Cybercrime networks

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These articles on  Cybercrime networks in Mumbai and the e-crooks confirms what something that has troubled me for the last two years.  From the article

The latter two cases indicate social engineering, where the victim has been spied on and cultivated. The Pune man had to have had a reason to believe he had African property and the Worli businessman’s cheaters knew he had recently bought a BMW. In other words, they were not entirely random attacks.

These networks are very well entrenched and have their informants in all major internet companies here. At first I was surprised that this was happening, now after two years I am just trying to gather the evidence so that I have a solid case. The general level of internet literacy is low, so these cybercriminals  think that they can get away with it (and they usually do). In Europe, USA, Canada, cyber criminals have served jail terms, so it is safer with businesses there.

All this has badly hampered the growth of internet in India. If you are sure that your emails are being intercepted, will you send any important information over email?  The signature of these cybercriminals is blank calls from non existent phone numbers.  Some Indian internet companies turn a blind eye to these criminal activities of their employees, but they do not realize that in the long run, they lose both money and goodwill.  If  your customers are getting hurt financially by these  criminals,  they will spend less money with you and move their business to other vendors.

After a time, it is easy to detect these activities, the  criminals are humans and they start leaving evidence. Some of these criminal networks seem to be hired by big global companies.  Unfortunately,  some  Indian internet companies are not very cooperative and do not take any action to prevent this problem, which also damages the companies in the long term.

Social conditioning

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Nice article on what happens to female school and college toppers in India , more than 50%  end up wasting their talent and skills.   Most of the women who are showcased by the media  belong to a rich/ famous family – they are some one’s wife / daughter / daughter-in-law / girlfriend and owe their position to their relationship, not their own competence.   It is very difficult to start a business from scratch without any backing of any sort , not  only do you miss out on the networking,  many vendors will try to cheat you by charging a higher price / selling substandard material.

Online VC funding

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Most of the online news coverage in India relates to startups and VC funding, but is Venture capital or an angel investor really required for an online business . Most startups in India waste a lot of time and energy trying to get funding when they should be focussing on growing their business.  You can make a lot of money with just a computer and an internet connection if  you are willing to work hard and understand the market needs, instead of believing the hype being published.

Digital media

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India Today, India’s largest magazine publisher is not going to spend any more money on digital media,  they are not getting the returns they want.  You can make money from  content, but you have to keep your overheads really low.  Most big Indian media companies have plush offices and highly paid employees( very important for “status” in India), with those expenses, it is very difficult to be profitable online with content websites.

The other thing the publisher has correctly pointed out (which you will rarely see mentioned in India’s digital media)  is that Google has a monopoly and often uses the information available to destroy /damage any potential competitor.  I have personally experienced it and at least two of the ad networks I work with have specifically confirmed it.  When the demand for advertising space exceeds supply, Google is happy to have content publishers,  but now when the supply exceeds demand, Google shows PSAs on content websites who use Adsense so that the advertisers spend their entire budget on advertising directly on Google’s own properties.

Smaller Indian content websites can make money online, but few have the imagination, motivation or exposure to really grow big, compete with companies worldwide and beat them.  They are too worried about others stealing their ideas.  Compared to a decade ago, people in their twenties have a lot of distractions and often do not focus or  reinvest enough into their business.

From my personal experience, when you are very small, the damage  the big companies can do is more.  Once you learn to out maneuver them and are more careful,  at least some of them will stop wasting their money and leave you alone.  Others will continue their attempts to damage your business, but just treat it like a game of chess, a form of entertainment.  Lets see who has the last laugh.

India online

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Unlike the rest of the world,  the number of  internet users in  India is decreasing . Part of the reason is that there are almost no Indian websites which are worth visiting, most are just copy cats of foreign websites.  They are simply not value for money, why will any one want to spend money making friends (90% fake) online.  I like the way Chinese companies use the internet, they will directly tell you they got my email from one of my websites, they want to sell their product.  I get a lot of friend requests from India along with photos, but I am NOT interested in making fake friends online, if you want to buy / sell / want advice, better to get to the point directly.   I am very good at detecting lies.

Very few local companies spend any amount of time doing market research, they expend their energy and money spying and sabotaging any other company who they think will grow.Unlike coding where you learn a new language every few years, one of the better aspects of making money online is that experience matters.  Till 2 years ago, most of the money I made from my websites was from a single source.  Today, it is very diversified. My only regret is that I did not try the other methods earlier.

You may have an MBA from a top school,  have  hundreds of employees,  passed all the necessary certifications or read all the blogs of the all the “internet marketing gurus”,  it does not matter for online success.  A large number of employees can be a problem when times are bad (the previous post on Infosys layoffs has been very popular)

Unless you have hands on experience in making money online from your own websites or online,  you are unlikely to be able to formulate  a viable monetization strategy or run a profitable online business.

IT Companies

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Infosys has fired 2100 employees and  a confirmation from ex-Infosys employees about layoffs.  The problem is that when you provide services to only a few major customers, your fortunes are tied to how well their business does.  Compared to developing a product, providing a service is not very risky , but is very labour intensive.  Since there are only 24 hours in a day, at some stage you are forced to hire people to scale and then manage them.

If you develop a technology or even understand it better than others, the entry barriers are very high and it is difficult to replicate it easily.  Indian IT companies have a lot of cash reserves, so could afford to take risks. Unfortunately they did not.

More on the Infosys employee firing technique – in India the employees are forced to “resign” , this is how layoffs are implemented by HR departments.   Feel sorry for the ex-employees, actually rating systems in most companies are not fair,  many employees who are good at office politics often get good ratings, though they do little work.

Google

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Though Google’s official motto is  “Do no evil” , they certainly do hire evil employees.  Internet marketer sues Google employee .

When I was using Adsense on my websites , I always felt that the code was used to track the websites  I owned , how I marketed them, how I gathered content for my website and to collect a lot of other information.  It may not be their official policy yet, but they definitely do not have good systems in place to prevent malpractices.

Venture Capital Funding

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This post on  Google’s venture capital arm  Google Ventures , summarises what  I have believed for long

Corporate venture capital, according to many, constricts innovation rather than foster it. I’m inclined to go with the view, particularly as speculationGoogle launching a venture capital arm called Google Ventures. The Mountain View, California-headquartered search giant has not yet confirmed these news reports. mounts again about

No matter how it is packaged, the venture investing model followed by the likes of Intel, Cisco Systems, Motorola and so on ultimately exists to serve one purpose — incubate external tech labs with the objective of either absorbing those emerging technologies within the larger company or to simply arrest the growth of a competitive technology

Many of these companies will go to any length to destroy a competitor , from spying on activities to dumping viruses and launching DDOS attacks.  So the less they know about you, the better.

Mainstream media

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So salaries are being reduced in the mainstream media companies, earlier there was talk of layoffs too.  Unlike the developed countries where major newspapers are closing their print editions, the mainstream media has flourished in India in the last few years.

However, at least for the English language papers, it is going to be a struggle soon, since they cater to the same English speaking internet using population.  The only advantage is that most people spend a lot of time commuting in major metros, so newspapers are still very convenient for reading when you are stuck in a traffic jam.

Ragging

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This recent ragging death has got a lot of media coverage.  The students who suffer the most are those who stay in hostels, usually 17 or 18 years , living far away from their parents for the first time.  Its been a long time, but from what I remember from my hostel days, those who take greatest pleasure in ragging their juniors are those who have the attributes for success in the corporate world – arrogant, brash and inconsiderate, ragging is their idea of “fun”.

It is worth noting that the to be “doctors” who committed the murder were drunk, why is drinking and pub culture considered  being “forward” and modern?