Are Google & Facebook competitors or do they complement each other?

The two companies people talk the most in the online advertising space are Facebook and Google. Many of them perceive each other to be competitors, but in reality they complement each other and cannot be termed as competitors in the online advertising space. Online advertising can be classified as

1. Intent Generation ads(Ex: Banner ads)
2. Intent Harvesting ads (Ex: Search Engine ads)

Most text ads are about intent harvesting and most display ads are about intent generation, but they are not coreferential distinctions. For example, with techniques like “search retargeting” (you do a Google search for Laptop and the later on another site see a display ad for Laptops), sometimes intent harvesting is delivered through display ads or vice versa is also true where you see a display ad on Facebook about laptop and end up searching it on Google and eventually end up buying them on Amazon.

Intent Generation ads: They are used as a brand building exercise, where the goal of an online ad is to generate intent or stimulate interest for the user to do further research. The user is not actively looking to buy something. Facebook with its large user base and data availability is exactly looking to enable companies to create intent towards their product/services.

Intent Harvesting ads: When users are actively looking to purchase something, they typically go to search engines or e-commerce sites. Through advertising or direct sales, these sites harvest intent. Google and Amazon are the biggest financial beneficiaries of intent harvesting where they have used the search to maximize sales.

With the right mix of Intent harvesting ads and intent generating ads, companies can reap the benefits of both the forms which in turn enables the need for both Google and Facebook to exist and complement each other’s strengths.

What are your thoughts on it?

Mandate for Stability 1

We all have witnessed the results of recent general elections held in India for the 15th Lok Sabha. The results have brought joy , surprise & shock to different sections, be it the politicians from various parties or the people from various diaspora. We witnessed the electorate giving a strong mandate to one party, i.e the Congress. Its after a span of 18yrs that a party crossed 200 seats. The last time a party ever crossed that mark was in 1991, with 232 seats when P.V.Narasimha Rao(PVN)became the Prime Minister.Without directly getting into the mandate of this election, i would like to write about post liberalization era which would give you an insight as to what transpired people to give such a resounding mandate infavour of a national party, unlike in the last 18years. I will not get into the economic figures , which i would come out with in my next blog.

P.V.N also called the " Chankaya", i guess would go down as an architect of liberalized India. Being a strong leader, he could implement all the reforms which was then perceived as anti poor by the socialists. He is not given his due as he was not a sychophant of Nehru- Gandhi family. Not even in the wildest of dreams did people imagine that a bureaucrat would be named the finance minister (Dr.Manmohan Singh), who was an Ex RBI Governor, Planning Commision Deputy Chairman, and advisor to the Prime Minister.Since 1996 , the mandate has been way too fractured for our liking.Regional parties have grown from strength to strength. In 1996,when the vajpayee government could not prove its majority in the parliament, a set of opportunistic parties with no vision joined hands with Janta Dal being the core party with just 46 MP's led the United Front government with the support of the left and Congress from outside.United Front government had just 117 MP's with the left (46MP's) and congress (140MP's) supporting from outside. It's only aim was anti Congress- anti Bjp government and nothing else. There was nothing in the interest of India. Deve Gowda became the prime minister with just 16MP's. This proved detrimental to India. We had policies which were drafted with the consent of the left which lacked any sense whatsoever. It hampered our growth to a great extent. It was upto the next government headed by Atal Behari Vajpayee to clean up the mess created by the united front government.

After the fall of the United Front, people voted for BJP led NDA. It was for the 1st time BJP got as many as 182 seats. We had around 26 parties in a coalition led by one of the tallest leaders Independent India has ever produced, Atal Behari Vajpayee . Stability is never at stake when you have a mazboot neta heading a coalition. Instability can arise in 2 cases. One being when the coalition or the government is led by a weak leader, ex: Deve Gowda, Gujral and the second being when you have too many mazboot netas in a coalition or government, Like in the case of Janata Party in 1977 which had way too many mazboot netas like Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Vajpayee, Jagajivan Ram and so on. The Coalition collapsed due to internal bickering. The only reason UPA crawled for a span of 5 years was because Manmohan Singh is a gentleman. As Chankya says " To run a successful coalition, you either have to be a strong leader or a gentleman. A gentleman strong leader is a self defeating combination". Strong leader not being a gentleman in this context does not mean he should be a criminal. When I say strong leader, its about being decisive and not relenting to coalition partners at times.

Many economists and people across the board hailed Vajpayee's leadership and his vision for a modern India. He moved to open the economy to foreign and domestic competition and to build country's infrastructure. It was the first time ever where a government had invested so heavily on infrastructure. Golden quadrilateral is one such brilliant initiative. There were reforms in the form of removing import licencing of consumer goods,reducing tariffs, tax reforms, revolutionazion of telecom sector, privatization. For the first time India had a disinvestment minister in the form of Arun Shourie, who did a fantastic job. He was rated as one of the best CEO's. On a macroscopic front, interest rates were brought down,greater competition in Banking through allowing both domestic and foreign private banks to enter into the fray. From a agricultural stand point, kissan credit cards were introduced, which was the first time farmers could have credit cards for buying essential commodities. What stood out during his tenure was successful nuclear test at pokhran under the sterwardship of Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam even when the country was facing economic crisis. It took the world by surprise as even the American satellites could not detect our test, whereas it did detect Pakistan's nuclear test. Vajpayee too faced opposition from his socialist coalition partners. He had to contend with a staunch socialist like George Fernandes who took a horrific decision to drive out Coco Cola and IBM as a Industry minister in Morarji Desai's Government in 1977. Being a strong leader,Vajpayee was firm in pushing these reforms and was successful.

To Be Continued..........

Mandate for Stability 2

Once NDA lost the elections, more due to overconfidence and internal bickering, UPA came into power and Dr.Manmohan Singh as a prime minister was a surprise package. People expected a lot from him. Despite his impeccable reform credentials, reforms once again slowed down. Reason? Left Front parties who absolutely lack economic sense and have also failed to realize that leftist ideas are no longer relevant in today's world.Little do they realize that economic reforms are very much essential to alleviate povery, increase per capita and GDP. Reforms by default bring about social engineering. Left front parties whose support was crucial for UPA's survival played the game of arm twisting Dr.Manmohan Singh and eventually paid the price for that in 2009 General Elections. But the resolve within the UPA government to move the reforms forward was also weak. Congress President, Sonia Gandhi often showed sympathy for views of the left parties and intervened on their behalf. That is when the Gentleman in Manmohan Singh came in handy for the government to last 5 years. Because of the fractured mandate, Congress was not in a commanding position to ensure reforms would go through. Internal Opposition can block or substantially slow the reform if the distribution of power is such that the position of the leadership within the coalition is not secure. This was the case of united front government in 1996 and 1998 where congress were supporting from outside, but they themselves were in the pursuit of power. With the left supporting the government from outside, whose support was crucial for the UPA to survive made manmohan singh's position insecure. Including people like T.R.Baalu as transport minister and Arjun Singh as HRD minister was a horrendous mistake. These things happened due to political compulsions. The dream project of every Indian, the golden quadrilateral came to a stand still. World Bank has threatened to withdraw funding from highway projects. 234 out of 515 Central projects are delayed. Arjun Singh, just like his thakur couterpart, V.P.Singh brought about the dreaded reservations in the country's most reputed institutes like the IIM's and IIT's to hide his incompetancy as a HRD minister. No steps were taken to bring about reforms in primary and secondary public schools. They are in shambles and needs serious attention. Reports indicate that total public expenditure from 2004-2009 on education was less than what affluent students spend abroad to access better quality education. At one point of time Dr.Manmohan Singh was so upset that he wanted to quit the post.Only occassion Dr.Manmohan Singh emerged as a strong leader was when he ensured the nuke deal went through inspite of stiff opposition from the left front who eventually withdrew support.

As the presence of regional parties increased, they became arrogant and felt that nothing was possible without them. In these 18years where regional parties have played a key role in the formation of government, Indian electorate has observed the effects it could have on them. Indian electorate is getting younger and more matured. We had the 3rd front, 4th front formations in the pursuit of power. Little did they realize that people had enough of these alternative fronts. They were neither credible nor viable. You had the left on one side saying no one can form a government without their support and they dreamt of forming a government with less than 100 seats .You had Ramvilas paswan on the otherside, part of the 4th front saying " Its Mulayam, Lalu and me who is going to decide the PM and not the Congress". Wasn't that shear arrogance from someone who hardly contributes 5 seats?Eventually he lost the elections. Its a national election where elections are fought on national issues. It did not help the 3rd front as it was an amalgamation of regional parties. The same electorate might vote in favour of regional parties in the assembly elections and they have done in the past. People witnessed Mayawati claiming day in and day out that she would become the prime minister of India and she would drive out the Congress and BJP without realizing the fact that she wasn't a major force outside UP. Only qualification she thought would be enough to be a PM was that she was a "Dalit ki beti". She fought the general election without a manifesto. Moreover people were worried about the criminialization of politics if the 3rd front and 4th front would have power. We have seen how Bihar went from riches to rags under lalu prasad yadav, UP under mulayam and mayawati. They wanted to be regressive, taking us back to 1940's with their policies. People who have not performed and have gone to the elections based on caste have been decimated. I am sure lot of Indians are happy with the way people have voted.

Who benefitted from this? Congress was the only national party other than BJP. Congress had a much bigger presence than bjp in most of the states where the 3rd and 4th front had presence. Eventually you had people voting for the congress as it was the only credible option to give a stable government which was one of the main reasons for the Congress to get such a resounding mandate. Moreover BJP did not communicate to the people of India about the failures of the Manmohan Singh Government. Wait for my next blog on the lapses from the BJP side.

In the past two centuries, the combination of democracy and market capitalism has triumphed over feudalism, monarchy, theocracy, fascism and communism. After communism’s fall, most countries have become capitalist democracies . But people, need more than shopping malls to satisfy their thymos--the human need for spirited achievement, which religion and wars fulfilled in the past.

It may seem odd to say this at a moment that capitalism has been humbled citing the example of the United States, but I still believe that secular, democratic, capitalist India will prevail in the end. Electorate has rejected socialism and central planning as the path to prosperity. Lets hope that Manmohan Singh would give us good governance through proper usage of capitalism and live upto our expectation.