Category Archives: Applications

The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) trap!

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Before your read this post, I suggest you go over to Hacker Street India and glance through this thread – How much time it took for the first version (MVP) of your product!

If you don’t know much about MVP, glimpse quickly through the Wikipedia post on – Minimum Viable Product. The definition: “The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”

There is much ambiguity in this definition. Lot of judgement is required by the startup founders to define what exactly is MVP version for their product since there are no bullet points to clearly define that. That exactly is a MVP trap!

If you were to build a Social Networking site today, the benchmark for minimum viable product is Facebook. A user will expect all existing features of Facebook to be in your product! For a email service the benchmark is Gmail. For a mobile phone messaging app it is WhatsApp. For a social QnA product it is Quora. For a crowd-funding platform it is Kickstarter. For a phone operating system it is Android / iOS. For search it is Google. For a tablet device it is the Apple iPad.

Early adopters loved the first version of Gmail because it was so much better (and fast) than existing products – Yahoo / Hotmail. They loved the first version of iPhone because it was much better (and usable) than Nokia or Blackberry or Palm then available. On other hand, Bing did not see a great adoption because it was another search engine with no compelling reason for users to switch from Google. Similarly, early adopters saw Microsoft Windows Phone as a different OS for mobile which did all that a Android / iOS phone did differently (different but not better).

If the idea of MVP is showing the product to early adopters and collecting quick feedback, most of that consumer feedback will be based on their comparisons with other products they use on an ongoing basis. To create a wow factor and a compelling reason for users to switch to your product, the minimum viable product you roll out should basically not just exceed current market standards but should also be much better than current offerings.

Otherwise MVP is a trap. Getting a so called minimum viable product (defined by yourself) out in 30 days makes no sense. Every product is different. No product was successful cause its minimum viable product was out in 30 days. You can boast about how quickly you rolled it out, collect feedback from users / customers (most of this feedback is predictable and chances are you would already know about it) and keep building features. Define MVP as not something you can roll out fast, but something that is more valuable than existing product. MVP should not mean Minimum Viable Product. MVP = More Valuable product! (suggested by Nischal)

This is also true for service companies. If you are building a ecommerce company today in India, customers would expect not just similar online transaction experience but also the same level of reliability in logistics or customer support as provided by Flipkart or HomeShop18..

Is there a way out of this? Yes – build really innovating products that don’t have existing benchmarks so you can define one yourself and for others to follow. Or build products in a domain were market leaders are yet to be established.

To succeed, you have to build a better product than one available in the market or innovate and build something that does not exists already! Post that stage you can – Build. Ship. Market. Learn. Build. Let the cycle go on.

Remember, the bar for Minimum Viable Product / Service is very high!

img credit: waltimo on flickr

Why Mobile First is not the Right Strategy!

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Startup events and Investor talks today have this catch phrase – ‘Mobile First’. Its actually started two years back when Fred Wilson wrote a post that says “Mobile First Web Second.”

I recently tweeted, “Can write a post why ‘Mobile First’ is not a right strategy!”. The response to that made me write this post.

Why I said that?
There are some brilliant mobile apps created by startups in recent years, the biggest challenge for all of them is discovery. Few startups are working in this problem too – helping users to discover your mobile apps. The problem is – these startups themselves are struggling in getting users to discover them first.

Google’s Android has over 700,000 apps in Play Store. Apple’s iOS App Store has over 700,000 apps. Assuming these were unique, as a entrepreneur, your startup has to fight with over 699,999 competitors on user’s smartphone, who on an average has only 65 apps installed. Another trend, many users regularly uninstall apps they do not use; once uninstalled – it is very unlikely they will install it again!

Building a successful startup requires two skills – building a product and marketing it. I tweeted that few days back – “Building a product is one thing. Marketing it is another. Remember that!”

Building the Product
Product development in startup is not easy. Everyday there are at least 3-5 updates to the live web application. Even before users realize, they are using on the latest version of web app.

On mobile this is tricky, its impossible to send 3-5 daily releases for your mobile app everyday. Its even more trickier to get your users to download and upgrade the latest version of mobile app every time.

Marketing the Product
Turn around and look at web – what are the ways you can get your start up discovered – Natural Search, Paid Search, Display Marketing (Advt based or Behavior based targeting), Social, Email Marketing and so on. Most of these is very flexible, you can do it all.

On mobile, there is only one mode of discovery that works – Mobile Advertising. Its still not a easy mode of advertising; far expensive; spray and pray approach as its not intent driven (remember – no one is asking for your app!) like Google Adwords and extremely less efficient since its end result is not landing page with one-click sign-up, but its downloading the app, registering the user and retaining him as well.

Btw, I am a believer in products that are driven by value to customers; and not through marketing.

So how does one get Mobile Strategy right?
Glance through the smartphone and check the apps you are most actively using. Its Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Evernote, Quora and so on. These are essentially web first, mobile later products.

Effective Mobile Strategy is simple – get your product right on the web, acquire initial users, iterate your product (fast), get it right quickly, ensure engagement is in place. Once you have users engaged on the web, they will see value in your product to download your app and stay connected.

Hint – Look at Quora. It was valuable to its initial set of users who were so engaged with the product that they were screaming for getting a mobile app. Quora launched iOS app in Sept 2011; Android App a full year later in Sept 2012.

As a product manager, know that driving adoption and driving engagement for a product are two different things. Don’t try to drive adoption of your product through mobile, its extremely challenging and next to impossible. Instead use mobile as a extension of your product to drive engagement.

Then what about WhatsApp, Instagram, FourSquare, Pulse, Angry Birds and others?
I don’t think anyone has defined this yet, so let me say what are truly mobile first verticals –

  • Communication – If core of your product is deep integration with phone address book. (Eg, WhatsApp)
  • Location – If core of your product starts with location awareness. (Eg. FourSquare)
  • Camera – If core of your product starts with ‘taking’ photos. (Eg. Instagram)
  • Free Time – If core of your product is being valuable to user on the move or leisure time. (Eg. Games, News aggregation services like Pulse). Again extremely difficult category – you compete with Facebook, Twitter and 1000s of apps in this segment.

Yes. These products are not exceptions – they are truly mobile first products.

Wait, will VCs invest in my startup if I dump Mobile First approach?
Next time anyone suggests you or advises you to go Mobile First, just ask them tips to hack app discovery and drive adoption.

The games of investing are simple. VCs will invest only if –

  1. A proven team or experience entrepreneurs (at least 1X entrepreneurs)
  2. If consumer startup – then traction; if enterprise startup – then revenue.

I don’t think any VC will invest in your startup just because you are Mobile first. Take any strategy – web first or mobile first; as long as you get the above two things right for your product – VCs will chase you!

Concluding Notes:
While I was drafting this post, two interesting posts related to this topic came up.

Fred Wilson wrote following in his post “What has changed“, – “Distribution is much harder on mobile than web and we see a lot of mobile first startups getting stuck in the transition from successful product to large user base. strong product market fit is no longer enough to get to a large user base. you need to master the “download app, use app, keep using app, put it on your home screen” flow and that is a hard one to master.”

Cristina Cordova put up some interesting stats about User Retention in her post – “The Biggest Problem in Mobile: Retention.”

Restating it again as concluding remarks: “Mobile Strategy is simple. Get your product right on the web, acquire initial users, iterate your product, get it right, ensure engagement is in place. Once you have users engaged on the web, they will see value in your product to download your app to stay connected.”

Update: I received few notes from startup founders to also include a important note in this article which I missed – ‘Even when you build a web application, design your product as a responsive web design’. I completely agree.

Repost + Update: Isn’t it time to re-look how TRPs are measured?

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Few days back ( last week of July 2012) – NDTV filed lawsuit against Nielsen for manipulating TV & viewership data. Medianama highlighted few key notes from that – posted here. Later learned that even Prasar Bharati was considering legal action against TAM.

All of this reminded me of one of the posts I wrote last year (May 2011) – “Isn’t it time to re-look how TRPs are measured?“. Re-posting the same with small edits to reflect change over recent events and few additional notes.

—–

This post is dedicated to John Wanamaker, credited for setting advertising standards and considered by few as father of advertising. John Wanamaker died in 1922. Had John lived today – he would have some interesting quotes to share on RoI in digital advertising. This post is inspired by one of his very famous quotes – “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”


The term RoI became a buzz word ever since Digital advertising started to gain prominence in last few years. Talk to any brand manager today on digital spends through any channel – Search, Social, Display or Email – his quick conclusion on effectiveness of any campaign will be based on ROI. Online advertising has taught digital media professionals to be ROI-driven.

Pitch any campaign today on Digital – both Brand Manager and the Digital Marketer sound no less than a Investment Bankers trying to advice its client on a multi-million dollar deal discussing on its investment, returns, profitability and more. The same Brand Manager or Media Buyer will simply look at TRPs of any channel/program and allocate about 50% of its media spends to Television, distribute a significant chunk between Outdoors, Newspapers, Radio and leave a minuscule 5%-10% to Digital.

Well, this post is not about how Digital Medium today is perceived as ROI driven. This is very unlikely to change in coming years, maybe it is standard now. The question to raise is – isn’t it time to re-look how TRP ratings are measured rather than blindly accepting the reports as provided?

First – to know more about what is TRP and how they are measured using people meters – read this excellent post on Television Point.

For those who have not seen a People Meter – here is one below:

People Meter

credit: image source

 

Here are some questions usually asked about the authenticity of TRP ratings –

  • In India – TRP People Meters are installed only in 16 cities across 9 states; Less than 10,000 people meters are installed – would they be good enough to reflect insights on Television Viewership of a country as large and diverse in demographics & culture as India? (TAM on its about us section says 8150 homes in over 165 cities & towns.)
  • There is little or no transparency on number of households with People Meters installed, techniques of data collection & interpretation, and how the data is extrapolated to whole population. Are there any validations if the meters were correctly operated (they look difficult to operate) and data collected the way it should have been?
  • People Meters were always perceived as expensive devices since invention; with advancements in technology – why have the People Meters not proliferated to a wider reach? This QnA on Nielsen website suggests the cost is $5000 per year (which includes multiple operating and labor costs). Btw, a technologically advanced device like iPhone is much cheaper!
  • Is there any control by Government authorities on collection of this data and authenticity of same.
  • How will any marketer, advertiser or broadcaster challenge authenticity of the TRP ratings released.

And in world of digital economy, let me add few more questions to above arguments –

  • Now people are socially connected through social networks, it is very difficult to spot people who mention they have subscribed to People Meters (note – it is mentioned that their identity is secret.)
  • On Google’s image global index – there are not many images when you search for “people meter”.

In today’s world anything that happens in offline world leaves a footprint online. Absence of digital footprint for “people meter” wants me to question the proliferation of such devices in real world.

 

The DTH Effect –

Direct-to-Home (DTH) or Satellite Televisions are today immensely popular amongst masses. In India – its reach is 44 Million subscribers in November 2011; and India is probably the world leader in DTH subscriptions now. 44 Million would be a better representation of viewership data – compared to the dismal < 10,000 people meters installed in India.

aMap works with DTH service providers – but it is unlikely to capture data across all subscribers and might be following the people meter approach. Brand Managers are believed to be more inclined towards TRP ratings provided by TAM for decision making while aMap ratings are for reference.

Its most unfortunate if DTH platforms are unable to track viewership data. That is like Air Traffic Controllers saying – there are 500 planes in skies today – we are unaware of their origins & destinations, can confirm with pilots only when they land.

 

TRP Measurement – Its time to Change!
Fundamentally – People Meter approach will always be poor representation of the population. As spends on digital media start increasing and reaches a critical mass, sooner or later TRP measurement will be questioned by same decision makers who accept it blindly today.

Existing global players like Nielson, TNS, & others involved need to look beyond people meters – either with a better people meter / larger base for viewership data / or else a Government, TAM or another Neutral agency making it mandatory for DTH service providers to track viewership patterns.

Fortunately or Unfortunately, the future of TRP & GRP measurement will be digital. Here is overview of how possibly TRPs will be measured in digital world –

  • Develop applications across digital channels – Internet, Mobile (Java, iOS, Blackberry, Android, Symbian and others)
  • For every location (geo by country / location) – populate information stream of programs currently broadcasted at that time.
  • Allow users to select the programs they viewed and report the same back to the measuring system through the applications.
  • User demographics will known at time of App-Registration / FB Connect / or otherwise.

There may be ways to authenticate user viewership patterns. Instead of focusing on data collection through people meters, with same efforts & resources – it will be possible to crowdsource viewership data for programs and channels across millions of users – all in real time. The challenge for this apps will be – what incentive will consumers have to report such data.

Had toyed the idea of crowdsourcing public data – on Twitter / Facebook in real time to develop a WRP (Web Rating Points for Television Viewership). But for now this too might be a challenge – currently it is reflection of TIER 1/2 audience hooked on to Social Networking, which too will be a poor representation of diverse India (maybe another set of ratings that will be questionable like TRPs); Another challenge being – its far more easier to create duplicate accounts on Facebook / Twitter and further much easier to manipulate ratings.

Like many internet products today follow the rule – mobile first, web later; Television viewership in few years will be – digital first. And so will the viewership ratings or measurements too. You never know – maybe a Hulu.com or YouTube.com will provide us the future TRPs. Please glance through some of earlier thoughts shared on – The Future of Television.

Even in India, we are seeing a bunch of startups building products around Television Content – like iStream, iDubba, WhatsOnIndia, others. There is definitely some opportunity here for viewership tracking when ‘digital first’ television behavior picks up.

Future Prediction – by the year 2022 (exactly 100 years after John Wanamaker passed away) – people meters and traditional TRP measuring practices will be obsolete. They will be measured through digital medium! John Wanamaker would have proudly said – “Thanks to Digital, I know exactly which half of my advertising money is wasted!”

Building Awesome Social Products

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Number of Social Products are launched these days; everyday we come across a new one. While I am also busy building my own Social Product – sharing few of our learnings with other Entrepreneurs & Product Managers working on Social Products.

Social Graphs are all around us today – some like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter have extremely high adoption rate and have provisioned development frameworks for existing and new products to leverage social graphs behind them. Each of these social graphs are distinctive by type of connections and mindset its users have developed towards them.

Google+ has been left outside of this discussion – cause in my personal opinion it is yet to find itself a distinct social graph. In current position – Google+ overlaps with lot of existing and established Social Graphs. More notes on Google+ can be reserved for a different blog post.

 

Building Awesome Social Products

View more presentations from P J

Existing Social Graphs (everyone knows this):

  • Facebook – Social Networking for friends, (close) colleagues and family. These are users with whom you have interacted in real life.
  • Twitter – Loose social connections, people you know or are acquaintances with. Typically people who are celebrities, known professionals, subject or domain expertise are followed by others.
  • LinkedIn – Professional and Business contacts.
  • Email Contacts – Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, etc – all people or contacts whom you have/had private conversations over emails.

There are other Social Graphs like – YouTube, WordPress, Flickr.., those who are limited by its mindset or domain; also limited ways to leverage those social graphs.

 

Every Social Platform has Social Mindsets & Product Norms:

Social Platforms – no matter how big in user base, its users over a period of time have developed strong mindsets, product usage norms and social norms. They are usually not said or stated, but followed subconsciously by its users.

  • Facebook –
    Product Norm: Users can share status, comments, updates, photos, videos with “known friends”
    Social Mindset: Informal, between friends, perceived closed group communication.
    Social Norm: Example – Do not keep on updating status at same pace at which they tweet.
    .
  • Twitter –
    Product Norm: Follow like minded people, domain experts, known professionals, celebs, etc
    Social Mindset: Open conversations & thoughts expected by followers.
    Social Norm: Example – Retweet what you agree on, etc
    .
  • LinkedIn –
    Product Norm: Strictly Professional & Business oriented. Make connection with people you have worked with or intend to.
    Social Mindset: Share professional or company updates; Industry news & views
    Social Norm: Example – Do not post jokes or Facebook-like status updates.

 

Social Mindsets and Product Norms are difficult to break:

Users follow social mindsets and product norms subconsciously, they learn to follow it over months or years of product usage. Over a period of time, they become so strong that such platforms itself are not able to foster adoption for new products & features they introduce. Some examples are –

  • Facebook attempted to take on Foursquare with Facebook Places – but did not make much headway. Interestingly – there might be an 100% overlap of Foursquare users with Facebook.
  • Twitter struggled with getting usability for Lists feature. Users have added people to lists – but not following them for tweets. Twitter acquiring TweetDeck might be another sign of product usage norm.
  • LinkedIn struggled with its product LinkedIn Answers – while Quora scaled.
  • Google launched Google+ through GMail, but now struggles to keep continued engagement and adoption of Google+.

Because the Social Mindsets and Product Norms are difficult to break, products that leverage Social Graphs outside them become successful. (Facebook abandoned deals, but maybe it should acquire Foursquare as it is more valuable than Groupon, & LinkedIn should acquire Quora)

 

Some Perfect Examples of Social Products:

  1. Zynga – Leveraged social graph of Facebook and introduced Social Games like CityVille, FarmVille and others as a Social Application.
  2. Foursquare – Leveraged social graphs of Facebook & Twitter to introduce a location based check-in product on Mobile.
  3. Quora – Leverage social graphs of Facebook & Twitter to introduce a Questions product as a destination website.

 

The 6 Basic Principles of Building Social Products:

  1. Social Graphs are already Established.
    Do not reinvent the wheel and try to build social graphs again from scratch on your product.
    .  
  2. Social Graphs get built over a period of time.
    a. Over years – Users have made friends on Facebook, added professional contacts on LinkedIn or followed people on Twitter
    b. It will take loads of time, effort and patience if you try to build them again.
    Google+ is attempting this – we can wait and watch if it succeeds.
    .  
  3. Don’t build Social Products for sharing content & driving additional traffic.
    a. Most social products are built with this intention – sharing content and hence driving more traffic
    b. Existing social graphs are powerful and already allow sharing of content to drive viral traffic.
    . 
  4. Build Social Products that add value to users.
    There are many tasks and products that can be built outside existing Social Platforms which can add value to end users. While existing social graphs are established, users have a Usage Mindset about them, this is biggest incentive to build innovative social products.
    . 
  5. Don’t arbitrage value through your product.
    There is immense value in integrating directly with social platforms like Facebook & Twitter, do not try to arbitrage this value through your product. Users (if it is a B2C product) or Merchants / Publishers (if it is a B2B product) will at some point of time realize this and abandon your product to integrate/use directly.
    .
  6. Don’t build – but leverage Social Graphs!
    Rome was not built in one day! And so are Social Graphs. Choose the one that fits most with your product use case and leverage it.

 

Building your Perfect Social Product:

Foursquare, Quora, Zynga did it, so can your product. Introducing established social graphs to new products. Key is understanding what you manage and what you don’t – Social Graphs are not owned by you, your product is – seamless integration with your product makes it scale up virally.

It helps you in –

  • Viral User Acquisition
  • Introducing your product to user’s existing social graphs
  • User activity on your product generates updates for Social Graphs, which acts like contextual marketing.

Identify what are the validation use-cases for your product, allow consumers to share the same with his Social Graphs. Few examples are – Foursquare checkins, Questioning & Answers on Quora, reaching a level completion milestone on Zynga while playing its games and others.
.

Solving the Chicken and Egg problem:

Social Products have more than one first users. Every initial user who registers to your product has his own social graph, he is the first user of his social graph.

The Chicken & Egg problem here is – what do you show to such first users who do not have any friends or activities to look at. Ask hard questions and look around for examples of successful social products.

First User Questions (FUQs) –

  • Facebook’s first user question – “Whom do I add as a Friend? Who will see my wall-post?”
  • Twitter’s first user question – “Who will read my tweet? Whom should I follow?”
  • Quora’s first user question – “Who will answer my question? How can I quickly get a answer for my question?”
  • Foursquare’s first user question – “Where should I check-in? Why should I check-in?
  • Zynga’s first user question – “Whom should I play CityVille with? How will my City grow?”

Try to figure out how these platform solved the first user question. There are multiple ways to do it, but idea is doing this right. The biggest challenge for any social product is solving the First User Questions – the approach and execution here makes or breaks your Social Product.

 

Validation Cycle of Social Products:

Defining Validation Cycle for your Social Product and reducing the time to validate it is the key goal for Product Managers. Validation cycles are reduced when you are at scale – thats a easy task cause at scale most of the things you do is just optimize based on data/feedbacks.

Take example of Quora – product validation cycle means getting answers from people with best knowledge about it. Since Quora has scale & adoption today – you will see few questions getting answered within minutes or hours of submission, while few take days to see first answer. But in its initial days – the validation cycle was not so short.

More crucial moments are in the first 10,000 users scenario. Have patience, learn from initial user feedback and pain-points; validation will be slow and takes time in initial days of adoption. Also to due slow adoption cycle in early days – the early adopters of any social product, don’t necessary get the best experience.

Example – My twitter profile (twitter.com/beingpractical) was created in Sept 2007; I had the First User Question syndrome. Same was the case with my profile on Facebook, LinkedIn or Orkut (Orkut showed me – “Bad, bad server. No donuts for you” 1000s of time).

 

Should it be an Application on Facebook or Destination site:

“Why is this not a application on Facebook?” is also a question you will hear from Investors. While there are different answers for this question when it comes from Investors, but for a product decision make your judgment based on –

  1. Your product idea or concept or product use case should deliver real value. The value should not equate to addition of features on Facebook.
  2. There are Social Graphs outside of Facebook that you want to explore.
  3. Facebook would want people to interact with people; not with applications.
  4. Product or Business use case qualifies to be a destination site outside of Facebook – like a Quora or Foursquare.

Remember again – Social Mindsets & Product Norms on Facebook are difficult to break. If your product requires to explore Social Graph and is outside the Social Norms of Facebook – it can be a destination!

 

The Key Questions to answer before getting started:

Have good answers to all of these questions before starting with build your Social Product –

  • The task your product is planning to solve – do people do it in real world socially?
    Social Products are reflections of user behavior in real world – People play games together, People want to hear answers from persons with best knowledge about it, and so on. If people don’t do such tasks in real world – they will not do it on a Social Product as well.
    .  
  • Is it a feature on Facebook or Twitter or any Social Platform?
    Feature products don’t last. Identify if your product can be a feature on Facebook or Twitter.
    .  
  • If B2C product – Is there a value to do this task outside of Facebook?
    Check and check again – Is your product idea meant to be a application or destination.
    .  
  • If B2B product – Is sharing and driving traffic to merchants / publishers the key aim?
    There is no harm if it is one of the propositions, but this should not be the key aim of your B2B product. Many social commerce products on top of Facebook project sharing & driving traffic as their core benefit. Marketers are smart, at some point of time they will self-integrate this on their Facebook pages.
    .

Always keep these things in Mind –

  1. People drive Social Platforms & Products. Not features!
    Features are how you want users to drive your product. But it is always people who drive it – make your features people-centric; not people feature-centric.
    .
  2. Engagement should be People to People
    People don’t login to Facebook everyday cause it is Facebook, it is cause there friends are there. Same will hold true for your Social Product.
    . 
  3. Don’t arbitrage on User Value
    Consumers & Businesses will eventually figure this out. So don’t do this in first place.
    .
  4. Don’t be Evil
    People love their Friends & Social Circle / Connections more than they love your product.
    Don’t mess with them. Don’t spam. Don’t be evil.

Happy Building your Social Product. Don’t forget to send me invites on pj(at)beingpractical.com.

 

Isn’t it time to re-look how TRPs are measured?

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This post is dedicated to John Wanamaker, credited for setting advertising standards and considered by few as father of advertising. John Wanamaker died in 1922. Had John lived today – he would have some interesting quotes to share on RoI in digital advertising.

This post is inspired by one of his very famous quotes – “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

The term RoI became a buzz word ever since Digital advertising started to gain prominence in last few years. Talk to any brand manager today on digital spends through any channel – Search, Social, Display or Email – his quick conclusion on effectiveness of any campaign will be based on ROI.

Pitch any campaign today on Digital – both Brand Manager and the Digital Marketer sound no less than a Investment Banker trying to advice its client on a multi-million dollar deal discussing on its investment, profitability and more. The same Brand Manager or Media Buyer will simply look at TRPs of any channel/program and allocate about 50% of its media spends to Television, distribute a significant chunk between Outdoors, Newspapers, Radio and leave a minuscule 5%-10% to Digital.

Well, this post is not about how Digital Medium today is perceived as ROI driven, this is very unlikely to change in coming years. The question to raise is – isn’t it time to re-look how TRP ratings are measured rather than blindly accepting the reports as provided.

First – to know more about what is TRP and how they are measured using people meters – read this excellent post on Television Point.

For those who have not seen a People Meter – here is one below:

credit: image source

Here are some questions usually asked about the authenticity of TRP ratings –

  • In India – TRP People Meters are installed only in 16 cities across 9 states; Less than 10,000 people meters are installed  –  would they be good enough to reflect insights on Television Viewership of a country as large and diverse in demographics & culture as India?
  • There is little or no transparency on number of households with People Meters installed, techniques of data collection & interpretation, and how the data is extrapolated to whole population. Are there any validations if the meters were correctly operated and data collected the way it should have been?
  • People Meters were always perceived as expensive devices since invention; with advancements in technology – why have the People Meters not proliferated to a wider reach.
  • Is there any control by Government authorities on collection of this data and authenticity of same.
  • How will any marketer, advertiser or broadcaster challenge authenticity of the weekly TRP ratings released.

And in world of digital economy, let me add few more questions to above arguments –

  • Now people are socially connected through social networks, it is very difficult to spot people who mention they have subscribed to People Meters.
  • On Google’s image global index – there are not many images when you search for “people meter”.

In todays world anything that happens in offline world leaves a footprint online. Absence of digital footprint for “people meter” wants me to question the proliferation of such devices in real world.

The DTH Effect –

Direct-to-Home (DTH) or Satellite Televisions are today immensely popular amongst masses. In India – its reach is 20 Million households in 2010; and India is expected be the world leader in DTH subscriptions. 20 Million would be a better representation of viewership data – compared to the dismal < 10,000 people meters installed by TAM in India.

aMap works with DTH service providers – but it is unlikely to capture data across all subscribers and might be following the people meter approach. Brand Managers are believed to be more inclined towards TRP ratings provided by TAM for decision making while aMap ratings are for reference.

Its most unfortunate if DTH platforms are unable to track viewership data. Thats like Air Traffic Controllers saying – there are 500 planes in skies today – we are unaware of their origins & destinations, can confirm with pilots only when they land.

TRP Measurement – Its time to Change!

Fundamentally – People Meter approach will always be poor representation of the population. As spends on digital media start increasing and reaches a critical mass, sooner or later TRP measurement will be questioned by same decision makers who accept it blindly today.

Fortunately or Unfortunately, the future of TRP & GRP measurement is digital. Existing global players like Nielson, TNS, & others involved need to look beyond people meters and embrace the medium.

Here is overview of how possibly TRPs will be measured in digital world –

  1. Develop applications across digital channels – Internet, Mobile (Java, iOS, Blackberry, Android, Symbian and others)
  2. For every location (geo by country / location) – populate information stream of programs currently broadcasted at that time.
  3. Allow users to select the programs they viewed and report the same back to the measuring system through the applications.
  4. User demographics will known at time of App-Registration.

There are ways to authenticate user viewership patterns. Instead of focusing on data collection through people meters, with same efforts & resources – it will be possible to crowdsource viewer-ship data for programs and channels across millions of users – all in real time.

Future Prediction – by the year 2022 (exactly 100 years after John Wanamaker died) – people meters and traditional TRP measuring practices will be obsolete. They will be measured through digital medium! John Wanamaker would have proudly said – “Thanks to Digital, I know exactly which half of my advertising money is wasted!”

Absolute Selfish self-promotion –

I future-gaze based on trends in consumer internet, user acceptance of technology innovations and its impact on lives of people.

My thoughts on Future of Television have been well received and acclaimed by a few users who took notice. Beyond which I have no expertise/experience in Television Domain.