Facebook Ads: Do they really work ?

Here is an experiment that I thought I should put on the blog. Recently Facebook provided me with a free Rs 1500 advertisement credit and I thought I should give it a try. I had created a page an year back and through direct emails/contacts, I had managed to get 40-50 likes on the page. I thought why not promote the page now that I have some free credit. I created a small ad, set a budget of Rs 100 per day, selected my target audience as young kids between the age of 14-18 years, living in India and interested in Education. And voila! It worked!


In the next 3 days, Facebook used my daily budget of Rs 100 and I got approximately 100-150 likes per day on the page. I was happy and I started posting updates on the page which should have enticed my targeted audience and then wait for them to like and promote those posts which in turn would have brought more people to my page. Remember these are young college going kids and would have friends with similar liking/interest and age group. But surprisingly, I did not receive a single like on any of my post. I tried posting a question that nobody answered. While its entirely possible that I did a poor job building the content on the page, but if it was the right audience, at least one of those 400 would have found the post interesting ?


I got suspicious about the quality of the audience and I started checking profiles of some of them. They looked quite fake to me, most of them hidden and couple of open profiles that could find, those folks were liking pages at a rate of 90-100 pages every hour and with no correlation whatsoever between those pages. Doesn't look quite right, yeah ?


I then did one more experiment and I started promoting an individual post on the page for a budget of Rs 290. And voila! Once again I am lucky and suddenly more and more people are liking that post and my promotion budget is being consumed at a rate that would make me bankrupt soon had I not set the limit and had I not been using free credit from Facebook :-)


After 3 days, I stopped the page promotion and since then I haven't received a single like on the page. Another interesting data point is: from my original 40-50 likes, the count of reachable fans which Facebook defines as "the total number of friends of fans" was around 15K. When the likes went up to 500, the friends count now is around 17K. Together this shows how poor the virality of these additional fans is.


This experiment raises a lot of questions.

1. Are there people around who would like any page or post that comes as promotion to them ? If so, why ? Why do they do that ?
2. Are there companies hiring people to just create fake profiles and help companies boost their fan count ? May be it helps them for raising money from investors ? But are investors really stupid to not know that ?
3. Since in this entire exercise, only Facebook had any direct chance of generating revenue, is Facebook itself hiring people (most likely indirectly) to like promoted pages/posts or answer promoted questions ?

I personally think there is more to this entire like/promotion business than meets the eyes. May be intelligent people already know that and they are dumping Facebook stock at a rate that would soon make it another Zynga.

National Consumer Helpline

When I lost my 5 year old 256MB sony memory card, I wanted to buy a 4GB for my Sony Cybershot P10. I thought that will be useful for next camera or a handycam that I was planning to buy soon. I had a very good with experience with online shops like Amazon in the US and wanted to give a try in India (and I am a bit lazy too).

I use Rediff quite regular as a news portal. Being a NASDAQ listed company, I was not too worried about its service and security. So I went ahead and placed an order for a 4GB Sony Memory Card Duo Pro. I thought I am getting it very reasonable at Rs 995 + Rs 35 shipping. The product is sold by INDMART, Delhi and it got shipped in 6-7 days. This was a bit late, but I was OK with that.

When I got the shipment, I got the first shock. The seller sent me a 1GB card instead of the 4GB one. I immediately wrote a mail to Rediff customer support. Somebody from Rediff called me up to get the details. He advised me send the product back to the seller and promised a replacement as soon as its received. I was a bit reluctant because I was not sure if I would get back the replacement and the additional cost of the return shipment. But Rediff agreed to pay for it (as a gift voucher). So I sent the product back.

After that there is a complete silence. I don't hear anything from Rediff. They don't reply to my emails and I soon figured out they don't have any telephone number listed on their site for customer support. Wow! So I call up their headoffice and FYI that's how you can speak to the customer support. The person again promises to look into the matter. I meanwhile talked to the seller and he confirmed that the replacement has been dispatched, but fails to give me the AWB of the shipment. In couple of days time, Rediff also confirms that the product has been dispatched, but again no details about the courier. My next few attempts to contact Rediff/seller are wasted. Soon I stop getting any updates from Rediff. In the process, I had lost more than a month.

That's when I found National Consumer Helpline. I decided to give it a shot. I called them up and explained by case. They asked me what all I tried so far and advised me to write a letter to Rediff.com, seeking a replacement product within 7 days, or else I will go the consumer court. They also gave me a complaint number to follow up.

I wrote a letter to Rediff asking for immediate delivery of the product and also Rs 1000 as compensation for the time, money and energy wasted by me. Behind the scene they probably started communucating with Rediff as well. Because I started getting responses from Rediff and even the National Consumer Helpline called me up one day and asking for the status. Apparently, Rediff had communicated to them that they have sent the replacement.

I got replacement product within 3-4 days. Unfortunately, it was not with the original packing and I once again refused to accept. Finally, Rediff refunded me my order amount. In addition they compensated me by paying another Rs 1000 and also arranged to pick up the product from my home.

NCH seems like a very good initiative and I would encourage everyone to give it a shot if your consumer rights are under threat. They have a toll free number 1800-11-4000 for BSNL/MTNL or 011-27662955-58 for other users. I am now taking up another case of my Kenstar water cooler with them where the company has failed to replace the faulty water pump which is under warranty for last 2 months.

MSEB Online payment

When I first found the MSEB online payment site (www.mahadiscom.com), I was too happy. The MSEB bill payments used to be nuisance and I used to forget to pay the bill every alternate month. Well, there are other pill payment avenues such as ICICIBank but what I like about MSEB site is that you can track the payment history and look at the past statistics about consumption and payments.

But the joy did not last long since the website stopped working for me a few days later. It took me few days to figure out that the site works on Windows. Surprisingly, it wasn't the usual IE vs Firefox issue because the site did not work from Windows VM running on Linux. Today, I got annoyed and used our friend Google to see if others are facing this issue and that's when I saw this interesting post: http://siddhesh.livejournal.com/14920.html

Yes, that's true!! It's the MTU of the ethernet card which is causing the issue. Set it to something like 1400 or even lesser (instead of the standard 1500) and the site starts working like a charm! (No need to restart the network or the browser)

# ifconfig wlan0 mtu 1400

It's wierd though. Now there is yet another variable to play with when websites don't work seemlessly on all platforms, browsers :-(

Canada 2008 Trip

I am back from my PostgreSQL PGCON 2008 trip. I was there to attend the developer meet, present my work on HOT and of course listen to many other fantastic speakers. I thought it would be a good idea to note down my experiences with this trip. It's rather long so read whatever interests you.

You can see the photographs here.

Flight

I flew by Lufthansa-Air Canada via Frankfurt-Toronto-Ottawa. This was the first time I flew via Frankfurt. This airport seems much smaller and less sexy that the Heathrow airport. But the transit was quick and fast. I would have liked some free wireless internet (I know I am asking too much). T-mobile operates a wi-fi zone, but its rather expensive. Another thing I found weird is that all the T-phones refused to connect to the India. I tried using both my credit cards, but no luck.

The Toronto and Ottawa airports are OK. Nothing great. Ottawa airport is very quiet. Toronto is a bit busy, but nothing like other international airports I have seen.

I liked the food served by Lufthansa. Air Canada was pathetic. Also the cabin staff of Air Canada was less friendly. The good thing about Air Canada is that they have personal TVs and a good movie library. And they have USB and power sockets on each seat for laptop/mobile chargers.

Canada

Canada is the second largest country in the world by size. The population of Canada is around 33 Million. Compare that against Mumbai which alone has something like 23 Million people living in and its suburbs. I think Canada is a beautiful country, though I am not sure if I would say the same if I visit in winter J I mean, I would enjoy the snow for few days, but then wouldn’t it too boring to see the slow everyday for three months and daylight for just few hours!

I also found Canada a bit more expensive compared to US, at least for food and usual day-to-day stuff. But I was there for just a few days, so may be my perception is wrong. Another thing that confused me is the hotel bills usually have a “gratuity” head. I thought it’s just a fancy name for “tip” and that’s what it is.

Another cool thing I observed while talking to people is that they are really excited about the way India is progressing. I heard lots of comments like “India is doing great!”. It’s nice to hear that from distant foreigners.

Stay at Ottawa

It’s a nice city. Though it’s a capital of Canada, it’s much smaller and quieter than Toronto. I stayed at Holiday Inn which is right in the downtown. It took me something like $26 (plus tips) for a cab from the airport. The hotel has free internet access, though parking is paid. There were few shopping malls, pubs and restaurants near the hotel. There are few museums around as well, but I did not get chance to see any. I managed to find an Indian restaurant too.
Ottawa is quite pedestrian and bicycle friendly. So if you plan to stay for a longer duration, you can rent out a bicycle. You can ride on the drive ways as well as pedestrian ways :-) Though I was a bit worried about the weather, it did not trouble me much. It rained either during the nights or during the day when I was attending the conferences.

Stay at Toronto

Well, I stayed pretty close to the airport. One reason for choosing Four Points By Sheraton was that it offered complimentary airport pickup and drop shuttle. I am not sure if this was the best decision because the airport is quite far from the downtown and there is nothing much to see or do near the hotel. There is a good public transport to take you to the downtown, but you need to ride a bus and then change at couple of subway junctions to reach to the Union Station. But if you have time and energy, that’s not a bad option. I guess the public transport may cost you $2.75 one-way or you can get a $9 day pass. Btw, this hotel also had free internet access.

I would recommend staying in the downtown if you are staying for 3-4 days, so that you can roam around a bit and see the city. I guess hiring a cab from the airport would cost you dear (something like $50).

Niagara Falls

I feel I did the right thing by visiting Niagara Falls. It’s amazing. It’s not the world’s tallest fall, but what makes it so beautiful is the sheer volume and speed with which the water flows down. Of course, the Canadian Falls are much more beautiful than the American Falls. The ride to Maid of the Mist is more than worth the penny. Also keep some time at your hand to walk down to the falls. You would love the close look at the falls.

I took one of the Niagara Tour buses. I think that’s the best way if you are going for a day trip. The guy picked me up from the Hotel which is like 15-16 km from the downtown and dropped me back to the hotel just in time to catch my flight. Also it’s more fun to listen to the tour guide than just visiting the place and coming back. The tour costs $79 (plus taxes + $12 for outside Toronto pickup ~ $91) . It includes the ticket for Maid of the Mist.
But be ready to shell out another $10 for this :-)

There are few sight seeing buses at Niagara. I think the pass for hop-on hop-off bus is something like $10 - $15, which I would say is not expensive. So another option to visit Niagara Falls is to take a train or a CanadaCoach bus to Niagara Falls and then use local buses. I am sure there are bicycle renting agencies too and that could a great option on a bright sunny day.

And here is the wedding of the year! A couple got married on the same boat we were riding to Maid of the Mist – right in the middle of the Fall! That’s amazing, isn’t it!

Mumbai Airport

Welcome back!

I thought they are doing a lot to improve things, but there is a long way to go. In fact, when I left from Mumbai, the departure gates are renovated and they look good. There are power points from laptop and mobile chargers, the rest room are clean too. But the arrival gate is still in very bad shape. Also, I did not at all like the immigration and customs folks. They are just too arrogant and bureaucratic. In fact, I answered some survey questions at the Frankfurt airport (well, I was tired, but the girl taking the survey was beautiful, so had to answer the questions ;-)) . I was very conservative in giving them ratings. So I wonder what would I do for the Mumbai airport ;-)

I’ve written a bit here about the conference itself. I would write some more, So stay tuned.

Twitter

I heard about Twitter couple of weeks back (seems like I am far behind in the Web 2 world). Its an interesting concept, an easy way to keep your friends and family know what you are doing. I wonder if users would figure out innovative ways to use this new communication model. For example, what if we have a car-pooling group and follow each other on twitter! Whenever I leave from my home or office, I just update myself on twitter. Another friend who is following me and needs a ride can call me up and we can car pool. What say ?

I found this youtube video which nicely explains what twitter does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

GPRS on FC8

Never thought it will be so simple to use my GPRS enabled cell phone to connect to the Internet when I am booted in Fedora Core 8. But its just a two step process. Not only that, the speed is decent, much better than my Reliance data card. Here is an example for my Sony K550i handset and Idea connection; others can easily figure out the phone number, username, password and DialCommand from their service provider:

1. Copy the following in your /etc/wvdial.conf file

[Dialer Defaults]
DialCommand = AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP’’,’’INTERNET’’
SetVolume = 0
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 115200
FlowControl = Hardware(CRTSCTS)
Dial Command = ATDT
Init1 = ATZ
Init3 = ATM0

[Dialer Idea]
Username =
Password =
Phone = *99#


2. Now login as root and just type:

# wvdial Idea

Look at the output message; copy the DNS entry into your /etc/resolv.conf file and you should be already connected.

Of course, I am assuming you have got your GPRS activated from the service provider. Also if you are planning to use it often, I would recommend a decent GPRS package. I am paying Rs 250 p.m. for 750 MB - decent enough for my usage.

Risk

My wife and brother tells me that I take excessive risks while driving, especially on highways while overtaking slow moving (well, relative to me :-)) vehicles. I agree. Sometimes I am too close to the vehicle I am overtaking. Sometimes I start the overtake immediately after the car in front has given way to me. May be these are not the best ways to overtake and experienced drivers would tell me that I am taking too much risk. But that's the point. Isn't the risk taking appetite is different for different people ? Somebody might consider mountaineering or river rafting 'risky' but for someone else it's just an adventure or sport that he or she can not live without. Does that mean the person who is risking his life is stupid ? I don't think so as long as (s)he is aware of the risks associated with these acts and has taken steps to mitigate those risks.

My brother who drives at 120 kmph on a highway where speed limits are clearly marked as 80 kmph is also taking undue risk. But he considers that as acceptable. He would sometimes overtake from the left side and consider that as acceptable or is not aware of the blind spots and is OK with that. But he finds one particular aspect of my driving as risky and unacceptable. Isn't that hypocracy ? I mean, com'on, give me a break! Each one of us takes risks, one way or the other, in all aspects of life. I am not against giving a piece of advise (neither against taking it :-)) or reminding somebody of the risk he is taking, but let the person decide whether he wants to keep taking those chances or not. I believe every sensible person would adjust his behavior, habits and decisions to strike a right balance between the risks and the rewards, but as per his own risk taking appetite at that point of time.