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Archive - March, 2008
The Vodafone Music Station is a very stupid idea
Did any of you see this? If you are in India, it is hard to miss it. Vodafone has got TV spots, newspaper ads, billboards, flyers for their new Vodafone Music Station. The idea is users can call in and listen to music on the Vodafone network. They boast of a collection of 40,000 songs (in all languages together).
The TV ad, I think, is a good idea but it really gets to you because it seems to be shown in every ad break on literally every channel and it is no fun to listen to the first line of the same song over and over again. Add to that, when you think of the absolute uselessness of the service, it just makes me wonder if Vodafone could not come up with something better.
Ok, here’s what they offer. If you have a Vodafone connection in India, you activate the service paying Rs. 50/-. Then you can listen to these 40k songs paying Rs. 0.30 per minute. Here’s my calculation:
Average duration of a song: 4 mins.
Cost of 1 min: 30 paise
Cost for full song: 4 x 0.30 = Rs. 1.20
I listen to around 30-40 songs every day, if not more. So even if I limit myself to 20 songs, I would have to pay Rs. 1.20 x 20 = Rs. 24 every day.
i.e. Rs. 24 x 30 = Rs. 720 /month (plus Rs. 50 monthly subscription = Rs. 770)
Rs. 770 x 12 = Rs. 9240 /year.
So average cost of one song is (Rs. (1.20 x 30) x 12) = Rs. 432, considering if I were to listen to it every day for the whole year. The cost of a music CD in India (with ownership) is around Rs. 300 – 500 for English albums. Regional music is far more affordable (Rs. 60 – 250). If you still use cassettes, costs come further down.
And in this age of iPods and portable music players in cell phones, what is Vodafone really trying to do here? I put this point to Vodafone support and they said that this service can be used by people who do not have access to iPods or mobile phones without music player. But can the people who can’t afford an iPod really afford the Vodafone Music Station service?
The way Vodafone is advertising this service, you think this will be next biggest thing after the iPhone. But I just don’t get it and I want to know if Vodafone got any serious users to this service other than those curious testers. But even for that, they have set up an entry barrier of Rs. 50 as monthly subscription.
Duh!
The customer is a jack ass
That’s what I felt what Pantaloon was telling me. (For those who don’t know – “Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited, is India’s leading retailer that operates multiple retail formats in both the value and lifestyle segment of the Indian consumer market – from here.”
I went there today to get some shirts. And I saw that they had an offer – depending on the number of shirts, you get a package deal. So as I was checking out one rack, I asked the salesman if those shirts were included in the offer. It wasn’t. He mentioned only the Rs. 499 shirts were part of the offer and showed me the rack where the board was kept.
So I started checking out shirts on that rack, selected one and was ready to select my next shirt. That’s when I saw the price on the shirt – Rs. 799. Out of curiosity, I asked the guy if this shirt was included. Nope. I finally figured out that there were just some two rows on sale. All the other shirts were not included.
Did Pantaloon do this after some consumer research where they figured if you keep the shirts-on-sale and shirts-not-on-sale together, people will end up buying both and more of the second? I just didn’t get it. All they had to do was say “on shirts of Rs. 499 only” on the rack-advertisement.
I tried telling the sales guy my experience had just gone awry and he was quite apologetic about it. He mentioned that he had issues with other customers too and would change the board soon. I finaly exited the store with no purchase and a very bad experience with Pantaloon.
What I did in the US of A
Got back last week from the US. Have been busy traveling and lot of catching up at work – so no posts here. Have a lot of pictures that I hope to upload soon.
While I was there, I visited Las Vegas, New York and Princeton, NJ. Apart from work, the things I did included:
- Travelled the NJ Transit and Path trains (part of the Subway in New York).
- Visited Ground Zero (the World Trade Center site).
- Attended Times Square Church (amazing experience).
- Attended the Princeton Alliance Church in Plainsboro, NJ
- Made new friends in America
- Saw Princeton University.
- Visted the Apple store.
- Had coffee from Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts (It’s true – America runs on Dunkin).
- Was there when Starbucks closed shutter for a whole evening and actually saw Americans run helpless for a cup of coffee.
- Ate from McDonalds and Burger King (Burger King is definitely better!).
- Also ate from TGIF, Chillys and some other places I don’t recollect now.
- Saw, touched and threw real snow! :)
- Visited or/and shopped at Staples, Kohls, Radio Shack, Circuit City, Famous Footwear, Lids (cap shop), Marshalls, Burlington, Walmart (wow! it’s big)…
- Gambled in Vegas.
- Learnt Blackjack and gambled some more.
- Taught a friend Blackjack and… :)
- Stayed at the Bellagio (Oceans 11 was made there).
- Saw the Dancing Fountains, Caesar’s Palace, Eiffel Tower at Vegas.
- Walked the streets of Las Vegas and New York.
- Spoke to three police officers of the NYPD (to ask directions to the subway).
- Saw the LAPD Bomb Squad in action at the LAX airport (there was a bomb scare before I caught my flight to Las Vegas).
- Wore 6 layers of clothing to protect against the cold
- Saw migrating geese and one squirrel
