BANGALORE - Last week, Gartner claimed that half of enterprises are wasting money on social media. But Indian CIOs who are bullish on the social media space vehemently defend their digital marketing spends by claiming that it does indeed link back to measurable business outcomes.

“Having a million likes on your Facebook page or a million followers on Twitter may not make a social media campaign successful. It needs to translate into a revenue mechanism that affects the profitability of the business,” feels Ranendra Dutta,VP-IT, Sabmiller India.
He agrees it is tough to do. “You need to support your social media activity with secondary market research data of sales revenue, then you might be able to draw a co-relation, but it is tough to do,” he adds.

Many like Dutta however agree that social media should be measured not as a standalone activity, rather as part of a larger digital marketing strategy. “In a marketing campaign, do you calculate the ROI of the collaterals?” asks V.S. Parthasarathy, group CIO, Mahindra & Mahindra.

Mahindra and Mahindra’s digital marketing strategy has helped the company bring down transaction costs, build valuable leads of potential customers and increase focus of customer expectation. In fact, Mahindra and Mahindra’s digital marketing activities has won laurels at a Harvard Social media Conference.

Companies today are spending on acquiring expertise in social and digital marketing as well as in tool that is helping them analyze that data. While only a few have started porting that data into their BI platforms, CRM activities like lead generation, crowd sourcing have started to bring in visible effects.

Companies like Mahindra & Mahindra and Sabmiller are extremely bullish in the social media space and have linked it to their larger digital marketing strategy. Sabmiller for example is running a campaign called ‘the Coolest Job’ on Facebook to promote a relatively unknown malt alcohol-beverage brand Miller High Life. The page received 37,000 job submissions and gained over 100,000 new Facebook India fans (from zero).

Mahindra & Mahindra, on the other hand, has been able to not only boost sales by drawing people into their showrooms, but also cut down their transaction costs. “Social media eliminates the cost of a third-party recommendation agency. Take Mahindra Holidays, for example. Today people customize their own holidays and follow reviews of other travelers to make their decisions. Social media has automated business processes that otherwise would’ve been a cost to the company,” says Parthasarthy.

BI tools in the market have yet to reach a sophistication level wherein they can be used beyond a reporting tool, and understand the underlying emotions and sentimental value of Tweets and Facebook posts. However, social media front runners like TATA Docomo and Hungama.com are studying the online behavior of their customers that has helped them in dishing out targeted content.

“We’ve invested significantly in software as well as hardware to study the online behavior of our customers, on our site as well as various social media platforms. Our analytics tools help us understand where our customers are coming from, what are they browsing and what songs they are downloading, helping us service them better? I can directly co-relate this with my revenue, “says Manan Chhatrapati, CTO, Hungama.com.

Tata Docomo has delivered over two billion message impressions per month on Facebook alone, and is currently the second highest ranked Indian media on Facebook, according to Brands Going Social. Ashish Pachory, head IT, Tata Teleservices has deployed web-crawler and associated tools to gain deeper insights into customer sentiments on Social Media. “The available information is analyzed using social media analytics to intelligently identify and resolve customer pain areas. The information also helps us in market analyses of products launched by Tata DOCOMO and other telecom players. Most importantly, it helps us understand behaviors and trends to do targeted market launches and arrest any negative sentiment before it hurts our customers or our business,” he says.
He adds, “It aids timely planning and prioritization of product launches, while also helping in reduction of customer complaints, thus helping us increase our revenues quickly.”

Social media is an open medium, and more importantly it’s free. “There very well might be a day when these sites will start charging companies who are using this medium to connect with their customers and advertise their products. It’s about time we started measuring the returns because the cost of not being on social media is way too high,” concludes Dutta.

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SINGAPORE - Governments around the world face a new reality of citizen expectations and need to shift the ways they deliver public services, according to an Accenture survey.

“The more governments understand their citizens’ needs, preferences and intent, the more relevant their digital programmes will be,” said Peter Goh, who leads Accenture’s Health & Public Service business in Singapore.

He was quoting results from an Accenture online study that surveyed more than 1,400 citizens in seven countries, with about 200 each in Australia, France, Germany, India, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom - to better understand the current digital interactions between citizens and government.

One-third of the respondents said they are not aware of the ways to interact with the government digitally, which provides an opportunity for governments to better communicate the benefits of digital channels to citizens.

“Digital citizens are empowered in ways that previous generations could only imagine. They can initiate and dictate the dynamics of citizen-to-government relationships with a tweet, blog post or Facebook message sent to hundreds of people from their smart phone,” said Goh.

For Singapore, the government’s long standing efforts to set up digital online systems for citizens to use government-related services are bearing fruit.

The Accenture survey said that more than half the citizens surveyed in Singapore believe that interacting with their government is easy, and 80 percent find it easier to interact with government than private-sector companies,

One of the survey’s key findings determined that about 70 percent of Singaporeans surveyed would use social media to contact a government official to resolve a problem. But only 35 percent of respondents in Australia and 40 percent of respondents in the U.S. said they would use social media to contact a government official.

Singapore also has the highest likelihood to make use of digital services out of all countries; the most commonly used being electronic alerts for recurring transactions such as renewal of passports and payment of monthly bills.

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BANGALORE - Microsoft is all set to get a $250 million windfall when it sells 20 percent of its estimated 1.8 percent stake in Facebook in the forthcoming initial public offering (IPO) of the social networking giant. At the higher end of the proposed $34-$38 per share price band for the IPO, Microsoft’s entire stake in Facebook would be valued at about $1.25 billion.
According to the latest regulatory filing by Facebook — Amendment to Form S-1 Registration Statement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on May 15 — Microsoft is selling a little over 6.5 million of its approximately 32.7 million shares in Facebook, which would net Microsoft about $249.1 million. If the underwriters to the Facebook IPO fully exercise their option to purchase additional shares, then Microsoft would net an additional $37 million by selling an additional 983,000 shares. This could boost the current windfall to over $285 million from the IPO.
Microsoft had, in October 2007 or about 5 years ago, invested $240 million in Facebook in a deal which valued the social networking giant at about $15 billion. At that time it had beaten internet giant Google to the deal.
When Microsoft invested in Facebook, News Corp’s MySpace.com was the leader in social networking. However, since then, Facebook has become the undisputed leader in its space leaving rivals way behind.
The current IPO values Facebook at a little over $104 billion at the higher end of the $34-$38 per share price band.

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SAN FRANCISCO - When Facebook goes public, it will enter a new world full of shareholder meetings, earnings reports, and the constant pressure to turn an increasingly bigger profit. But the Facebook IPO isn’t just about making money; it’s also about expanding the network, in pursuit of Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of a more connected world. With that in mind, here are four challenges Facebook will face after its public offering is complete:
Regain User Trust

Although Facebook’s numerous privacy transgressions haven’t stunted its growth, they appear to be taking their toll on users’ attitudes toward the service. A recent AP-CNBC survey of Facebook users found that 59 percent don’t trust the social network to keep their information private, and 54 percent wouldn’t feel safe purchasing goods and services through Facebook. That could be a problem as Facebook tries to push social networking into more aspects of our lives.
To earn trust back, Facebook needs to be more transparent about what happens to user data, especially with third-party apps and Websites. Too often, users share information by accident, because Facebook relegates important details to the fine print. This only cements Facebook’s reputation as a company that doesn’t care enough about privacy.
More Mobile Dominance

Facebook is already one of the most popular phone apps, reaching 80 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers over the age of 18, according to Comscore. But the social network could be much bigger than it already is, if only it could bring its own app ecosystem to phones and tablets. So far, rumors of a Facebook phone haven’t come to fruition, nor has the chatter about a browser-based mobile platform for Facebook apps. That doesn’t mean Facebook can sit on the sidelines forever. Eventually the company may try to become a major mobile player, with direct control over Facebook-connected apps and services.
Fix Frictionless Sharing

By allowing users to share links and other details about their lives with zero effort, Facebook has also created chaos. Facebook’s so-called “frictionless sharing,” which lets apps automatically publish details about what users are doing, is a fire hose of mostly worthless information. As Slate’s Farhad Manjoo argued, automatic sharing crushes our ability to show good taste, burying truly useful information among the noise. And of course, it also leads to embarrassing cases of accidental sharing. At the core of frictionless sharing is a good idea: Telling friends about your life should be easy. But right now, it’s too easy, the point that it’s a repellant for people who don’t always want to be plugged in to a social network.
Don’t Grow Complacent

As Facebook gets bigger, it will face the same challenge as does every major tech company: Stay nimble enough to fend off smaller, scrappier competitors. With Instagram, Facebook took the easy way out by acquiring the start-up for $1 billion–a deal that has yet to be approved by regulators. There will be more companies like Instagram in the future, and Facebook can’t simply acquire them all.

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SAN FRANCISCO - Mozilla released a new beta version of its popular Firefox browser for Android on Tuesday.
Firefox for Android supports more than 70 devices running different versions of the operating system–from Android 2.2 (”Froyo”) to Android 4.0 (”Ice Cream Sandwich”). The beta is only available for phones (not tablets), and in English at this time, but Mozilla plans to add support for tablets and other languages “soon.”
New features in the beta version include:
A redesigned user interface with a new “Awesome Screen”
Significant performance enhancements, including improved startup and response times, graphics performance and panning and zooming, as well as hardware acceleration for better responsiveness from Web apps, games and photos
Flash support
A new start page with Top Sites
Better text readability through font size inflation
Plug-ins load by touch on default
Updated minimum system requirements to improve performance for phones running Froyo

“We are always working on a beta here at Mozilla, but this one is special because we’ve done a lot of extra work to add features, improve performance and address things that make mobile browsing faster and easier,” the browser maker wrote in a blog post announcing the new beta version.

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SAN FRANCISCO - After more than a year of active testing and debate over LightSquared’s plan for a nationwide, wholesale 4G network, the now bankrupt company may end up as no more than a cautionary tale for mobile investors.

Industry observers say there are three things that might bring some value to LightSquared’s main asset, a chunk of disputed radio spectrum: The company could swap the spectrum for another block, sell it to another carrier, or win a lawsuit against the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. But all three are unlikely, they said.

LightSquared filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, declaring assets of US$4.48 billion and debts of $2.29 billion. Lengthy negotiations with its creditors failed to produce an agreement on how to handle the debt. Philip Falcone, whose Harbinger Capital Partners owns most of LightSquared, said in a statement that declaring bankruptcy will give the company more time to gain regulatory approval for its network. In its bankruptcy filing on Monday, the company acknowledged that getting permission to build its network may take two years, a prediction some observers say is optimistic.

LightSquared and its predecessor companies had won approvals from the FCC to launch an LTE mobile data network using spectrum located next to the frequencies used by GPS. It planned to sell access to that network at wholesale to other carriers, alongside service on satellites that are already in the air. But a waiver that let the company sell those services separately was conditioned on resolving any interference that might affect GPS. Based on tests that showed continued interference, the FCC said in February it would kill LightSquared’s LTE plan.

With FCC approval, spectrum that had been awarded to LightSquared’s predecessor companies without an auction would have been transformed into a much more valuable commodity, because cellular data is far more popular than the spectrum’s original purpose, satellite mobile services. But as Falcone learned, not all mobile deals are a sure bet.

“I think it’s a lesson for the investment community that there are a lot of technology and commercial considerations that come into these types of network deployments … that are outside of the norm,” said Tolaga Research analyst Phil Marshall. “You need to be quite conservative when looking at spectrum.”

As the FCC and mobile operators seek additional spectrum to fuel networks that can satisfy consumers’ demands for high-speed data, LightSquared’s travails may be repeated in other bands, Marshall said. Efforts to use frequencies in the 2.3GHz and 1.5GHz bands may reveal interference concerns, he said. “There certainly are other places where this can or will occur,” Marshall said.

LightSquared, insisting on its rights to the so-called L-Band spectrum where it planned to deploy its network, has said the FCC is obligated to swap that spectrum for another band if it doesn’t allow the LTE network. That solution probably can’t happen soon, if ever.

“If the FCC were to do a spectrum swap, they would basically be saying, ‘Yeah, we made a mistake,’” Marshall said. In addition, that would set a precedent that the FCC doesn’t want, giving a company spectrum in return for frequencies that it never unconditionally controlled, he said.

With a U.S. presidential election coming up in November, political considerations will at least delay a resolution of the regulatory tangle, said TMF Associates analyst Tim Farrar.

“If it was going to happen, [a spectrum swap] obviously wouldn’t happen until after the election,” Farrar said. Partly as a result of that concern, Falcone will try to maintain control of the bankruptcy restructuring process for as long as possible, he said. After a defined period, he would have to cede some control of that process to creditors. “His focus would be on preserving control though to the end of the year,” Farrar said.

Rather than a pure swap of its troubled spectrum for a cleaner band, LightSquared may pursue a deal to repurpose the L-Band for a portion of someone else’s service, Farrar believes. A plan by Dish Network to launch an LTE network on another piece of satellite spectrum, which doesn’t have the interference concerns of the L-Band, is now pending before the FCC. If the agency combined its proceedings about Dish’s and LightSquared’s satellite bands, it might be able to assign the L-Band frequencies as part of Dish’s service, specifically for upstream transmissions from client devices, Farrar said.

Limiting that band to upstream use by radios in phones and tablets, rather than the much more powerful ones in base stations, might make the spectrum useful without running a major risk of interference, Farrar said. That would give it value to Dish, which would then buy the spectrum to beef up its cellular performance.

However, testing that solution for interference would take time that Dish might not want to spend, considering it already has an LTE plan just using the spectrum it already knows about.

“At least it’s a technically reasonably logical possibility. Whether it’s desirable from a financial and a regulatory point of view is the question,” Farrar said.

Marshall doubts that Dish wants to take on the risk of that interference testing.

“I would be surprised if Dish got themselves … financially incumbent on that,” he said.

If it can’t get satisfaction from the FCC through either of those arrangements, LightSquared may well sue the government, observers say. The company has used increasingly hawkish language in referring to what it sees as its rights to use the spectrum, while simultaneously hiring top-notch legal talent. LightSquared says any interference is caused by GPS receivers instead of its base stations and that the FCC needs to secure the L-Band frequencies for its use.

A lawsuit against the FCC is likely, according to Farrar. However, that suit would be hard and could backfire if the agency found evidence that LightSquared pursued its network plan knowing it would lead to interference.

“I think it’s a very risky strategy,” Farrar said.

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Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 has come out on top among three commercial solutions in dedicated testing by the independent test lab AV-Test.org. The Kaspersky Lab solution was up against products from Symantec and BitDefender and was the clear leader in terms of dynamic and static detection of online banking threats.

Online banking threats are considered to be among the most sophisticated and dangerous features of cybercriminal activity. In the first quarter of 2012 alone, Kaspersky Lab experts detected an average of 7,800 new online banking Trojans per month. This means effective protection against this particular type of malware is especially important.

The March 2012 evaluation by AV-Test.org made use of 70 of the most recent malware samples, all of them boasting functionality capable of accessing users’ online banking accounts or payment systems. The products were tested on physical machines running Windows 7 with Internet access and all protection features enabled.

The three security products were subjected to three different types of tests. Detection level was evaluated in static and dynamic tests. The products were also assessed on the quality of remediation of an infected machine.

In the static testing Kaspersky Lab’s product achieved a 99.3% detection rate. The BitDefender solution came second with 94.6%, while the product from Symantec demonstrated a much lower performance rate, detecting just 38.7% of the online banking samples.

In dynamic testing, which better reflects real user scenarios, Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 was the only product to achieve a 100% detection rate. The result for the second-best vendor was 97.8% and the third achieved 95.6%.

In the most complex remediation tests on an infected system Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 led the field again in terms of the disinfection rate for all active components.

“Online banking threats present the greatest danger, as an infection can result in the very real loss of money from a credit card or bank account. The test methods chosen by AV-Test.org were stringent, as the use of the very latest malware samples testifies,” said Oleg Ishanov, Director of Anti-Malware Research at Kaspersky Lab.

“The results show that among the most advanced security products the Kaspersky Lab solution is the leader when it comes to detecting modern financial malware. Importantly, our product also performed strongly in static, dynamic and remediation tests. For end users it means that in a real-life scenario, Kaspersky will better protect their money from the latest and the most complex threats,” Ishanov added.

A detailed report on AV-Test.org’s online banking test is available at http://www.kaspersky.com/downloads/pdf/av-test_online_banking_report_march_2012.pdf

For further information about the company, please visit http://www.kaspersky.com.

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SAN FRANCISCO - When Pixorial updated its video-sharing iOS app last month, the company added a feature its competitors couldn’t yet match: Integration with the new Google Drive cloud storage service.
“One of our main goals is to eventually allow people to have their videos anywhere, anytime, on any device,” said John Martyniak, Pixorial’s senior vice president of products and services, later adding: “A lot of people use Dropbox, or they’re starting to use Google Drive. For us to be able to add our service to that, it’s a no-brainer.”

Pixorial was first out of the gate because Google designated it a “launch partner” for the service. But will other iOS app developers follow? And with cloud-based storage services proliferating–Google Drive is joined by Apple’s iCloud and Microsoft’s SkyDrive in chasing a market that has been dominated until now by services like Dropbox and Box–how will developers choose?
Among app developers surveyed by Macworld in recent days, there is wariness.

“I don’t think I will be adding any additional cloud services to the app just yet,” said Samer Abousalbi, co-founder of Capparsa, developer of the Dropbox-integrated Compositions writing app. “I mostly don’t want to chase new drive services every time they come out, because it complicates supporting the app.”
Chad Sellers of Useful Fruit Software, which makes the Dropbox-integrated Pear Note note-taking app, agreed: “As a small dev shop, I don’t have the time to support lots of services. I understand the excitement around other services, but I can’t justify the time it takes to support them at this time.”
But Justin Brock, a marketer for Notability app developer Ginger Labs, said his company is considering adding Google Drive integration. Convenience must be weighed against clutter, he said.
“On one hand, users often want more choices; each person has his or her preferred service and want to provide for that user,” Brock said. “But, on the other hand, all users want a clear interface without choices cluttering the screen or interfering with functionality. So, we work to balance these forces when we select what features and services to add.”

Other developers said that two things must happen for Google Drive to earn their support: Grow an audience and show commitment. App creators remember all too well failed services like Google Wave and Google Buzz.
“We’d love to know how many people are actively using Google Drive a few months after launch,” said Zulfiqar Shah of Zaal, the developer behind the Contacts Journal application. “If it eclipses Dropbox as the premier choice for file storage for many people, then it would be interesting to look at as a way of reaching out to new users.
“If it’s going to be another Google Buzz,” she added, “then we’ll pass.”

Abousalbi agreed. “When it comes to Google products, I can’t help but worry that they will pull the plug on it at any time like other services,” he said. “Dropbox is much more focused–they only do storage and they do it real well.

Other developers don’t see the big deal, however. Readdle already includes Google Docs integration in its ReaddleDocs and PDF Expert apps, company spokeswoman Irene Chernyavska pointed out. That service can sync with Google Drive for customers who want to use it.
And, she added, it is app customers who will determine whether developers ultimately flock to Google Drive. “We measure the market, we try to understand and analyze what people use,” Chernyavska said. “We add (services), according to the requests from our users.”

Back at Pixorial, Martyniak says he expects his company’s app to eventually add integration with other cloud-based services. But he’s happy with Google Drive, saying it offers “pretty solid” integration with Pixorial.

“We want the connection to be a seamless as possible,” he said. Google Drive, he said, “is a very straightforward and simple way to do that.”

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SYDNEY - The last few years have not been kind to Japanese electronics vendors such as Sony, which has seen its grip on the market slip to competitors.

This came to a head recently when Sony announced it will lose US$6.4 billion this year and the company’s shares hit a 31-year low in Tokyo trading.

But what is the cause of Sony’s woes?

According to a recent article by the New York Times, titled How the Tech Parade Passed Sony By, it is due to the company having an “astonishing lack of ideas” and not making “any money” in years due to its complete lack of a “hit product.”

However, ask Sony and it will strongly disagree with the sentiment.

“We are not out of ideas and probably the opposite is true, where we’ve been accused of having too many ideas,” Sony A/NZ managing director, Carl Rose, said in an exclusive interview with ARN.

To back up his claim, Rose points to how Sony has been innovating with products such as the Personal 3D Viewer, where the user can immerse themselves in a 3D experience, as well as Digital Recording Binoculars that bring 3D video recording to the long distance viewing device.

“We’re returning focus to our business and the products we offer, while continuing to revolutionise the electronics industry,” he said.

Gartner electronics analyst, Paul O’Donovan, views the assumption that Sony has been struggling in recent years due to lack of ideas as “complete boulderdash” and “rubbish”.

“Sony has certainly had some ideas and they have continued to be innovative,” he said.

O’Donovan instead blamed Sony’s problems on “not innovating in the right area” or being unable to put in enough money into R&D to push these new technologies forward.

“For example, they brought out OLED TVs a few years ago, but the yields weren’t very good and they didn’t persist with the technology to bring and push it to the market,” he said.

As for the accusation that Sony is not making money due the lack of a “hit product”, Rose doesn’t think this was the case.

“We’ve actually had numerous hit products including our NEX range of E-mount cameras, which Time Magazine even declared its ‘product of the year,’” he said.

The success of the PlayStation hardware and software was also highlighted by both Rose and O’Donovan as an example of a hit product by Sony that has brought money into company.

However, Rose does concede that Sony has faced incredible adversity in recent years, including the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the floods in Thailand last year, which all affected its bottom line.

O’Donovan also said the current PlayStation 3 console has “not been quite as successful” as Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which has not helped Sony’s current predicament.

The question remains though: If the root cause of the losses at Sony isn’t a lack of ideas then what is?

Ostensibly, the answer probably lies in Sony’s underperforming TV division that had had its sales eroded by cheaper offerings from Korean competitors and a sluggish TV market in general.

Despite Sony’s loses encompassing its global operation, the silver lining is that Sony in Australia is performing quite well compared to other markets, with Rose confirming to ARN that Sony A/NZ is “a profitable organisation”.

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FRAMINGHAM - Apple on Monday issued its first security-related update for OS X 10.5, or Leopard, in nearly a year, to disable long-outdated versions of Adobe’s Flash Player.

Security Update 2012-003 does not patch any known vulnerabilities, but is instead a Leopard-specific version of what Apple released last week for OS X 10.6, or Snow Leopard, and the newer OS X 10.7, better known as Lion.

Like those updates, 2012-003 for Leopard removes versions of Flash Player older than 10.1.102.64. Adobe issued that edition of Flash in November 2010. It was also the final version Apple delivered to its customers before it stopped maintaining Flash.

Monday’s update will not be installed on PowerPC-equipped Macs running Leopard.

On May 9, Apple disabled older copies of Flash Player on Snow Leopard and Lion using an update to Safari 5.1.7. Because that version of Apple’s browser doesn’t support Leopard, the company instead updated the operating system.

The newest version of Flash Player for Leopard is 10.3.183.19, which was released earlier this month. That newest version, which requires an Intel processor, can be downloaded from Adobe’s website.

Also on Monday, Apple released a version of the Flashback malware removal tool designed for Leopard. Apple had offered the same tool to Snow Leopard and Lion users on April 12.

The Flashback seek-and-destroy tool was Apple’s response to a massive campaign that exploited a Java vulnerability to infect hundreds of thousands of Macs.

Apple still maintains Java for users of Snow Leopard and Lion, but last patched the Oracle software for Leopard users in June 2011.

Unlike the Snow Leopard and Lion Flashback removal tool update, the one for Leopard said nothing about automatically disabling the Java plug-in used by browsers such as Safari, Chrome or Firefox.

Security experts and pundits have blasted Apple for its sluggish patching of Java bugs and for dropping support for older operating systems too quickly.

It’s unlikely that Monday’s Leopard updates signal a change in Apple’s support policy since they do not address any security vulnerabilities that may exist in Leopard.

Monday’s updates were the first that Apple has shipped for Leopard since November 2011, when it patched a bug in iTunes 10.5.1. The last operating system security update applicable to OS X 10.5 was delivered in June 2011.

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