Nitin Gupta’s dotcom learnings

Dotcoms continue to hit the headlines. And, of late, for all the good reasons.

Nitin Gupta, Country Manager (South Asia), Mastercard International, was among the five Indian technology boom poster boys who recalled their dotcom days in The Economic Times.

Gupta lists four key learnings from the dotcoms days:

Speed is the killer app: Being first to market is more important than having a perfect product.

Talent is the only scare resource: In the Internet economy, there was no shortage of capital – building a strong management team was the real challenge.

Big companies need to think small: Entrepreneurial spirit and dynamism are coming back into ‘old economy’ companies.

Owners are the best managers: ESOPs create widespread feeling of ownership, and align personal and business goals beautifully.

'Internet edging out TV’

Digital communications are bringing about radical changes in India, as we discussed earlier.

The Economic Times today reports that the computer mouse is edging out the television remote control.

“TV fast losing its net worth,” reads a headline on Page 1 of The Economic Times. “The rising popularity of Internet, with close to 25 million Indians hooked on, is bringing about a sea change in the way people consume television.

“For home Internet-users, about 40 per cent of all Internet users in India, there is very little difference in time spend on Internet vis-a-vis television. Over two-third home Internet users are spending anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours everyday on the Net, mirroring 71 per cent for television viewers spending the same amount of time.”

An important aspect to note is that more than 50 per cent of the Indian Net users have been experiencing the power of New Media’s interactivity which is its most attractive feature. “Over half, 55 per cent, of the Internet users in India have also participated in some online contest or the other in the last one year, a huge success for the medium in terms of generating marketing stimulus,” reports the business daily.