Everyone just loves numbers and this fact couldn’t fit better to Indians. From tracking stock market to Cricket to Orkut, we like to talk about every number that there is.
Most Indians do not understand the exact significance of Sensex but they still like to talk about it. They don’t know that it is dependent on only 30 stocks but still would ask about it as if their married life was dependent on it. No matter if they are a trader or not they will still want to know the numbers. CNBC will be switched on for hours just to track numbers.
Same with cricket. You would remember how many runs did Sachin hit against Bangladesh in 2001 but not remember when that important meeting is scheduled. Imagine cricket without numbers. Bowling economy, batting avg, strike rate, run rate and what not. People talk about every statistics between the overs. Even the broadcasters realize this and have all kind of representation for statistics. Imagine baseball. Your runs are not counted even if you get to 3rd base. Now a normal Indian reaction to this would be, ‘i should be given 3/4th runs’. The point is, small gains do not count in baseball, you have to reach a certain number before it makes a difference. Any other sports does not have so many numbers to track.
Orkut was all about increasing friends, scraps, fans etc. There was lots of activity on Orkut. Even if Desi users have followed their Firangi counterparts and adopted Facebook the activity is still missing. Imagine the number of scraps exchanged on Orkut. All app activity + wall posts taken together wont reach that number(excuse the exaggeration). Imagine the amount of conversation that was taking place. People wrote scripts to increase the scrap count. Numbers are just fun to track and probably the three number on Twitter, following, follower and updates, will gain the same respect.
The point is, quantity is an objective thing to compare which even novice can judge. Where as quality is a subjective thing where experts are required. By checking quantity you are letting the masses be the judge of their own action. They tell you the exact difference between you and your neighbour.
Even Google likes to show off its speed in milliseconds. Everyone knows/can see that Google is fast but still it likes to tell you that the results were generated in “.31 seconds”.
As school students we always bothered more about the subjects for which we got marks(maths, science) than the ones for which we got grades(drawing classes).
One should try to add statistics to every activity of the user and the topper in every field should be highlighted massively, makes the user feel special. That is how forums work.
If you think that Desi are a dumb crowd and I wont build a product for Desi… dude, you just cant afford to miss such a big number.
All said, it doesn’t mean that quality can take a back seat. One has to be careful in what they are counting else you might compromise on quality. Like if I let people count how many comments they have made in total on my blog then people might start spamming else i would have to moderate every comment.
So what all stats do you present to your users/customers ?
Recommend read: How Smart Companies Understand User Needs (and Exploit them)
Pic credit
[Naman is a startup enthusiast and has worked with couple of Indian startups as Product Manager. He writes at The Inspire Blog]
so amateurish
@Raj: thanks for the feedback. Will try and live up to your expectations.
What’s the point?
I could not understand point. Is it saying Indians loves stats is bad or is it saying entrepreneurs use this property of Indians to market products.
@Sunil @pravin : The point is, as Pravin guessed it, “Indians love stats and entrepreneurs can use this to their benefit.”
Thanks for the comments. Will make the point more clear now on.
What a f#@k#@g piece of bull$hit this article is? ..
Why the assumptions ????
‘Most Indians do not understand the exact significance of Sensex but they still like to talk about it. ‘
‘Even if Desi users have followed their Firangi counterparts and adopted Facebook’
‘Your runs are not counted even if you get to 3rd base. Now a normal Indian reaction to this would be, ‘i should be given 3/4th runs’.’
Do you have empirical evidence for any of the above? Seriously, this place is beginning to go to dogs – It has become a place for any half-nut dumb-wit to come and vomit whatever crap they want without making any point!
@Full Nut: Thanks for all the compliments.
These are not assumptions but observations. Keep in touch with the more usual Indians who do not read blogs but use Orkut and you will know how true this is. No data to support but just good observation.
1. Sensex: Most college students do not understand this. But just because it gets to the first page of ToI with every milestone, people want to pretend they understand and talk about it.
2. Desi were doing better on orkut but they adopted FB just because the hep people they knew were using it. Most Indians learned about this through their NRI friends/relatives.
3. You should try explaining baseball to a person who understands cricket and you will get this reaction. Try it!
Its a waste of my time to even respond to your comment, given how clueless you appear in your cocoon, but neverthless I couldn’t resist .. the few mins I would be wasting might be worthwhile if u get my drift.
You have no freakin’ clue abt the power of Facebook compared to Orkut. Orkut scrapping is a thing of past and most people moved to FB because it was more structured, could access more types of content, had APIs which help one utilize it better and overall build a much better ecosystem.
Sensex, Baseball or anything else your half-ass head can conjure up – it’s nothing to with Indians. Anyone who doesn’t know a game would draw parallels to one he/she does and there is nothing wrong with it!!
Stock market, just like any other finance or scientific field may not interest everyone, let alone the young minds in college, but to ‘sound cool’ or ‘stay hep’ or be ‘in the circle’, some may try to pretend … just like how you are pretending to give all this gyan without even a shred of knowledge abt it – talk abt observations in dark!! … if u want to write, stay open to getting critiqued and learn to accept/respond gracefully!
I did not feel like readin so much on the comment…duh.
Honestly, this is a ridiculous article. Ashish, is this what/how pluggd.in is going to be?
Oh c’mon, y do people start counting their balls whenever an article shows we Indians in a truthfully-narrow view…?? Accept it brothers, that we cannot accept alternative views… we r xenophobic asshole society who just wanna suck up everyone creative out there. Politics is our highest agenda in life, and we r happy-go-easy-big-mouth-blunt-boozers. We do not have an identity of our own.
I found Naman’s article pretty interesting and legible as against the wastage pointed out by morons who failed to see the color of their butts. I guess you fucking morons should read Criket instead of pluggd.in. Duh.
Guys
a) Naman has shared a perspective here – and even though you disagree, ensure that you don’t use any adjectives (I will mark that as spam).
b) I believe Naman is trying to make a basic point here – that people love to collect numbers on the Internet. Be it followers/following ratio (Twitter) or # of scraps, numbers drive ego and if you are building a consumer product, think of ways to boost one’s ego.
-Ashish