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How the IPL has moved the goalposts, creating a new paradigm in a multi-million dollar business,
Ajay S Shankar and Judhajit Basu. May, 2009.

Behind the screaming fans, the strategy breaks and the DLF maximums, the IPL also appears to have triggered a significant churning off the field, in the bustling market of cricket. The hugely successful Twenty20 league has just wrapped up its second season, and player managers, franchise officials and investors admit that they are coming to terms with new trends and potential conflicts that are beginning to redefine their bottomlines.

In a nutshell, the IPL appears to have initiated a paradigm shift within the multi-million dollar player-endorsement industry, where individual deals are now gradually losing ground to team endorsements. As a result, concerns are being raised at the shrinking individual player-endorsement pie, looming conflicts between personal and team brands, players being forced to endorse “under-value brands”, and contracts that are loaded against high-value cricketers, particularly from India.

So much so that sources close to a few leading Indian players say they will push for crucial tweaks in the IPL’s player-franchise contracts after 2010, when the current three-year agreements come to an end.

On the flip side, franchise officials say that they signed up leading cricketers for huge sums – Chennai bought Andrew Flintoff for US$ 1.55m and MS Dhoni for US$ 1.5m, and Bangalore picked up Kevin Pietersen for US$ 1.55m – not just for their cricketing skills, but for the brand value attached. Pietersen and Flintoff appeared for just 21 days in the 37-day tournament, but ended up taking home well over US$ 100,000 per game.

“There is nothing unusual about these contracts,” says a senior franchise official. “The IPL contracts do not give franchises anything that is not standard throughout team sports worldwide.”

Yet some key concerns persist within the industry, the first of which is the fear that a player endorsing a brand for his IPL team will be shunned by rival brands within the same product category after the tournament. “We are not directly involved with the event, but if you ask me whether it makes brand sense for us to get a player on board before or after the IPL, after him being associated with a rival company during the course of the tournament, I would say not,” says V Ramachandran, director, marketing and sales, LG, a leading multinational brand. “Every brand would want a unique association with the celebrity or the player – a prior association which the brand would like to protect. It’s purely a case of the players themselves being motivated in favour of the brand.”

A case in point is the reported US$ 2-3m deal between Mumbai Indians and Idea, a leading Indian mobile service provider. Through this IPL, Idea has been using Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan together and individually in a TV campaign. Tendulkar, who is one of Indian cricket’s leading endorsement faces, is paid around US$ 1.02 million per season by Mumbai Indians, but according to market analysts, he would easily have got US$ 1 million if the Idea endorsement was an individual endorsement outside the league.

“But now, Idea gets Tendulkar, Harbhajan and Zaheer in a package deal that they can utilise through the year,” says a player agent. “Obviously, the players don’t get a single rupee out of this, and also end losing out on personal endorsements from other mobile service providers.”

Charu Sharma, the former chief executive of Royal Challengers Bangalore, agrees the players have no option in the current scenario but to come to terms with the “new reality”, at least for now. “The IPL was launched in a hurry last year, and most of the rules were made on the run,” says Sharma. “So it was clear even then that some areas were bound to blow out later on. In fact, these were exactly some of the reasons why the players refrained from signing their IPL contracts till the last minute last year. But we have to understand and appreciate that the IPL is still raw and evolving and these grey areas will be cleared out eventually.”

Franchise officials point out that there are clear safeguards in the IPL’s player contracts specifying that brands associated with teams cannot imply that the cricketers are associated with them individually in any manner. “Most of the contracts specify that the players can be used for product endorsement and activation only during the IPL,” says a franchise official. “Besides, a team sponsor has to feature at least three players in any advertisements. There are enough and clear safeguards to protect the players.”

But behind the fine print, says a player agent, is the fear that some sponsors may tend to project a particular player more in these advertisements. “Besides, it’s all about perception,” he says. “Once you see Sourav Ganguly or Ishant Sharma endorse a particular product for Kolkata Knight Riders, even if it is with other players, it gets embedded in the public mindspace. You can’t then go to individual households and tell them, ‘Look, this is a team endorsement and not a personal endorsement.’”

The other area of concern is that some leading players have been forced to endorse certain brands for their franchises in categories they have steadfastly refused to promote in an individual capacity. For instance, Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, widely considered role models in Indian cricket, have always refused to endorse liquor brands – until the IPL. Tendulkar now has the Royal Stag logo on his team jersey and Dravid promotes Royal Challenge.

In the same vein, brand analysts say, the IPL has seen some leading players endorse “under-value” brands, which don’t match their stature. Again, Tendulkar’s case is a prime example – for Mumbai Indians he endorses Luminous Batteries and Zandu Balm, which are brand types that he has not normally been associated with.

“That is the other worry,” says a brand analyst. “If the value of a franchise falls, and if it fails to attract enough sponsors, as happened with some teams this time due to the recession, they could end up signing cheap deals. This will then have a domino effect on the player’s individual value. Why would anyone sign up a player individually for X amount when you know that you can get him through a team deal for less?”

Then, of course, there is the obvious conflict between personal and team endorsements. For instance, Virender Sehwag endorses Pepsi but has been backing Coca-Cola in newspaper advertisements for Delhi Daredevils. Ishant Sharma, a rising youth icon, has to promote Coca-Cola’s Sprite, when he has a personal contract with Pepsi. MS Dhoni endorses Peter England, a suiting brand, for Chennai, but individually promotes Siyaram, a rival brand. Significantly, some of these roles will be reversed in another month when the ICC World Twenty20, of which Pepsi is one of the main sponsors, gets underway in England.

Lathika Khaneja, who manages Sehwag, says that players should be insulated from such situations. “In fact, Sehwag asked me ‘Is Pepsi upset?’” says Khaneja, director, Collage Sports Management. “But they can’t be because there’s the ICC World Twenty20 coming up. These are not rules made by Sehwag, they are made by the ICC or the IPL, and you’re paying a lot of money for those rights and you expect to get something for it.”

Yudhajit Dutta, who manages Dhoni, and Khaneja, insist that the franchises are right in trying to maximise their investment. The IPL awarded the Mumbai franchise to Reliance industries for their top bid of US$ 111.9 million, Bangalore to the UB Group for US$ 111.6 million, and Chennai to India Cements for US$ 91 million last year. That apart, most of the eight teams have spent US$ 7 million each on purchasing players through three official auctions.

“All these players have been paid quite a lot of money to be playing for their respective teams,” says Dutta. “So I think they [the teams] should get something back as well.” Dutta’s Mindscape Maestros, incidentally, are also the exclusive marketing managers of the Chennai franchise.

A chief executive with one of the eight franchises takes the argument a few steps forward. “One, all this is new and real money for the players, not projected figures on an Excel sheet,” says the official. “This money did not exist for them before the IPL, and obviously, they have not been paid such sums just for their cricketing skills. A part of the franchises’ thinking while signing players like Pietersen and Andrew Symonds is that they are famous superstars with brand appeal across the world, especially because the second IPL has opened up the possibility of the league going global.”

Besides, this is standard practice worldwide in team sport, says the official. “For instance, an Olympic sponsor can use that precious logo for four years.”

Beyond this clash of words and views, however, is the big-picture market consensus: all these mini conflicts and trends point to a major shift in where all the money is headed. “Ultimately, we are looking at a scenario when team endorsements will matter the most,” says Charu Sharma. “The players and their agents will have to work around that.”

Player agents agree and point to the tie-up between Aircel, a mobile services provider, and Chennai Super Kings as a significant pointer. Aircel first teamed up with Chennai and then signed up Dhoni, the India captain, for a personal endorsement deal to extend that association. “Aircel first endorsed Chennai Super Kings last year and only after that did they take Dhoni on board.” says Dutta, Dhoni’s manager. “It’s the team first.”

There is still a long way to go before an acceptable balance is struck, says a player agent, and till then there are issues to resolved, possibly after the next IPL, which is tentatively slated for March 2010.

“I don’t believe there is a time restriction on the franchise or its partners for using player identification,” says a player manager who handles two leading players in the IPL. “This is a grey area and an obvious area for change in the future. What I suspect is going to happen is that some modifications will be made in this area after the 2010 season. Ultimately, guys like Dhoni are going to need to sit down with the IPL to work out some clearer parameters, like more than three players in the adverts and their use only 30 days before and after tournament.”

With applications such as instant messaging and threaded SMS popping up on handsets, are we getting lazy, or is this the dawn of a new email-free mobile communications era?
By Clare Hopping. Feb, 2009.

Communicating on the move is becoming more and more important in the world of business, as mobile working becomes more of a reality and mobile devices allow for such trends.

Applications such as Google’s suite of communication tools and Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger are now coming preloaded on smartphones, so it’s no surprise that these apps are getting more and more popular.

Growing popularity

Google estimates there are 50 million+ Google Talk users on the open standard XMPP network, sending billions of messages every week. As the application is based on open standards, consumers on all different phone platforms have a variety of IM applications to choose from that all work with Google Talk.

Seth Demsey, lead product manager at Google, said that people want to communicate with each other regardless of what platform or device they are using. Mobile integration allows for presence when users are away from their PCs – and thus becomes increasingly useful as mobile devices are becoming more pervasive.

“The value of an IM network is not in the number of total users so much as in the number of users who are available to communicate, across platforms, operating systems and devices,” he told IT PRO.

James McCarthy, head of business marketing at Microsoft, agreed that all ways of communicating are advantageous.

“The various communication methods all have their place in interacting with others. For example, IM is good for a real-time conversation, often used when you can identify that someone is online and you want a relatively informal dialogue,” he told IT PRO.

“SMS has a store-and-forward capability, so you can text someone and be sure that they will get it soon, even if not instantly. Finally, email is perfect to send attachments, or to a large distribution of people, maybe in a more formal way.”

Working together

The boundaries of collaboration are certainly changing and how people choose to communicate in social situations can creep positively into the workplace as well.

McCarthy explained that he can certainly see a world where many types of communication avenues sit alongside each other, with individuals choosing the most suitable based on the situation.

“If your colleague is online and you need a quick question answered, use IM. If not, send a text. If you need to pass on information or have multiple people involved, an email is more appropriate,” he explained.

“If you want a more personal interaction, call them on the phone. The more innovative ways we find to communicate with each other, the more we’ll find that we can collaborate quickly and easily and drive better more productive relationships,” he added.

“Blogging also has a place in the modern business world – the exchange of ideas between people is very powerful and, with the appropriate thought, works for business as well as personal contexts.”

Threading it together

Another feature appearing on handsets more and more is threaded text and email conversations. Palm has announced it on its new Palm Pre, and it is already installed on many Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Symbian handsets in addition to the Android-based T-Mobile G1.

McCarthy thinks that threaded SMS/IM certainly can – and does – replace email in specific situations, but not where a lot of information needs to be conveyed, or perhaps where there’s an email chain developing between people, or with information or attachments being forwarded to others.

“We believe that the role of technology like SMS messaging is to facilitate communication, regardless of whether this communication happens in office buildings across time zones or between friends within the same city,” Demsey explained.

McCarthy agreed. “There’s certainly a use for threaded SMS for certain interactions – a quick dialogue requiring only short communication between two people, where the recipient may or may not be immediately available.”

Always room for email

Although both agree that new technologies including blogging, IM and threaded SMS conversations will grow, there is always the place for email.

“I think email will always have a useful place in the working world, but simple one-to-one email conversations clogging inboxes may decline over time,” explained McCarthy.

Other trends will be the convergence of fixed and mobile communications, whereby the barriers between the two melt away and cost is and will continue to be an inhibitor/driver for different communications methods too.

The PC and internet revolution has driven demand from users to be able to interact with people and information in many different ways, using technology. To do this on a mobile, you need a smarter, more powerful device in your hand, able to run more advanced applications and securely handle information that passes between servers based in offices, out to workers wherever they need to be.

Yet mobile email will never cease to exist. All major manufacturers and platforms are working together to improve the email services we use.

BlackBerry’s Exchange server (BES) is probably the most popular in business communication. Email is instant, and always has been, meaning businessmen can pick up emails wherever they are. BlackBerry’s email also features an advanced search option so you can instantly find the email you’re looking for, as you would while using a computer-based email program such as Outlook.

Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS only introduced full push email in 2007, which means it was quite a latecomer considering Microsoft is the king of PC-based email services. However, not all service providers are compatible with Windows Mobile, meaning you may not be able to get your particular email account installed easily.

Nokia has recently introduced Nokia Email to support its fully operational Mail for Exchange service. Mail for Exchange is fully compliant with Microsoft’s Exchange Server and Active Sync, meaning it’s seamless to set up and operate/manage from either your PC or handset, just like Microsoft’s option is. The interface of Nokia’s Mail for Exchange is not as easy to use, although is designed more for consumers than businessmen.

The iPhone’s push email service is the most disappointing. Considering the iPhone’s user interface is so simple, it’s disappointing that you can’t search for a particular email, and the service wasn’t even fully exchange-based until the 3G iPhone was introduced with a substantial software update.

Looking forward

So where does the future lie for business communications?

Demsey believes that as high-speed wireless networks become more ubiquitous and hand-held computing devices become more powerful and affordable, new methods of communication and interesting twists on existing methods of communications are inevitable and welcome.

“We’ll continue to see communications expand along three major axes: who can communicate, where they can communicate from, and the form of the communication – be it IM, SMS, email, voice, VoIP, Video or whatver’s next,” he added.

For mobile news and reviews, check out Know Your Mobile.

A step-by-step guide to how a criminal could pick up your email address and password – all they would need to get into an email or social networking account.
By Asavin Wattanajantra. Nov, 2008.

Scammers are moving away from email to social networks, taking advantage of insecure accounts to send real-looking scam messages.

But how are criminals doing this? Trend Micro shared an example of how an account is hacked – from the original message a user will receive, to the point where the domain owner makes business by harvesting emails.

The Scam

First of all, a message is sent to a user on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, or a similar social network. It says: “Did you know your profile pic is over gabblebase.com?”

If you click on www.gabblebase.com – it’s not a malicious link, but you may get seriously annoyed by the fact it’s difficult to get away from the page – you can follow the steps through with a fake identity to see how it works. One of the options you will get is to put a password for your pictures.

The tendency for some users is to use a common password for every site that they use. If a user opts for a password they use for the social network they were originally sent the message for, they’ve done three things: they’ve showed what social network they’re on, given an email address, and given a password – all you need to hack a Facebook or email account.

The fake site has a disclaimer claiming it will never send spam to your email address and is not a MySpace or Facebook login page, a clever way of making the user feel more comfortable.

Researching Gabblebase, Trend Micro revealed that it was linked to a server in Las Vegas run by someone called Adam Arzoomanian. He owns 423 domains in total, to avoid being blocked by filters.

The Business Model

Trend Micro revealed that the domain of the site was Chinese and called ‘dreamstarmail’. The owners of the site now have all the details that they would need to enter a social networking or email account – and therefore send messages in an attempt to part users from their money.

Members who referred users to this criminal site also had the potential to earn money by taking a percentage of the profits the email harvesters made.

Trend Micro security advisor Rik Ferguson said: “This neat little social engineering trick is relying on users’ habit of using common passwords, so now the criminal would have your email and your password. It’s pay day.”

What will next year hold in the ever-changing world of IT security?
By Asavin Wattanajantra. Dec, 2008.

New tech means new ways for criminals to attack systems. Next year will see hackers get smart about cloud computing, social networking and more. Here’s our top ten threats to keep an eye on…

Malware 2.0

Malware will increasingly target Web 2.0 as well as cloud services. New cloud-based services – such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure – are vulnerable new targets for cybercriminals or spammers.

The cloud could be used simply to send spam, but it also could launch sophisticated attacks such as hosting malicious code for downloads.

Web 2.0 has also created an environment where malware can change depending on an event or a situation. Separate harmless bits of malware can be constructed to combine and maliciously attack.

A good example of this is with mash-ups, where data from many websites can be reconstructed to create something malicious.

Malware-as-a-service becomes more common, which will allow automated malware to be bought and sold to order. This will be a big problem, as it lowers the technical level needed for criminals to become online fraudsters.

An explosion in new malware variants and web threats

Anti-virus vendor Symantec claims that new strains of malware consisting of millions of distinct threats can propagate as a single, core piece of malware. This will create a number of unique malware instances.

Indeed, research has shown we have now reached an inflection point where we are now more malicious programs than legitimate ones. Businesses and vendors need to move away from signatures and concentrate on detection methods, such as the reputation-based approach.

As web services keep increasing, and as browsers start to move towards a uniform standard for scripting language, expect new web-based threats.

Social networking spam

As the year went on, criminals were gradually moving from email-based spam to different techniques. One of these was social networking spam, where websites such as Facebook and MySpace were targeted.

Personal information is gold to the bad guys, and they will learn better tricks to persuade users to give away their details and find ways to access private accounts.

The rise in popularity of social networking sites that allow user-generated content will be a problem. Web spam will increase as will malicious posting into user-forums and blogs.

Security firm Websense claims that new web attack toolkits have emerged that allows attackers to discover posts and/or have vulnerabilities. Bots may also add more HTTP post functionality among their many capabilities.

More legitimate website hacking

It arose as a big problem in 2008 and is sure to continue next year, as criminals realise that hacking a legitimate website is a great way to persuade users to click and downloads malicious files.

Many users are still unfamiliar with web-based malware and 2009 could a boom year as cybercriminals look to capitalise on this ignorance. It is a very recent evolution to exploit flaws in browsers and web servers, and new toolkits are now constantly being made to take advantage.

The fact that these toolkits often don’t need users to have a great technical knowledge lowers the barrier for entry for cybercriminals and pushes the threat level even higher than before.

Unemployment creates more cybercriminals

The credit crunch will affect the security landscape in a number of ways. One of the scariest prospects is that the economic downturn will make it tempting for unemployed IT workers to use their technical knowledge to commit internet crime.

It’s a very lucrative business – and as mentioned before – the growth of malware-as-a-service will make it very easy for people to make money on the web, even if they lack the right technical knowledge.

It could also be a problem in developing countries, as the lack of IT jobs could force qualified and skilled technical workers into the arms of criminal gangs, who will exploit their skills in aid of making money over the web.

Security budgets unlikely to grow

Although the threats keep multiplying, most would agree that in the current economic climate, budgets are unlikely to grow significantly.

This means that there will be more consolidation in the security field and means that instead of multiple boxes carrying out single functions, it will be consolidated into single boxes.

In 2008 this has already been happening, but with budgetary pressures there is no doubt this will accelerate.

It will also be interesting to see how the new focus on data security will affect the way businesses work, and whether there will be a change of focus in security to securing the data, rather than protecting the network.

Mobile computing hacks

The growth in popularity of smartphones will make them a bigger target to criminals as they will not have the security protection that PCs have had for years.

Applications and associated data will be accessed from anywhere and make them a big target for hackers. IT administrators need to be on their guard as these threats will have multiple points of entry, targeting different devices and applications.

This is made even more important by the fact that the use of mobile internet will have increased significantly by the end of 2009.

The value of the data that new sophisticated phones will carry will mean that subscribers will expect mobile operators to take greater security measures to protect personal data, especially when mobile commerce takes off.

The new generation of botnets

At the end of 2008 many of the biggest botnets were taken down with the closing of the McColo server. MessageLabs predicted that these will find new hosting services in countries such as Russia or China, improving botnet technology.

A particular sophisticated type of botnet that was described takes the form of hypervisor technology, with malware existing as a virtualisation layer running directly on the hardware and incorporating key operating system calls.

The “real” operating system remains unaware of the existence of underlying malware controlling the computer. Particularly technical attacks like SQL injection and cross-site scripting will also continue, and become more commonplace in 2009.

Cyber hacking on virtual worlds

Like social networking, hackers are likely to move away from the traditional forms of email spamming and move towards the potential goldmine of virtual worlds.

This could be gaming universes like World of Warcraft, or more social reality-based worlds like Second Life, where stolen virtual goods could be sold for real hard cash.

Users are often more relaxed about their personal details in online worlds, and this means that there could be a good opportunity for criminals to create technology which steal this data.

The increasing use of virtual worlds by businesses will also be a factor, as the value of data that these worlds will carry may grow significantly. This will make it more profitable, and therefore attract more criminals.

Reputation hijacking flourishes

The vulnerability in the design of the Domain Name System (DNS) found by Dan Kaminsky could in theory poison a server’s cache causing people sending emails or requesting a website to be given the wrong IP address.

This could mean victims are sent to a fake website which is looking for personal details, but looks perfectly real. If organised gangs manage to exploit this DNS vulnerability it could mean a whole different set of problems in 2009.

There was a multi-vendor patch deployed in August to protect servers from attack, but it has been made clear that the vulnerability had only been slowed down – not eliminated.

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@Associated Press.

Organizers of Sao Paulo Fashion Week have promised to take steps to try to make sure that at least 10 percent of the models walking the runways will be blacks or Indians.

State prosecutors say they struck a deal with the event’s organizers calling for proof that they will attempt to convince designers taking part to promote racial inclusion.

Noncompliance by organizers could result in a fine of as much as 250,000 reals ($125,000) in a nation where nearly 50 percent of the population is black and there is a large Indian minority.

Prosecutor Deborah Kelly Affonso said the deal announced Thursday with Luminosidade Marketing & Producoes followed a state investigation. It stemmed from complaints the event recently had fewer black models.

by Elinor Mills

YouTube was busy deleting porn videos on Wednesday after users of forums at a rival site and an imageboard site declared a “Porn Day” campaign against the popular video service.

The forums at video site eBaum’s World and 4chan organized the mass porn “carpet bombing” on YouTube, according to Ars Technica.

YouTube has been removing the videos as fast as it can, but even videos that are removed are still showing up in search results with explicit images in the thumbnails, the report said.

It could take a couple of days for all the explicit results to be removed from the search results, Google spokesman Scott Rubin told Ars Technica.

In a phone interview with CNET News late on Wednesday, Rubin said that in addition to the porn videos were removed as soon as community members alert YouTube to them, certain channels where the posters were bragging about the campaign and listing the videos were being disabled.

“This group of pranksters thought it would be funny to load a bunch of porn to YouTube,” he said. “This is an unfortunate, and I think poorly directed, prank. I think our systems are doing really well at removing content that violates the guidelines.”