Panel discussion on digital media in the next decade, IIT Mumbai

Yesterday I attended a panel discussion on "Digital media in the next decade", jointly organized by E-cell of IIT Mumbai and WATBlog. (And guess what!! I forgot to take my camera along.)

In my opinion, the choice of panelists for this event was excellent. This raised my expectations to what the entire discussion could have been, but I was left disappointed. A large part of the discussion was about current trends in Indian online advertising and setting up of dot-com's in India. All the panelists looked more concerned about the current problems in the indian internet space than excited about the opportunities that the next decade would bring. However, the overall discussion was good and though it digressed, I have no complains.

Digital media in the last 10 years...

Moderator, Rajiv Dingra of WATBlog, started things off by asking how digital media in the last 10 years changed the way of our lives. To which the answers ranged from email to everything technology that followed. Surya Mantha, CEO web18, said that the poor internet infrastructure of the country has been the biggest challenge so far. Comparing traditional and digital media from the perspective of ad networks, Vijay Malik of Percept Knorigin pointed out that though there adoption levels of digital media among the advertisers in India is decent, it has still not become their necessity.

E-commerce in India

There was also a lot of talk about e-commerce in India. Surya Mantha shared how subscription based online business models do not work in India. He said "the average indian internet user" would pay money online only if he would save money or make money by the transaction. Ashish Gupta believed there is no trust factor between the providers and the consumers in India. Viraj Malik threw the idea of engaging "middle-men" like microfinancers and retailers into e-commerce rather than the end user.

On IPTV, 3G, WiMax

Ashish Gupta wish he knew what would work in this country and what would not. He pointed out that India is a developing economy and businesses in India undertake only executional risks and not technological risks. Suvir Sujan wrote off IPTV declaring it dead-on-arrival. Surya Mantha made and interesting point somewhere in between on how graduates from IITs work at his firm dealing with online advertising while pass-outs from lesser know colleges do stuff like data mining. So, I guess we are really not gonna see any contribution from India to shape the technology of the future and remain end-users.

Q & A

There were a lot of people eager to question the panelists but not enough time. This was not a surprise as there was an iphone on stake, to be given away to the person who would have the most interesting question. Some interesting questions were:

• Why VCs in India have moved away from investing in ideas and prototype;s and do not come forward until some startup is already making money?
• Could a support and services ecosystem, similar to the one that exists around desktops, be built for mobile devices?
• Other than cutting costs and utilizing resources to capacity, what othet startegies should a startup implement during slowdowns?
• What is your contribution towards the growth of digital media in India?
• In order to mature, would the internet segment in India have to go through a phase of over-investment and then a burst, like it happened in the west? (this was judged the most interesting quesetion)

The best parts

To listen Ashish Gupta talk. And the dinner ;)