Saturday, July 02, 2005

Caught in the Net


Caught in the Net
Originally uploaded by gopoo.

Are you addicted more to your morning 'kaapi' or to the internet? Would you rather give it up than your vsnl/mtnl/hathway connection? Particularly when the homely kaapi is getting a sophisticated trendy flavour.Demerara or special coffee sugar. We will come back to that a little later.

What is interesting to note is the recent 2005 Web@Work survey.It says that 52% of US employees would rather give up their addiction to coffee than their internet connections.93% of all employees in the US access internet at work and that many log on to do their personal work.12.6 hours is spent averagely every week accessing the internet.Almost 50% of this goes to work-unrelated browsing. As expected,women employees are more disciplined.54% admit to nonwork surfing against 62% by men. Visit to investment and sports sites was common among men and some even played games. 25% admitted visiting porn sites though a third of them indicated that it was the slip of the finger.

What does the survey recommend? To maintain and enhance overall productivity and morale,the employees must be given the freedom to fulfil their need of the personal use of the Web.

And if a similar survey were to be done in India what would it reveal? Frequent visits to the filmi sites,astrology sites and even shaadi sites? It would be interesting to know the surfing Indian's preferences.

Barista,Coffee Day,Starbucks,better watch out.Hip India's signature beverage is under siege.Inspite of demerara sugar,the pull towards the net is only increasing.It may be a good idea to provide internet access in your cafes.

The Coffee chains can then eat the cake and still have it in their hands.

And recently I heard a surfer saying ,"Not that I love my kaapi less,but that I love my Internet more". Kool!

5 comments:

rums said...

young indians like porn, much like young people everywhere else in the world. porn sites have the highest hits. a close second would be gizmos and technology. sanjoy is a gizmo enthusiast and his gizmo interests revolve around sound systems as he is a music freak. his latest aquisition: a pair of shure sound isolating headphones for his ipod!

gs said...

rums,i am not too sure about that.yes youngsters are the same the world over,but then,there is a difference too.i don't think our youth are as sex-obsessed as their counterparts in the western world.
about gizmos too i am not very sure.they are just getting used to walkmans.for them ipods are miles away still.
what you are saying,i think,is restricted to a niche market and to very techsavvy persons ,like sanjoy.and what are shure sound isolating headphones anyway?

rums said...

so you think uncle :). indian youth are alarmingly sex-obsessed and the large number of hits on porn sites goes to prove it. much of it because of the general repressiveness around. the internet offers a certain kind of anonymity to people in search of such forbidden pleasures.
you could be right about the gizmo part though. shure headphones travel all the way into the ear canal and gives a pure musical experience. according to sanjoy, when he listens to music using these headphones he discovers sounds he had missed before.
actually, the ipod has spawned a huge range of accessories and most ipod owners succumb to these hi-tech ad-ons. it's brilliant marketing at work, perhaps lulu can explain the phenomenon better.

gs said...

well rums,you have a point.repression does create a reaction.like going for the forbidden fruit.
thanks for the info on shure headphones.from what you say,shure is something 'surely' to go for.

lulu said...

i think that it's only a matter of time before iPods will take off in india, especially since they are now cross-platform (mac and windows). apple needs to build the iTunes store for india and load it up with regional indian music including bollywood hits and voila, sales will take off.

rums, welcome to the world of apple. when something you own is that cool and fits so smugly into your life, you'll naturally want to buy everything that makes it even cooler and even mroe integrated with your life. first and foremost, steve jobs and his design team created a brilliant product, that is classic form-and-functionality-par-excellence underscoring apple's DNA. then they had this awesome marketing campaign (with the colourful silhoutte ads) that really drew consumers in to the iPod phenomenon. then they even made it available to the rest of the world (agh!) by allowing iPods to sync with windows and having a storefront compatible with windows.
iPod's phenomenal growth has helped many, many companies including audible.com.

ask sanjoy to check out:
http://www.everythingipod.com

on second thoughts, maybe not :)