Insights From InRev

The year 2009 started with an over hyped potential of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

It immediately occurred to everyone that it was the best way to promote their ideas and products at the times of economic downturn. But instead of being the best solution, people used it because it was free.

Marketers rushed to the sites with no idea about the usability of the tool. This occurred especially with Twitter rather than Facebook. Facebook was then more closed among friends and family.

Twitter API played a very important role is creating the Twitter eco-system, it encouraged many entrepreneurs and startups to take social media platforms seriously.

These were the true leaders of social media frontier who showed the way to other marketers. But the social media still has not entered into the enterprise sector providing solutions for business.

So what makes an application an appropriate solution to the users who are using Twitter as a way to leverage their professional career?

Here are the basic ways in which social media can be leveraged.

Getting rid of Spam Message

Twitter has been tagged as a portal of spam a lot of time. But it must be understood that Twitter as a service is very raw and untamed, that is why an extra layer of application is required to bring the best out of it.

Getting rid of the redundant information and bringing the best information from the twitter stream is the first priority which will make Twitter move to main stream.

Removing spam from the stream will bring people’s trust back to the service and increase its user base. Twitter have worked hard to clean the stream from the spamming sites but it still needs another level of treatment.

Status Scheduler

There are lot of apprehension regarding the automatic status update, but we need to understand that reaching to your target audience requires you to update the information at the nick of time. Reaching out to people at the time when they are most likely to receive your message is the right time to update your status.

Finding this time is very critical and at the same time very difficult. This requires understanding the activity of your network and its responsiveness.

The rate of information flow in Twitter is very high, that is why most valuable information do not reach to the target audience and die out due to a very low signal to noise ratio in Twitter Channel.

That is why the best way to reach to your network is to time your status update and repeat them in appropriate numbers.

Monitoring Profile

In any kinds of business the presence of quantifiable variable is very important. This allows professionals to measure and approximate their growth and profit in the channel. In case of Twitter there are few things that are very important to measure,

1. Influence Score

This measures the number of clicks from the link you shared. It also measures the number of replies and ReTweets.

2. Follower’s Growth
This measures the size of your network. The larger the number of followers, the greater the number.

3. Network’s Activity
This is very important, as this measures the strength of you Network. The number of clicks on the links shared and their ReTweet count is very important. If this number is less then no matter how large your size is, the value of the network is null.

4. Profile’s Activity
This is the activity of your profile, your tweeting rate and you responses to other.

Both of these parameters are important to measure your involvement in the network and make sure that you are a part of the network.

All the things mentioned above are the vital part of the social media enterprise solution. Once we find all these packaged in one application, that application can truly be called the best business application solution for Twitter.

InRev has more than a year of experience in the social media from connecting to people, to creating a content. Hence as a creator and distributor of content InRev stands strong. Recently, InRev launched its premium solution for Twitter users. This is an step towards leveraging Twitter and this process will go on in future.

Visit : http://premium.buzzom.com/

Download the PDF Version here for more.

- By Anunay Gupta PhD, Co-founder & COO Marketelligent

I have often wondered why Indians in India have traditionally been laggards in terms of their contributions to globally disruptive technologies.

Talent is definitely available and there is no scarcity of ideas. Also entrepreneurs and related VC funding are in no shortage.

And many of the disruptive technologies that evolved in the West most likely had an Indian flavor – either in their founding team; or in their technical leads; or their mentors.

This is not to say that innovation is not thriving in India. In fact, India has in a relatively short span of time since Independence created an impact on a global scale; all this on the back of a democratically-elected government and a wildly multi-cultural secular society.

But we have not been able to create disruptive innovation. The likes of Apple or Amazon or Google. So where is the missing link?

I think, it boils down to economics. More specifically the incentive systems that exist across the talent value chain in India. Right from schooling - to higher education - to their first job - to a seasoned team lead – to a business head, incentive structures in India are largely misplaced and mispriced:

- Family, schools and evaluation systems that award perfection. Getting a perfect 10 is rewarded more than getting a firm grasp of fundamentals and being creative in approach. And disruptive innovation is often the result of lateral - not linear - thinking.

- Lack of a ‘creative ecosystem’ at Universities and Institutes of higher learning. There is very little monetary incentive for bright Undergraduate students to pursue a career in Research and Teaching within India.

As a result there is no substantial ecosystem of innovation that has built up over the years.

Components of such ecosystems have been built in piece-meal approaches, but without the glue that can bind it all together and give it the impetus to become a sustainable living entity.

- Businesses that reward breadth vs. depth of knowledge. The youth-led demographics of India and the high growth rate of the Indian economy mean that managers that display a breadth of expertise are more valued than their counterparts that have a deep understanding of a particular area.

- I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that India is producing a disproportionally higher number of MBA’s vs technical Masters/Doctorate graduates.

- Business leaders that are execution-focused. High growth rates and process inefficiencies means that business leaders spend a disproportionate amount of their time on operational matters.
With less bandwidth remaining for strategic thinking and for nurturing centers of innovation and excellence.

- A largely dysfunctional Government. A necessary but not sufficient condition.

As a result of the above, India thrives in mediocrity and in the relentless pursuit of the middle class dream.

Which has resulted in a vibrant economy; but not the kind that can challenge the best, and produce disruptive innovation.

At least not yet.

Download the PDF Version here for more.

InRev has completed the first year of operations and it has been done with mixed results. We have established Buzzom, GlobalThoughtz and NXY in terms of gaining market share and brand value. Now is the time, we are focusing on making money from them.

We just launched Buzzom Premium on Jan 5th and NXY Corporate Dashboard today. Buzzom Premium is focused on making a complete solution to a business Twitter needs while NXY Corporate Dashboard aims to become gateway to Internet Marketers and Marketing Firms.

We have priced reasonably well below any of our competition and will continue doing so. InRev will want to earn little money from huge customer base than focusing on few and charging more. This will however not mean compromising in customer service. We will provide customer service 24×7.

We thank all our friends and partners for bringing up here. Do remain with us in days ahead. We will be serving with better product and service innovations.

Happy New Year 2010.

Bhupendra

Today, InRev systems announces a url shortener for all Internet user making it easier to share the long links in twitter, facebook or any other social networking site. The like for the url shortener is nxy.in.

Its quite simple to use, just add the long url on the Top Link text box and press shorten to get the tiny url in the bottom text box.

With the frenzy of linking sharing in the Internet and the problems with the long URL, there has been many url shortener in the market like - tinyurl.com, tr.im, bit.ly etc. The importance of tiny url shortener has more value than just shortening the URL but also tracking the clicks on the url when being shared. This extra information would give web analytics a new edge in today’s social media society.

Though nxy.in is still in its infant stage, InRev promises to bring more value to the Internet users. Let us know your feed back and thoughts.

Missing data is a problem that most analysts have been facing for as long as they have been carrying out data analysis. A missing value carries a lot of information and most of the time this information goes completely ignored. Based on the behavior of the missing value they are often put into two categories:

Ignorable Missing Value
Non Ignorable Missing Value

Most of the problems are caused when the missingness is non ignorable. Let’s try to understand the importance of missing values by this particular case. You are analyzing the loan data from a bank and building a model to predict the defaulters. If the variables ‘Address’, ‘Contact No.’ are missing, it’s a clear indication that the person is going to be a defaulter.

In such cases it becomes very important to study the data and find out how different is missing data from non missing data. One might also consider studying patterns in the data to come to sound conclusions. The data will always support theories like “Women don’t like to reveal their age”. In most of the surveys, the variable ‘Age’ will be missing when the respondent is a woman.

Once the missingness is analyzed, one can use methods to deal with them:

Deleting the missing data: This method can be employed only if the missing values are few in number. It should be kept in mind that the deletion should affect the sample size significantly.


Substitute Mean: This is the traditional and easiest way to deal with the missing data. This method is not recommended since it decreases the variability and biases the data.


Regression Method: This is a very famous method of missing value substitution. Regression model can be used for predicting the missing values using the non missing values. This has to be used with care since this would predict the same value for cases having the same non missing values.


Multiple Imputation: This is arguably one of the best methods of missing value imputation and is carried out by many sophisticated statistical softwares . This method simulates multiple values for every incomplete data point and then analyses the datasets for each substitution iteratively. The substitution that retains the actual variability of the data is chosen.

Every business strategies and marketing campaign is monitored through the Return Of Investment. If we go through the blogosphere or twitter-sphere, we will find that there is a doubting over the effectiveness of social media as a way to increase the ROI. Few issues with social media,

1. Authenticity of the content in the social media.

2. The mix-up between experts and amateurs.

3. Conflict between personal brand and company’s brand.

4. Comparison of Social Media with traditional media.

5. Absence of 100 % proven Social Media strategies.

6. Social Media still in its innate state with no way to measure the effectiveness .

Above all the issues present, one can not ignore the fact that it exists among us. Many companies have already started using it to extend their reach to the customer. Further, many well-known brands already exists within the social media making their presence in a way which was never possible before. Now, they can interact with customers and get their views immediately and they don’t even have to wait for a polling result.

This new trend in the market shows that company needs to look beyond the ROI numbers. The market is no longer driven by the traditional media. Today, the customer is the focal point of the business, thus ignoring the presence of social media is not going to help in anyway. Social Media is in its initial growth and there are many areas to explore and a place to research.

Social Media cannot only be judged on the bases of its ability to sell things, but as a way to built a better product and better services. Many companies tend to forget that their very existence depends upon the need of the consumer. Millions are poured into the research and development of the product and services. Hence, there is a place for social media to reduce that cost and increase the productivity.

The fact that its a new technology, opens a lot of place of innovations. Hence, companies must tap into it to come up with the best of ways to utilize them. Honestly and truly, no one knows how to use social media, we only seem to have found out few ways but there is lot of potential for it to become the major player in the company’s profit.

The first step to any kind of analysis is to select the right data. It is practically impossible to consider the entire population for a study and thus a sample is considered. The sample should be a true representative of the entire population. If the sample is not selected properly, it can provide misleading conclusions. There are various methods available to select a good sample. I wanted to list down a few popular sampling methods.

Simple Random Sampling: This is the simplest and most popular way of obtaining a good sample. A simple random sample is chosen in a way that every item from the population has an equal probability of being picked in the sample. Thus simple random sampling avoids bias in the choice of individual items in the population and also gives every possible sample an equal chance of selection.

Stratified Sampling: In stratified sampling, the sample is obtained by dividing the entire population into various strata and choosing random samples from each stratum. In this method, each item in the strata has equal chance of being selected in the sample.

Cluster Sampling: This method of sampling requires the population to be divided into different strata and then randomly selecting a few strata. The cluster sample includes all the items from the selected strata.

Systematic Sampling: To choose a systematic sample, one needs to select a starting point randomly and choose every nth data from the population. For choosing a sample of 200 from a population of 2000, one needs to pick the 1st data point randomly and thereafter pick every 100th data point till a sample of 200 is reached.

Convenience Sampling: A method in which the sample is non random is called Convenience Sampling. This kind of sampling is basically used in target campaigns. The results in such methods are highly biased and in some cases can be very efficient.

Recently while I was in discussion with an owner of a mid size finance company in India, I happened to mention the term ‘MIS Reports’. He gave me a blank look and asked “What’s that?”

I was living by the fact that all companies be it financial or manufacturing use MIS reports for their decision making. Little did I know that this theory existed only in companies which had a good analytics team support or weren’t counted as ‘small’ or ‘mid’ size.

Many companies have still not realized the power of data. When the whole world is moving towards facts and figures; if you still haven’t explored your company data, you certainly are missing out on serious information.

MIS or Management Information System is used for transforming data into useful information for better decision making. It not only helps management make better plans but also helps in the efficient operation of the organization.

The reports generated by Management Information System ranges from financial statements of the company, performance reports to the human resource management. The reports help in understanding the various aspects of the business. They not only give a better understanding of the business but also in planning the future of the company.

Source: InRev Scoop

Kathmandu based company ResCon, an expert in the field of providing research and consulting services related to Nepalese financial market, has entered into a Partnership agreement with Bangalore based company InRev, a provider of quality Business Intelligence and Decision Management system. This agreement allows ResCon to be the Knowledge Partner for InRev, and InRev to be the International Partner for ResCon.  With this partnership, ResCon gets the opportunity to venture in Indian, US, UK and other European markets.

“Partnership with ResCon is the start of a long journey for InRev to serve the Capital Markets. We plan to mix our Analytics and Information System expertise to the Stock Market expertise of ResCon, and help customers make profitable and risk optimized investments”, says Deep Sherchan, Chief Marketing Officer of InRev.

ResCon looks at catering the demand for Analytics to the Nepali Markets and plans to enter the MIS Reporting Services and Analytics filed in Nepal. “We will be working to bring advanced technologies in the field of Reporting, Analytics and Decision Management to Nepal. This gives us room to serve our clients better”, explains Anup Sharma, Co-Founder and CEO, ResCon. On the similar note, Tilak Acharya, Co-Founder and CFO, ResCon says that “The two companies will be working in synergy to leverage each other’s asset to better serve the need of the clients. Moreover, this partnership will be helping ResCon to better provide quality research service to financial institutions and investors for better decision making process.”

InRev is co-founded by five Nepali guys and they have natural interest in Nepal. In his own words, CEO of InRev, Bhupendra Khanal says, “I was searching a way to bring my technical expertise to Nepal, and see Nepal grow as hub of Knowledge Process Industry. It has good local talent and an excellent climate. All Nepal needs is the external link and the technology inflow. We are addressing it through this alliance.”

About ResCon

ResCon, a portmanteau of Research and Consulting, was established in the spring of 2008. ResCon started with a clear vision of providing research and consulting services related to Nepalese Financial Sector to individuals and corporations. Since then, the company has been helping the investors to maximize returns by better channelizing the investment. Through constant research and study of stock market data & economic data, ResCon regularly publishes articles with a vision of providing quality materials for investors and scholars. Stock market analysis, economic analysis, portfolio building, selecting best stocks to invest in and conducting research on financial market are some other avenues where ResCon has professional expertise on. The company banks on the knowledge and prowess of its team to deliver quality service to its esteemed clients. For more information, please visit http://www.res-con.biz.

About InRev

InRev Systems Bangalore Pvt. Ltd transforms business by making all possible information available at all times. InRev combines domain knowledge, trusted reporting structure and innovative applications to help companies advance their business decisions. It serves across all stages of Business Intelligence and Decision Management right from Data Extraction and Integration to Strategy Consulting using the intelligent insights of the business. More information can be found at http://www.in-rev.com.

I was quite confused about how would we start the company blog. What should the first official post be? Needless to say, I wanted it to be discerning as well as descriptive. After a lot of struggle, it occurred to me that the whole idea of having this blog post was to inform and educate people about our company and what do we offer. So, let me start with introducing ourselves.

InRev was started about four months back with a vision to bring a revolution in the world of information. What started as a Marketing Analytics and Reporting Services company has not just broadened in nature but also widened in scope. Our products are:

• F-Cube: This provides economic reports and data for free. F-Cube is currently US focused but would soon be extended to the global economy.
• Scoop: This is to answer the reporting needs of any company. It can be customized to suit any requirement and is robust for any database.
• Buzzom: An application for the Online Social Media. TwitIn helps the user manage his Twitter accounts in an efficient manner. Services for other portals such as LinkedIn and Facebook will be added soon.
• GlobalThoughtz: This is primarily a blogging site which will have a Job Portal integrated to it. This would be the first Job Portal catering the analytics industry exclusively.

The basic idea of having this blogosphere is to know what you feel about us. We want to hear from you. We value constructive criticism and look forward to your valuable feedback.

So if you have any comment or concern, please let us know.