will soon roll-out to all users gradually starting from tommorow (1st October 2011). So get your panaroma pictures ready. And be careful of your old status,photos videos coming up on your profile - Hide the old stuff you do not want your "new interests" to see :-)

P.S. And please dont put your status "I hate Facebook for changing profile pic", "I hate Mark Zuckerberg".etc.

There are lots of stories about what Facebook trying to achieve through this, how Mark Zuckerberg announced it at the F8 conference to kill the last hopes of Google+ .etc. Stay tuned...

Market Segmentation Online 4 : What type of Internet time waster are you?

[This is the simplified version of an E-Marketing article I wrote for work blog. You can find the link in previous E-marketing posts]


All dudes and dudettes wasting their time online can be separated to 6 different parts based on the time you spend online & your activity. They are

• Simplifiers - Use internet for a specific task like googling for some assignment, paying CIMA fees...etc
• Surfers - Comes online to see whats new. For e.g."Who's in a relationship with whom"...etc.
• Connectors - Comes online to connect with communities - Mainly the Facebookers. People who have FB as your home page
• Bargainers - Comes online to find good deals. E.g. Whats cheapest in ODEL...etc
• Routiners - Comes online primarily to read stuff (Like reading my blog)
• Sportsters - Same like routiners, But comes online for Sports & Entertainment mainly - I know loads of people using internet primarily to visit cricinfo or Elakiri.com which are sports & entertainment sites

Classification by time spent and other details given below

You know who you are than any of us. So vote in the poll, what category you are in?

Market Segmentation Online : 3. Segmentation Bases

Online marketing is typically the same as Traditional marketing in terms of the bases. Only exception is that there are numerous different bases that could be adopted in online marketing.


Segmenting bases are


1. Demographics
E.g.Age, Income, Gender, Education level, ethnicity

Following are some basic demographics on Linked - In

2. Geo-graphics
This is basically the segmentation by location.
E.g. City, Village, State, Country, Region..etc.
Google Analytics provides a very good tool with which you can even track the city of your site visitors (In Sri Lanka - Only Colombo and Kandy Possible, But in US hundreds of cities possible)
Given below are geographic data about Facebook users.

3. Psychographics
Activation, Interests, opinions, Personality, Values...etc.

4. Behaviour with respect to the Product
 Usage, Benefits sought, Brand loyalty, user status..etc.


Will be discussed in detail in the next E-Marketing post.


Apart from this basic bases, even combined bases like geo-demographics could be used.


Or as i said above numerous bases like "Budget" can be used.


These bases are specially important in Search Engine Optimization and online market research. For e.g. Check out how people visited social networking sites -

Next we shall discuss Market segmentation by behaviour in detail - The most important of the four bases.

E Marketing 6 : Market Segmentation Online : 1.Basic Markets

There are two tiers of marketing strategy 1. Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning or STP Marketing. Second is 4Ps with CRM strategy (We will discuss in the future.) Segmenting is the first of those 1st tier strategies.

Lets discuss online market segmentation.

 

First post about segmenting is about the three basic markets that both sell and buy to each other. They are Businesses, Governments and consumers.

1. Business Market
Contains the businesses and institutions. In the most biggest market in internet because many firms are present online than consumers. This is why B2B activity online is only second to B2C.
For e.g.

1. DHL - maintains a database of its' corporate clients. And the clients can login to their companies account and see where their package is.

2. A web designing company will directly target the Business Market. 

2. Government Market

 

This is applicable to many developed countries, where governments purchase online. Not very much applicable to Sri Lanka yet. But take a country like US - US govt. is the worlds largest buyer of goods and service (http://www.sba.gov/contractingopportunities/index.html)

But businesses willing to target govt market will have unique challenges like rules,paperwork..etc.

Joke - Knowing someone with surname "Rajapakshe" can be of help in Sri Lanka, Still you have to be careful with govt, since we all know about what happened to Hi-Corp deal.

3. Consumer Market

Is the biggest ever market. And the market potential is unlimited. Majority of products target this market for its capacity. The success stories of online marketing directed at consumers are Amazon, Ebay, 1-800 Flowers and Kapruka, Topjobs.lk and gossiplankanews.

We will next talk about examples to all these three markets selling to each other. i.e. B2B, B2C, B2G, C2B, C2G, C2C - so on and so forth examples.