Just imagine this scenario; you have managed to avoid OJ for one whole week. You are sitting at your desk, working on some interesting task and finally beginning to think that life is actually not that bad at all; when you suddenly hear foot steps behind you. You fear for the worst, close your eyes and pray to God. But its one of those instances which push you more towards becoming an atheist. The dreaded conversation starts…
OJ: Hey man.. how are you doing mate.
M: As a matter of fact, I was doing very well.
OJ: I was really busy last week man, couldn’t catch up with you.
M: The good old days…
OJ: What?
M: Nothing. I was just thinking of something. Did you say you were busy? Got some new project?
OJ: You have to start thinking beyond these mundane activities.. there are plenty of people to take care of these things.. I was involved in something far more important.
M: which is?
OJ: I’m completely in charge of planning a trip for the team. You know for celebrating our last quarter results.
M: Oh! That’s great. Must be really challenging work. So have you finalized a location yet?
OJ: Absolutely, that’s what I’ve been trying to do for last 3 weeks. We are going to go to Kushinagar
M: Err.. never heard of that place. Why did you finalize that one?
OJ: I’ve seen all the other tourist places nearby. So this is the only one missing from my travel diary..
M: Oh! But didn’t you visit the other places just to find out which one is suitable for the trip? (decided not to add “at company's expense”)
OJ: Yes, and they are all good.. but now I’ve seen them all. This is the only one I couldn’t visit..
M: Gotcha! So now everything is done, right? We are all set.
OJ: Gee, Man. If everyone has an attitude like you, nothing will ever get done in this company. Now my real work begins.. I’ve to come up with a list of people who are allowed to go on the trip.
M: Err.. but I thought our entire project team is going.
OJ: Holy mother of God!! Do you want this company to go bankrupt? Jesus … We are celebrating the last quarter’s result, so only people who joined before that can go. See this list, I’ve removed the names of the three people who joined this month.
M: That surely would save us from bankruptcy…. But hold on, didn’t this girl join the team last week. How come she is on the trip?
OJ: Ah! I thought it would give her a nice chance to mix-up with the team..
M: What about the three guys, who joined just two weeks back?
OJ: What about them? They already know our names…
M: Right!! So this trip planning must be taking a lot of your time
OJ: Yes, but I’m also working on other things simultaneously. For example, I’m planning this knowledge sharing session for the team..
M: (chocked on the coffee, which prompted OJ to pat him on the back.. a completely disgusting experience) Knowledge sharing session? I didn’t know that you have some exclusive product or process knowledge.
OJ: Small mind.. small thoughts.. think beyond these things man. My knowledge sharing session is about something way way more important.
M: do I even dare to ask?
OJ: You remember that personal trip I took to US two months back?
M: How can I forget? I’ve heard about it so many times that it feels like I was there.
OJ: Exactly, this is what I want the entire team to feel. They should know how to deal with challenges while traveling abroad. At the end of it, they will be as capable as me.
M: Didn’t you actually get mugged couple of times in that trip?
OJ: So? What’s your point?
M: Nothing.. I just think this session is not required. Entire team now knows everything about the trip. I mean what you ate, where you slept, what you wore. We know it all.
OJ: But there can never be too much of a good thing. So I’ll again give you guys all the details… and besides that, the new girl has missed most my narrations.
M: Right, the poor girl. Anyway I think you can go now..
OJ: Why? You don’t like me here.
M: No no.. I absolutely enjoy it. I just noticed that the new girl is back from her coffee break, so you might want to get back to the mentoring you have been doing for last few days..
OJ: Oh.. cool.. thanks mate.. see you again..
M: I can hardly wait..
Monday, October 8, 2007
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Youmint: How refreshingly unoriginal
The site claims: “YouMint is a unique social utility that connects you with people around you”.
So what is their “unique” concept? You register with their site, invite friends to register, grow your network. Then you receive ads on your mobile, you not only get paid for these ads; you also get paid when someone in your network receives an ad.
Sounds familiar? Yes, around 6 months back, mGinger started this business model in India. Paying consumers for seeing ads was not something entirely new. But what mGinger brought into Indian market is this concept of incentivizing the users for building a network.
Within 2 months of the launch of mGinger, many other such sites came up, claiming to do exactly the same thing. Even the names of these sites were just a minor variation of mGinger. Some of these folks even wrote blogs claiming that mGinger was fake (I’m not going to mention the names or provide any links here. Those guys don’t deserve any publicity). They tried to “steal” users from mGinger by offering to pay more for each ad. Unsurprisingly, most of these guys vanished after a while; whereas mGinger still continues to get mentioned in the press. (For example here, here and here)
It’s not surprising in business world to see people blindly copying others. But you would expect these folks to at least think about a decent strategy before challenging the existing players. Take the example of Youmint now. Here are the 3 things they are promising. Let’s see how “unique” and clever their strategy is.
1) Get paid when you or your network receive Ads.
This is the crux of the business model (you’ll see why) and it’s a direct copy of mGinger concept. As per Youmint
- What you get each time you get a promo SMS – Rs 0.20
- What you get when a friend you referred get a promo – Rs 0.10
- What you get when a friend of the friend you referred gets a promo – Rs 0.05
They don’t even bother to offer a different amount.
And in the house rules section, they mention
“And you need to have a minimum of Rs 300 in your account for us to cut you a cheque”
The “Rs. 300” part is again taken from mGinger.
Ask these guys, why they chose these numbers, I’m sure they won’t have a convincing answer.
2) Get paid when your referrals join Youmint.
Ah! Something new here. But as you’ll realize quickly, the money you get from this is not even going to buy you a decent meal. If you invite 20 friends and each of them, in turn, invite 20 other (a highly optimistic scenario) you’ll get only one time payment of Rs 110. Take a more realistic estimate. You invite 10 friends and each of them in turn invite 10 others, you’ll end up getting Rs 30 only.
So, on the face of it, even though Youmint looks to be doing something different, the users will soon realize that this is merely a window dressing.
3) Send “Free SMS” to your network.
mGinger has cleverly avoided stepping into any areas that would be seen as a threat to the telecom providers. Unfortunately, Youmint seem to have ignored the angle. If you allow, your users to send free SMS, you are cutting the revenue of the mobile service providers.
I don’t think they are going to take this lightly.
Most of these services buy bulk SMS packs from MSPs. So one SMS might cost them almost half of what it costs the regular users. What Youmint is trying to do is to get the advertisers sponsor these SMSs. Advertisers would be willing to do this, because the cost of the SMS is already much lower; whereas they perhaps would be unwilling to sponsor a regular SMS. I think we can guess the reaction of the MSPs.
In the end, one more point to these guys. Here is what they have mentioned in the FAQ section
“So basically, you make enough to at least cover your mobile bill (and perhaps a coffee for us for coming up with this great idea!)”
Guys, isn’t it bad enough that you are just blatantly copying someone’s idea, do you now have to go around claiming that you came up with it in the first place? Lets hope you guys survive long enough to have that coffee though.
So what is their “unique” concept? You register with their site, invite friends to register, grow your network. Then you receive ads on your mobile, you not only get paid for these ads; you also get paid when someone in your network receives an ad.
Sounds familiar? Yes, around 6 months back, mGinger started this business model in India. Paying consumers for seeing ads was not something entirely new. But what mGinger brought into Indian market is this concept of incentivizing the users for building a network.
Within 2 months of the launch of mGinger, many other such sites came up, claiming to do exactly the same thing. Even the names of these sites were just a minor variation of mGinger. Some of these folks even wrote blogs claiming that mGinger was fake (I’m not going to mention the names or provide any links here. Those guys don’t deserve any publicity). They tried to “steal” users from mGinger by offering to pay more for each ad. Unsurprisingly, most of these guys vanished after a while; whereas mGinger still continues to get mentioned in the press. (For example here, here and here)
It’s not surprising in business world to see people blindly copying others. But you would expect these folks to at least think about a decent strategy before challenging the existing players. Take the example of Youmint now. Here are the 3 things they are promising. Let’s see how “unique” and clever their strategy is.
1) Get paid when you or your network receive Ads.
This is the crux of the business model (you’ll see why) and it’s a direct copy of mGinger concept. As per Youmint
- What you get each time you get a promo SMS – Rs 0.20
- What you get when a friend you referred get a promo – Rs 0.10
- What you get when a friend of the friend you referred gets a promo – Rs 0.05
They don’t even bother to offer a different amount.
And in the house rules section, they mention
“And you need to have a minimum of Rs 300 in your account for us to cut you a cheque”
The “Rs. 300” part is again taken from mGinger.
Ask these guys, why they chose these numbers, I’m sure they won’t have a convincing answer.
2) Get paid when your referrals join Youmint.
Ah! Something new here. But as you’ll realize quickly, the money you get from this is not even going to buy you a decent meal. If you invite 20 friends and each of them, in turn, invite 20 other (a highly optimistic scenario) you’ll get only one time payment of Rs 110. Take a more realistic estimate. You invite 10 friends and each of them in turn invite 10 others, you’ll end up getting Rs 30 only.
So, on the face of it, even though Youmint looks to be doing something different, the users will soon realize that this is merely a window dressing.
3) Send “Free SMS” to your network.
mGinger has cleverly avoided stepping into any areas that would be seen as a threat to the telecom providers. Unfortunately, Youmint seem to have ignored the angle. If you allow, your users to send free SMS, you are cutting the revenue of the mobile service providers.
I don’t think they are going to take this lightly.
Most of these services buy bulk SMS packs from MSPs. So one SMS might cost them almost half of what it costs the regular users. What Youmint is trying to do is to get the advertisers sponsor these SMSs. Advertisers would be willing to do this, because the cost of the SMS is already much lower; whereas they perhaps would be unwilling to sponsor a regular SMS. I think we can guess the reaction of the MSPs.
In the end, one more point to these guys. Here is what they have mentioned in the FAQ section
“So basically, you make enough to at least cover your mobile bill (and perhaps a coffee for us for coming up with this great idea!)”
Guys, isn’t it bad enough that you are just blatantly copying someone’s idea, do you now have to go around claiming that you came up with it in the first place? Lets hope you guys survive long enough to have that coffee though.
The Office Jerk
There are three kinds of people who work in offices. First, there is a tiny minority who are the honest and sincere workers trying to do their job as well as they can. The second group, which actually is the vast majority, consists of people who just go through the day to day life without putting too much of an effort into their jobs. And then somewhere in between (in terms of numbers) lies the third group whom I like to call the office jerks.
You know the type; these guys act as if they are carrying the entire business on their shoulders. Whenever they meet you in the office, which is generally when they sneak into your cube with a cup of coffee in their hands, they never fail to tell you how challenging and difficult their job is (even if the only work they do is to make sure that the code is properly formatted). Then they give you that look of complete disdain and loathing, when you tell them about your work (even if you are managing a product that contributes several millions of dollars to company’s top line).
If you are saying that you have never met such a person in office, then it means either you are working from home since you have been employed or you work as a night watchman in a cemetery.
Here is an example of how a typical conversation between the office jerk (hereafter called OJ) and an honest worker (whom we'll call...ummmmm.... say.. M) would look like. (This, of course, is a completely hypothetical example)
OJ: Hey M, saw your blog. Nice work man.
M: Thanks OJ
OJ: So, have they not given you a project yet?
M: I beg your pardon?
OJ: I mean, you must be having a lot of free time to write blogs like this.
M: (takes several deep breaths and counts up to 5 before speaking) I write the blog in my off hours; that is generally late evenings or weekends.
OJ: Oh! No wonder you get free time in the evening. I think you leave office very early.. around 7 pm. Whereas I stay here till 9pm. Almost two hours more than you. I don’t get much free time in the evenings.
M: (thinks for a while whether to maintain a calm dignity or point out the obvious flaw in the argument. After couple of milliseconds of deep thinking decides “to hell with dignity”) But OJ, don’t you come to office around lunch hours and even then you don’t go to your desk till 1:30 pm. Whereas I come to office around 8:30am. So if you do the math, actually I work 3 hours more than you everyday.
OJ: Come on M. It’s not the number of hours you work that matters; what matters is how much work you put into those hours (a rip off from the employee guide.. OJs are not capable of coming up with statements like that on their own)
M: I think you started the comparison of work hours.
OJ: You shouldn’t take my words literally. By the way I never see you in the office in weekends. Seems like your project is a pretty easy one.
M: No, I think what it means is I manage my work well and make sure that my team doesn’t have to work on weekends.
OJ: Ah! But see I look at it differently. I always come to office in weekends, just to make myself available.
M: To whom? Nobody else is there.
OJ: You know just in case of some emergency.
M: But isn’t there a different team that handles the emergency situation in production servers. Your role doesn’t even come in that escalation path.
OJ: But no harm being there for the team.
M: (decides not to bring up the free lunch angle) So when you are just “being there”, what exactly do you do?
OJ: You know surf net, download movies, chat with friends.
M: And you think that’s more creative than writing blog? Anyway, what are you trying to tell me is you spend so many hours in the office doing nothing and you think you deserve credit for that?
OJ: See, I don’t think you get my point. It doesn’t matter whether you work or not, what matters is how many hours you are in the office… .err what happened? Why are you looking at me like that?
M: Never mind…
You know the type; these guys act as if they are carrying the entire business on their shoulders. Whenever they meet you in the office, which is generally when they sneak into your cube with a cup of coffee in their hands, they never fail to tell you how challenging and difficult their job is (even if the only work they do is to make sure that the code is properly formatted). Then they give you that look of complete disdain and loathing, when you tell them about your work (even if you are managing a product that contributes several millions of dollars to company’s top line).
If you are saying that you have never met such a person in office, then it means either you are working from home since you have been employed or you work as a night watchman in a cemetery.
Here is an example of how a typical conversation between the office jerk (hereafter called OJ) and an honest worker (whom we'll call...ummmmm.... say.. M) would look like. (This, of course, is a completely hypothetical example)
OJ: Hey M, saw your blog. Nice work man.
M: Thanks OJ
OJ: So, have they not given you a project yet?
M: I beg your pardon?
OJ: I mean, you must be having a lot of free time to write blogs like this.
M: (takes several deep breaths and counts up to 5 before speaking) I write the blog in my off hours; that is generally late evenings or weekends.
OJ: Oh! No wonder you get free time in the evening. I think you leave office very early.. around 7 pm. Whereas I stay here till 9pm. Almost two hours more than you. I don’t get much free time in the evenings.
M: (thinks for a while whether to maintain a calm dignity or point out the obvious flaw in the argument. After couple of milliseconds of deep thinking decides “to hell with dignity”) But OJ, don’t you come to office around lunch hours and even then you don’t go to your desk till 1:30 pm. Whereas I come to office around 8:30am. So if you do the math, actually I work 3 hours more than you everyday.
OJ: Come on M. It’s not the number of hours you work that matters; what matters is how much work you put into those hours (a rip off from the employee guide.. OJs are not capable of coming up with statements like that on their own)
M: I think you started the comparison of work hours.
OJ: You shouldn’t take my words literally. By the way I never see you in the office in weekends. Seems like your project is a pretty easy one.
M: No, I think what it means is I manage my work well and make sure that my team doesn’t have to work on weekends.
OJ: Ah! But see I look at it differently. I always come to office in weekends, just to make myself available.
M: To whom? Nobody else is there.
OJ: You know just in case of some emergency.
M: But isn’t there a different team that handles the emergency situation in production servers. Your role doesn’t even come in that escalation path.
OJ: But no harm being there for the team.
M: (decides not to bring up the free lunch angle) So when you are just “being there”, what exactly do you do?
OJ: You know surf net, download movies, chat with friends.
M: And you think that’s more creative than writing blog? Anyway, what are you trying to tell me is you spend so many hours in the office doing nothing and you think you deserve credit for that?
OJ: See, I don’t think you get my point. It doesn’t matter whether you work or not, what matters is how many hours you are in the office… .err what happened? Why are you looking at me like that?
M: Never mind…
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