Aug
Opinion 2.0 !
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This is written by Shantanu Gangal. Read his first post here)
• All leading newspapers, on Monday 17th, carried advertisements on their very first page questioning the Reliance Industries (RIL) – Petroleum Ministry nexus. When the ADA group realized that the three way conflict might degenerate to the other 2 parties ganging up, it decided to go public – with a difference.
Another ad was released today (18th) on similar lines. The quarter page advertisement ends by asking the reader to send back comments using email or SMS.
• Earlier this year, Idea mobile carried a campaign with Abhishek Bachchan as a civil servant who involves the junta in decision-making – regarding bridges, SEZ and so on. Taking a lesson from this, the BMC sent out SMSes asking parents whether schools should be shut as a precautionary measure against swine-flu.
While it isn’t clear how the public’s response to either of the above was / will be used, it has definitely heralded a new paradigm in seeking to build / inveigle / gather opinion from the masses. The reaching across worlds will change advertising / marketing significantly.
Information (and hence, propaganda) flowed in a single direction, till recently. Channels through which opinions could flow against the above mentioned current were few and expensive. This led to movie after movie mouthing the “humari kaun sunega?” (Hindi for: Who will hear us out?). This gap is decidedly getting bridged.
Due to infrastructural developments of the last decade, communication between people separated by geographies and opportunities became feasible. As Tom Friedman put it, The world is now flat! It was possible for everyone to voice their opinions about any topic they wished.
With the advent of interactive media and social networking, not only are people saying things but also people who matter are hearing them. While I won’t dare to go as far as saying that the worlds of the rich and the not-rich, the worlds of those who do and those to whom things get done are real-ly meeting, it can be said that the virtual worlds are nearing. There is an increased possibility that someone who was earlier ‘outta my league’ might end up talking to me. Some reasons for this shift can be:
1. Ever since the internet became a storehouse of information and knowledge, the physical separation between the expert and his area of expertise increased. It is possible that good and damaging criticism of RIL may come from someone outside ADAG and if it does, (I think) Anil Ambani will not only read it, he will also quote it in public as a genuine national grievance.
The possibility that the best knowledge / analysis might be found in some remote town has increased and is now well accepted.
2. The web is also an interactive media. And its big business. Hence people need online personas. As Sean Diddy Combs put it,
“Before, it was just at live shows, now you have to be able to do a great live show, you have to be able to do a great online interview, you need to have a great Facebook page”.
Federer needs to show his twins off on Facebook. In the Indian context, Gul Panag, Priyanka Chopra etc. all are in virtual connect with their fans. So are Ministers like Shashi Tharoor and S M Krishna. If your tweet hits the right note, it echoes in the places that matter.
If recent trends are anything to go by, opportunities to express your opinion (biased or otherwise) at the highest level are here to stay. It’s a good age to be highly opinionated. 
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10 Responses to “Opinion 2.0 !”
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Well written article , covers all aspects of sharing opinions, cheers
Excellent article, although a little out of date, especially in an international context. The ability of social media and technology to connect people like never before has been utilized a lot of times to express public opinion.
In fact, there was an interesting case in China where the Chinese government (whose track record at listening to its masses is impeccable) bowed down to the pressure of its online community and disciplined a couple who had posted videos of them indulging in animal cruelty on the internet, even though there was technically no law against it.
There are a lot of such examples on the internet when law-makers and corporates have used opinion polls etc to gauge the mood of the public, and although at this moment, these activities are still at a nascent stage in India, we could soon see more and more of such activities taking place.
Another interesting aspect could be how such activities slowly phase out the need for focus groups, as it becomes possible to gather vast quantities of public opinion in a short time frame. The trick here, of course, is to ensure that a lot of the relevant target segment should respond (which will take some time to implement in India).
There are times when results might end up skewed because the target demographic did not participate, or could not participate. For example, a recent online poll conducted by Indiatimes (or probably Rediff, I forget which one) about the decriminalization of homosexuality saw the majority of voters vote against the proposed change, while random sample polls by newspapers in Mumbai gave a contrary result.
Striking off on a tangent, a friend of mine has written a rather brilliant piece that obliquely touches on this point.
http://divinecomedians.blogspot.com/2009/07/of-message-boards-and-tv-serials.html
Nicely worded. LinkedIn is one of the sites which have come big in connecting the whole business world and the institutional world. I am bit skeptical about the situation in India, but things are looking good.
I think this article is a tipping point of sorts.
While i agree with abhiram that the underlying theme is a little outdated, however what is unique about this article is the subject of the post.
Opinion 2.0
This to me is something we should all stop and reflect on.
Yes, we are aware of web 2.0, and all its advantages and merits.
There has been social networking[facebook, twitter], online media, telecom companies vying hard to bridge the gap between the masses, and the internet acting as the greate leveller in an increasingly “flat” ecosystem
And the result of this is two fold
1. People are able to have opinions on everything. on anything. Opinions have begun to matter. Its not just about people building a network on Facebook or communicating on twitter. Its about the ‘opinion’. People are speaking up.
2. The quality of opinions are now getting more forceful. More compelling. People are being heard. There is now a great value in having an opinion. There is money to be made if you have an opinion. In some way..this is the fortune at the bottom of the “internet” pyramid – the opionion.
Opininion 2.0 – Did anyone hear of that before?
First heard on stratin!! We need to pat ourselves on the back!
[to verify this, i googled "Opinion 2.0" and found this post 3rd on the Google search rankings! but the first 2 search results are unrelated to our context. Kudos!]
Great post this one!
Not strictly on topic, but in some cases, maybe public opinion is a bad thing
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8216568.stm
apologies for some typos in my earlier comment.
Was writing non-stop as my thoughts flowed!
@all: Thanks.
While I agree that the theme might be prevalent internationally, I haven’t heard of any Indian agency (esp. Civic bodies like the Municipal Corporation) pro-actively seek responses from the entire swathe of the society, using what has become the default medium in the country – mobile telephony. In the sense of the corporation believing in the awareness of the masses and their desire to contribute meaningfully to the decision making, I thought it was a First (for India).
LinkedIn, in my understanding, doesn’t do the same thing. The business world and the lawmakers are prolly to well connected [:p] its the end user who depends on the price of the (frying pan) gas and the (fire) oil.
And Shantan, thanks for your comment. It clarified the issue in my head as well.