Mar
3
Making money online gets tougher – covers the business models and problems faced making money online in India. I have noted some of my observations based on personal experience, since I have a pure play online business model. Basically internet business income (not a service provider) is unstable, you can earn US$5,000+ in one month and less than $1000 the other due to factors beyond your control.
Your ability to make money online over the long term depends on a number of factors like:
- How you manage your overheads – if you keep them sufficiently low, it is much easier to survive.
- Your family responsibilities and finances – if you have a lot of loans, a dependent wife and children, it can be difficult to survive during the downturn.
- Level of technical competence and ability to learn – if you can do the server admin, content writing and manage advertising yourself it helps
- Diversification – revenue from multiple sources ensures that there are fewer variations in income.
- Ability to take risks – If your business is doing well, it is easy to become complacent, but if you do not take risks and fail, it can adversely affect your future business.
- Choice of business partners – it is important to work with reliable companies who provide good customer support.
- Compared to Western countries making money online is a lot more difficult, you cannot sign up for many advertising networks (since you are from India), affiliate commissions are routinely stolen due to cookie stuffing, so you have to spend a lot of time in front of the computer experimenting to find out what works. Some people may get bored or lack the discipline to do so.
- Lifestyle – If you lead a lavish lifestyle, parties,expensive luxury products, foreign holidays, you have less to see you through difficult times, so a job is better for you.
Feb
26
Most of the media coverage of the Paypal problems in the Indian media have been just about RBI stopping Paypal operations, not about the inconvenience caused to the lakhs of Indian account holders. If a small co-operative bank collapses, RBI will take steps to ensure that the account holders interests are protected, but with Paypal, there seems to be no progress for a month.
This article http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/business-capital-stuck-in-paypal-accounts/386902/
mentions the problems faced by small business account holders in India, but underestimates the number of people affected. It is not 30,000-40000, it is more likely to be 400,000( my estimate is that it should be more). I have an old work at home website, about making money online, and the yearly traffic is much more than 30,000 – 40,000. If you make any significant amount of money online, and have diversified income sources, Paypal is the most popular payment option for online payments.
This issue has adversely affected many businesses, especially service providers who have to pay their employees and freelancers who have loans and families to support. It is nearly a month now, mass payments sent to even Indian business accounts between Feb 1-3 were reversed, and some senders are not returning the money. Both Paypal and RBI could have handled the issue better and at least indicated a time frame for resolution, so that users can plan for the future.
The mainstream media can give extensive coverage to film stars and cricketers, who are basically entertainers , but is totally isolated from issues which really affect people online. This could be the reason why despite all the investments they make, there is little growth in their internet business. Though Twitter, Facebook and social networking websites get a lot of media coverage, they are basically time pass activities. In India, people are looking for value for money, if I can make money online, I do not mind spending money online, but I definitely do not care for fake “friends”online.
Dec
18
India’s largest companies by turnover for Financial Year ending March 2009
(Amount in Rs crore)
Top 6
Indian Oil – Rs 290,946 crore – Oil and Gas
Reliance Industries – Rs 153,128 crore – Oil and Gas
Tata Steel – Rs 147,595 crore – Steel
BPCL – Rs 137,993 crore – Oil and Gas
HPCL – Rs 129,979 crore – Oil and Gas
State Bank of India – Rs 113093 crore – Banking
Others of interest
11 NTPC – Rs 47,647 crore – Power generation
13 Larsen & Toubro – Rs 41,055 crore – Capital goods
Tata Consultancy Services – Rs 27,386 crore – Infotech
Infosys – Rs 22,166 crore – Infotech
Bharti Airtel – Rs 37,504 crore – Telecom
Hindustan Unilever – Rs 16,848 crore – FMCG
Approximate figures (from Outlook issue referenced in an earlier post)
Bennett Coleman & Company (Times of India group) – nearly Rs 5000 crore
Dainik Bhaskar Group (Publisher of Dainik Bhaskar, the largest circulated daily and DNA) – Rs 1400 crore
Having worked in Larsen & Toubro as a project engineer for 5+ years (mainly for the experience as I do not want to do a job ever again in my life) and with many of these big companies as customers while working as a project engineer, some general observations:
- Have very good systems in place
- Except the software and banking companies, they do not have too many employees, but have investments of thousands of crores in machinery and infrastructure
- Difficult to displace these companies in terms of turnover due to the investment made.
For employees,
Plus points
you work with experienced people and learn from them, so you make fewer mistakes
Very professional work environment, with little blatant discrimination on the basis of gender
Handle high value projects valued in crores, monitor profits closely, manage risk
You get very good exposure to people from different social and economic backgrounds, treat them fairly, do not discriminate because they are not your “friends”
Secure job, all payments, including dues made on time
Learn to deal with customers and vendors , both good and bad.
Decisions are made on the basis of facts and numbers, not gossip and false rumors.
Transparency – you could ask customers and vendors anything and get an answer and vice versa.
Negatives
salary is average
growth is slow (one promotion every three years)
little flexibility
Dec
8
From http://cryptome.org/isp-spy/yahoo-spy.pdf
Federal law (See 18 U.S.C. § 2706) requires law enforcement to reimburse providers like Yahoo! for costs incurred responding to subpoena requests, court orders, or search warrants.
• Basic subscriber records: approx. $20 for the first ID, $10 per ID thereafter
• Basic Group Information (including information about moderators): approx. $20 for a group with a single moderator
• Contents of subscriber accounts, including email: approx. $30-$40 per user
• Contents of Groups: approx. $40 – $80 per group
Yahoo is not the only company indulging in these activities. This is the reason having a personal profile on any kind of networking website like Facebook, Orkut or Linkedin is risky, you never know how it will be used or misused. Better to spend a little money and get your own website.
Nov
26
Over the last week, I have realized how much freedom of speech you have in India and how much better most large Indian companies are compared to certain foreign organizations in so called democracies.
Even if Rs 3 is wrongly deducted , you can hope to get it back in India from a well run company, but outside India, you are unlikely to be treated fairly and decisions are taken unilaterally. Their lawyers will claim to have made payment, but will not be able to provide any supporting evidence.
If you are dealing with a government organization, you can use the
Right to Information Act
It takes time, but you will get the information you need.
Sep
13
Interesting article on how the mainstream media is controlled - Operation Mockingbird
http://www.kidmercuryblog.com/t1659/
Many of the influential bloggers and media persons are not as independent as most people think, they are controlled using various methods.
Aug
1
File your income tax returns online
https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/portal/index.do
If you do not have a digital certificate, you have to take a printout and send it by ordinary post and hope it reaches in time. In a year, the process should be streamlined.
Mar
4
You can confirm the PAN of an individual or firm , if you know the complete name and date of birth. You can also find out the jurisdiction
https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/knowpan/knowpan.jsp
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