Groupon oh so yesterday..Google launches Offers !
Posted by: Suhel khan on: April 21, 2011
Just got hold of the information that Google is launching its brand new service “Google Offers” on the line of group coupon services similar to Groupon. With Groupon already being the leader in this area of performance marketing, i am sure with Google throwing its hat in the ring is bound to make the game exciting. Though there is no further information as to when the service will be rolled out globally but as if now its available in 6 locations and a beta version in Portland according to certain sources. Click on the link below to the Google Offers subscription page.
Why to setup your mobile marketing campaign? (via Internet Marketing+Online Branding+Digital Communication+SEO SEM and PPC)
Posted by: Suhel khan on: April 19, 2011
Good insights and a good read.
via Internet Marketing+Online Branding+Digital Communication+SEO SEM and PPC
Mobile apps: Is it another gold rush? or is there some sense to it?
Posted by: Suhel khan on: September 22, 2010
With this post people already know that i am obsessed with mobile apps and there possibilities. After all as the say good things always come in small packages. I was just going through an article which talked about as to how the mobile apps are effecting the consumer behavior in terms of buying a particular mobile phone. The stats are not that great but its shows clearly about the things to come. I will not be surprised if this becomes a major factor in the buying decision of a mobile user in the time to come.
According to the well known Pew Research Center, in of there recent study have to say this :-
Some 35% of U.S. adults have software applications or “apps” on their phones, yet only 24% of adults use those apps. Many adults who have apps on their phones, particularly older adults, do not use them, and 11% of cell owners are not sure if their phone is equipped with apps.
Among cell phone owners, 29% have downloaded apps to their phone and 13% have paid to download apps.
Ok don’t twist my arm for being too optimistic about it and the research doesn’t say anything about it. Well my point exactly but can you see beyond the mere figures and i am sure with me you will deduce that there is such a big market still out there to capture. In another study by Gartner research which i mentioned in my previous post about mobile apps following are very interesting stats (dare you twist my arms now) :-
Source Gartner Study :-
1) This year alone users across the globe $6.2 billion to buy ‘mobile applications’ — games, social net- working tools, productivity and entertainment-based mini apps for mobile phones.
2) Another study predicts the Mobile App market in 2012 will be worth $17.5 billion with an expected 50 billion downloads.
3) And this despite the fact that 80 per cent of these will be free downloads anyway this year.
Now, if you have an eye for details you would have already concluded what i want to say here. Anyways my point is that there is till 71% market out there which is not mobile apped till now. Imagine even if 50% of that market is captured in next five years then Gartner has to come out with another report with all there statistics revised to 6-7 times of what they are now.
This will result in more business for mobile app developers, mobile app market places, carriers, content providers and everybody else in the ecosystem.
If you would like to debate, discuss, fight out or yes arm twist me for creating yet another tech bubble then you can drop a line to me on twitter @ suhel_khan.
Meet me @ GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK-2010,DUBAI .Click here to know more!
Unofficial guide to GITEX-2010 : What to see and what not to miss at gitex technology week-2010. Part 2
Posted by: Suhel khan on: September 19, 2010
In continuation to the previous post. Read it here.
This post is more or less about what not to miss while your in Dubai for GITEX Technology Week 2010 . So continuing from my previous post :-
8) If you love or you are willing to experiment with the Arabian food then do not miss a shawarma joint that is becoming very popular. I am talking about The Wild Peeta . You can check there menu here. Also you can drop a line to its very approachable founder Mohamed Younes Parham Al Awadhi and co-founder Peyman Parham Al Awadh here. You rock guys! 
9) You should not miss the worlds longest automated metro network: Dubai Metro, which recently snatched the title from Vancouver Skytrain, surpassing it by 1 km. You can plan your entire travel within dubai from this amazing site here.
10) Burj Khalifa is officially the tallest building in the world, if you miss this then you miss the chance of seeing the curve of the earth. You can know more about it here .
11) Just below the the Burj Khalifa is the world largest dancing fountains and also one of the largest mall as well, Dubai Mall. Some coffee shops are amazing inside the mall and also the now so famous ski court.. Yes with snow!! oh i missed the amazing aquarium.
I am sure there are more things to do out there like gold souks, water sports etc but i have shared what i experienced and what i am looking forward for. There is a small request if you can add to the list it will be great. An yes i forgot you can also catch up with me at GITEX at world trade center. To know more just click here . Or you can leave a message or catch me on twitter.
cio in Dubai!! Cheers!
Unofficial guide to GITEX-2010 : What to see and what not to miss at gitex technology week-2010. Part 1
Posted by: Suhel khan on: September 14, 2010
For those who don’t know what GITEX is then read one of my post here.
Gitex Technology Week is one of the longest running tech fair in the world. I mean 30 years really mean something. I have been going to GITEX from quite some time but as a fellow exhibitor this will be my second time. I was talking to one of my existing client from Mexico and he spent almost 30 minutes over the phone understanding what Gitex is all about and I shared whatever I knew. The idea of writing this unofficial guide came from that conversation, hence this post. I will share some of my experiences about GITEX and also try to give you some interesting things you can do there.
Some facts:-
1) Gitex is held in Dubai every year in the month of October between 17th to 21st October. The whole event is divided into following sub events :-
1.1 Gitex Global Leader Summit
1.2 Gitex Global Conference
1.3 Gitex Cloud Confex
1.4 Gitex Exhibitions
1.5 Special Event: 30th Anniversary highlights
1.6 Gitex Business Solutions
1.7 GULFCOMMS
1.8 Consumer Electronics
1.9 Connexions@Gitex
1.10 Gitex Mobile Apps & Content World (Most excited about )
1.11 Gitex Conference
2) Another interesting event which i dint list above is Gitex Majlis , which is a VIP club for C-level and other high level executives from visiting and exhibiting companies.
3) People who like the visual things here is the photo gallery and video from the official website.
4) The official car sponsor (Ford) always showcase some of there new models. I dont know what they are showcasing this time but last year i was able to lick the bonnet of a Ford Mustang GT 2010 model. 
dont miss this one!
5) New Product Launches: Some big brands always launch some new gadgets, tech etc either first time in MENA region or make GITEX there global launch pad. Here is the complete list of exhibitors and you can find what they will be launching or where they will be located inside the exhibition area.
6) The entry is very economical, for the whole event its roughly $ 32 . You can check out the map here. You can find the parking detail on the same page.
7) The food courts are amazing, last time there was this shawarma joint which dished out some amazing stuff. To stay there are couple of options but Novatel being in the exhibition area makes it a good choice.
Woaaaa..Tired now will continue this in Part 2 post (The real thing is yet to come ) Drop a line to me on twitter or leave a message if you want to share your experience.
Hey up with the next post in this series. Read it here.
Mobile apps at Gitex Week-2010, Dubai .
Posted by: Suhel khan on: September 12, 2010
- In: Branding | mobile apps | Online Marketing | Uncategorized | Web Trends
- 3 Comments
Well its again that time of the year for me when i literally live out of my office, eat next to my laptop with head tilted holding a phone and mind racing to outpace the competition. As a blogger/marketer i am giving you a sneak peek into the war-room of a mobile app company exhibiting in the upcoming GITEX Technology Week-2010, Dubai.
Gitex is dubbed as the third largest IT exhibition and the leading tech fair in the middle east. This will be my second year as an exhibitor. The whole experience of Gitex will be enhanced this time for sure cause some forwarded looking people in the organizers have decided to put an entire section dedicated to mobile apps. Mobile apps of course is the hottest thing since the time the tech world declared that the web is dead. If you dont belive that then here are some facts for you to chew on :-
Source Gartner Study :-
1) This year alone users across the globe $6.2 billion to buy ‘mobile applications’ — games, social net- working tools, productivity and entertainment-based mini apps for mobile phones.
2) Another study predicts the Mobile App market in 2012 will be worth $17.5 billion with an expected 50 billion downloads.
3) And this despite the fact that 80 per cent of these will be free downloads anyway this year.
Not enough? Read the complete story here.
With this in mind i am gearing up to ensure that we put up the best show for the million plus people coming to GITEX. I am part techie part marketer and mobility off-lately have been my focus areas. I have been speaking a lot on various platforms recently about this next big wave and i believe this is the right time to ride it before large players throw there hats in the ring.
For some of you, get a glimpse of what Gitex is all about here :-
If you are interested or would like to discuss more about mobile apps then you can meet me in GITEX or catch me on twitter.
Google Instant search, the doom for SEO is here?
Posted by: Suhel khan on: September 12, 2010
- In: ebranding | Web Trends
- 5 Comments
I am sure some of you might have tried Google Instant search and you might have experienced that it is overall a pretty good feature because it gives you result pretty fast. Also in some cases if you are doing a long tale search it tries to refine the search results and pulls out relevant pages which on a normal search would have come on 2nd or 3rd pages. Whatever it may be but it seems the web may not remain same for two people from the search perspectives cause we already know that the search behavior are different. Before I start with my opinions lets see what others have to say about this new feature:-
Malcolm Coles of Digital Sparkle has an insightful version: “Some people are going to end up paying a lot more for PPC. If you start searching for Premier Inns, then when you get to premier you get lots of natural “premier” results (e.g. Premier League) plus one PPC ad for Premier Inns. I guess lots of people will just click that rather than carry on typing. So some brands might want to be careful that they aren’t bidding on terms that get triggered too soon in the process.”
Steve Rubel, who works in PR but has “digital insights”, says that “what is really does is kill SEO”: “Here’s what this means: no two people will see the same web. Once a single search would do the trick — and everyone saw the same results. That’s what made search engine optimization work. Now, with this, everyone is going to start tweaking their searches in real-time. The reason this is a game changer is feedback. When you get feedback, you change your behaviors.”
Matt Cutts of Google notes in a post on his own blog that the effect on the “long tail” of results
“The search results will remain the same for a query, but it’s possible that people will learn to search differently over time. For example, I was recently researching a congressperson. With Google Instant, it was more visible to me that this congressperson had proposed an energy plan, so I refined my search to learn more, and quickly found myself reading a post on the congressperson’s blog that had been on page 2 of the search results.”
For some who haven’t tried this feature here is the official video release from google:
I am no expert but i think in some way or the other it will negatively affect the search results. What do you think?
A Child Prodigy – An Artist in Making !
Posted by: Suhel khan on: June 22, 2010
I think it will be a pleasant surprise for my blog readers, I mean you, who normally expects that either I write about branding/marketing or technology. This time I will not write anything about it but about Painting which is most of you know is my passion. I am compelled to write about this here not because my painting blog has been hijacked by some @#$@#$ underground hacker for I don’t know what reason, but because I met a child artist on my recent trip to Dubai.
I have a friend and a popular techpreneur Mr. Prashant K Gulati based in Dubai. We spent some good time together at his office and after that we decided to go to his house and that is where I met his 5 n half year old daughter Ananya (lovingly called Nanna) . We were busy discussing various aspects of management, technology etc and there was this kid jumping around us in her own child like “dhuun” . She was humming some kind of tune which was unusual for a kid of that age, it was Beethoven Symphony 7 (I don’t know If heard it correctly ) but I was amazed. Then Mrs. Indrani (Anannya’s mother) came in along with one of her paintings and I was amazed to look at the details she had tried putting into it. I was already surprised with it but this little kid decided to turn me into her fan, then the real work started pouring in from the closet. One was an eclectic mix of colors thrown on the canvas to depict a skyline with a reflection of it on the water, done with absolute perfection. I was wondering how she could control her little fingers to make the brush dance in such a way. The other painting she made was of tree trunks with some sort of spray painting done to show the leaves and the branches. The last one that I saw was a show stopper – It was a charcoal abstract done on paper. I have been painting for almost 8 years now and I still have problem in sketching with charcoal as it smudges a lot but the little fingers did a magic here as well, clear lines, bold depiction of the ideas with an absolute profoundness.
I was so happy to see the work that I decided that I will take the honor of introducing this artist to you and I am sure you will enjoy going through her paintings below and will leave a comment as a wish to her for a creative future ahead.
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7 golden tips for Marketing & Branding for Trade Exhibitions or Shows!
Posted by: Suhel khan on: February 21, 2010
I am writing this article out of my frustration of not able to find a guide or step by step process to strategies the marketing and branding efforts for an Industry trade show. Recently i attended GITEX Technology Week, Dubai as an exhibitor and now i will be exhibiting in IndiaSoft, Jaipur and visiting CeBIT, Germany. As i handle most of the marketing, sales & branding efforts at my company, so i have to start planning for the exhibition at least a month in advance. This time i wanted to make no mistakes and in that regards i was looking for an article, book, guide or any other stuff to lay my hands on. But alas i couldn’t find it. Maybe i wasn’t looking at the right places. So i decided to come up with my own checklist, so that you guys can help me refine it. I am sure you will. Here is my checklist for marketing & branding for Trade Exhibitions or shows.
1) Get What You Pay For: Exhibition organizers are your best source for finding most of the information regarding the probable visitors, your fellow exhibitors (competition) and other relevant information which can help you plan your visit better. Also ensure the location of your stand is strategic. In certain cases i have also requested organizers to fix appointments with foreign delegates. It certainly helps in setting the right tone and the agenda. These kind of meetings results into more business as compared to other efforts. But yes they have a limit !
2) Put your website to good use: For every event i always ensure that the website is properly updated with a link to page describing the agenda of our visit, what technology solution we will be showcasing, who will be part of the delegate team with a short profile and also a registration form for the visitors to register if they are interested. You can see an example here.
3) Emailers still works: I always ensure that i drive a mailer campaign with my existing opt-in email database and also with the list that we normally receive from the organizers. I give a careful thought to the content so that it appeals to both the target audience. I usually drive the traffic to my event landing page, so that the opt-in visitors can find out any new service that we have launched and the prospective visitors can see our agenda and register as well.
4) Make it a bit personal: The list of delegates or visitors is a good point to start interacting with the prospects prior to their visit. Give them a call try and understand what is their purpose of visit and if they give you time to meet then you can ask them what they would like to see (a demo, meeting with technical team, samples of previous work etc). This will help you channelize your efforts in the right direction. Also it will help you in deciding the focal point of your exhibition in terms of services to be showcased, the right mix of the delegate team etc.
5) The day before: The day before the event is very important, the first half of the day should be focused on checking up whether you have all marketing collaterals, appointment sheets, demos, product literature, branding collaterals, other relevant stuff with you or not. This will give you lot of confidence, if you find everything organized. And on the eve, JUST CHILL !
6) The Stall/stand: It is very important that your stall is branded properly. Follow the rules of the retail, that your stand should be good to see (put a screen if you would like a presentation to give), play music if you can (certainly not a rock number ), a good freshener spray (don’t spray too much, some people might be allergic ) , Ensure that you have few chairs for the visitors to sit. A candy bowl might also be a good idea. Is there anything else you think should be part of it ?
7) Plan, Plan Plan: Plan your meeting beforehand, you must have a list of appointments with the visitors profile along with it, prior to the event. You must have a take away kit ready for the visitors with all the company/product literature in it. This will give you a complete control over whom to meet or not.
I feel i have included most of the points and if you see that i have missed something please do add to the list. It will help us a lot !
Cheers !
Is iPad another success story from Apple Stable?
Posted by: Suhel khan on: February 10, 2010
- In: Branding | Design | ebranding | mobile apps
- 2 Comments
Nothing can beet the way Apple paddle its products. One success story after another, there dream run doesn’t seem to end ! I think Apple ran one of the lowest marketing budget for this product, most of the buzz was created by WOMA & social media marketing. And apple guys really know how to ride the wave or create one !
Ofcourse you might have gone through lot of blogs talking about iPads possible features but i wouldn’t talk about that. As the normal mode of my blog is to ideate on things, so i would like to throw some good way iPad can be used. Let me start !
1) Exhibitions: Imagine you walking in a exhibition area with the ipads wifi switched on. You can have the entire floor plan on your tip and you can see the stalls with the company exhibiting there and then tap on it and it shown the list of delegates from them company and see what they have to offer and once you are convinced you can just open the navigation mode and iPad will take you there! I wish i had something like this in GITEX, Dubai which was spread over area in kilometers. CeBIT guys should come up with something like this or may be someone should come up with a demo in Mobil World Congress, Barcelona.
2) Hospital: A doctor moving around in the hospital not with his usual pad with the patients vital records but instead he has everything stored on his iPad and it can manage his entire day also beam back the minute by minute updates from the medical instruments in the patients room. There are lot many possibilities with healthcare, i am just throwing some ideas.
3) Tourism: A marriage between augmented realty and the power of iPad. Get the map of the entire city and tourist spot with videos, pictures, peoples feedback aggregated from the social media onto just one place. Let the user decide whether he really wants to visit it or not. It happens with me whenever i visit a new city i normally talk to people to know the best clubs, tourist places to go n stuff, now with iPad why not we create an application like that, which can help a newbie in the town and also it can be a great platform to brand or promote local products and services.
4) Navigation: Nah we can do that with a simple phone nowdays! yap you are right but what else you can do with iPad is finding your way in a completely new way. Imagine tapping on the maps from above with high-resolution satellite imagery, up close with street view, or with topography in a new terrain view — all using Google Services. Search for a nearby restaurant or landmark, and then get directions from your current location and also see lot of images/video of the various locations.
5) Gaming: Do i need to write anything here ! just imagine playing needforspeed by just turning & twisting your ipad, which uses it inbuilt oscillator to calculate the movements..
I can keep dreaming about the possibilities but instead i gonna get my team and develop something for myself or my clients and see some great iPad apps taking shape.
Well coming to the bottom-line, what iPhone did to mobile advertising, iPad will just take it one step further and the advantage is its netbook like power, sleek design, and yeah its Apple product so it automatically gets access to millions of app on iStore !
Do i see the death of Kindle !
Have ideas do share with me, catch me on twitter here or drop an email to me on suhelofice@gmail.com
Cheers!
- Mobile apps: Is it another gold rush? or is there some sense to it? | Appfactory Tech Journal: [...] big market still out there to capture. In another study by Gartner research which i mentioned in my previous post about mobile apps following ar
- Vijendra Sainy: Amazing expression. Cant blink my eyes while reading and it dont matter from where you buy book its what you buy. Nice style of yours :)
- bhushan: surely its gold rush as of now.......untill things would turned back its really big market to explore......
