Polls

Are consumers needs more important than their desires?

C&binet | 21 Oct 2009, 14:13

Saurabh Gupta will be attending c&binet as part of a delegation selected from the British Council’s Young Creative Entrenprenuers Scheme.  Here he asks whether we need to think more about consumers needs than their desires.

‘The Creative side of technology and the technology side of creative’ – its not how usually people respond when you ask what they do for a living!

But earlier this year I met nine other entrepreneurs, communications and media business – people from all over the world and I was delighted to meet someone who did exactly ‘that’. Crisscrossing The UK, on an insightful tour of the Creative businesses across the country, we chatted about the opportunities and business scenarios back home and compared notes. Inspite of the general doom and gloom (this was Mar 09, the nadir of the financial meltdown) all of us were extremely positive about the business we were in. Each one of us had great conviction in what we did. Some of us used digital tools to deliver unique products that were commercial and some used digital media as a tool for social change. The magic lies somewhere in the combination of the two.

If you think of digital delivery as a lens that can scale the reach of critical information the problem (of finding sustainable business models) suddenly becomes an opportunity. In the context of a large and diverse emerging economy glamorous digital businesses like news and music pale compared to the demand for educational and health based content. The Creative Economy programme by the British Council creates the type of mini network and more importantly awareness which is needed for entrepreneurs to re-focus on ‘digital needs’ as opposed to ‘digital desires’ of their consumers.

Traditional news and music businesses have (much) bigger demons to fight, than the internet, to survive in the new world-media order. All that the rest of us have to do, is meet up! Looking forward to discussing this all further at c&binet. 

Do consumers care about their privacy?

C&binet | 15 Oct 2009, 13:09

C&binet comment: Andrei Korobeinik, CEO, Rate Solutions

Last year, the largest travelers’ community site, Tripadvisor.com, has launched a Traveler social network where you can get advice from your friends about the cities you are planning on visiting or the hotels you are going to stay in.

In January this year, I have received an email from KLM airlines promoting a new social network called Bluenity.com. The goal of this network is, “to discover other travelers and meet them at any point” - so after you buy ticket you can find out who are your neighbors on the plane and maybe even plan something in your final destination together.

In February, Google Latitude was launched, allowing people to share their location with friends and check their friends’ locations using Google Maps on mobile with GPS – anytime, anywhere.

And yesterday, another European airline – Lufthansa – has introduced MySkyStatus. While you’re in the air, MySkyStatus sends altitude, location, departure and arrival updates automatically to your Facebook and Twitter pages. Now anyone can check, well, how high you are.

People used to fight for their privacy just a few years ago; and now they are willing to surrender their privacy in exchange for… what? You tell me.

Do you think about such services? Can you build a successful start-up on that emerging trend or is it some strange geeks’ amusement?