At the New Media Congress, some of the best minds in the game discussed and debated the possible influence of Internet, TV and mobile on building strategies for the future.

The discussions were followed by invigorating debates around questions posed by the audience. Here's a brief of the Q&A sessions that followed:

Convergence: Current Trends, Impact

Q: Prof Sydney Ribiero: Must the techno-triumphanism be tempered with sensitivity and aesthetics?
A: Dr Jai Menon: Technology comes after experience. There is huge responsibility to cater to the basic needs of audience. It has to be human and experience driven, it can't just be technology driven. It has to be a confluence of computing and communication.

Q: Member of the audience: Is there an attempt by any media house in India to source or guide developers to make such software or program that can take our country forward?
A: Pankaj Sethi: It will happen and it should happen.
A: Rajesh Sawhney: Value is migrating vastly. The Indian companies and telecommunication companies need to adhere to that. If we leave it to the creativity of the people and allow them to drive the platform, they would also become business drivers.
A: Dr Jai Menon: Developers are very important. We are conscious that we will help the developer community.

Q: Girish from Chennai: Piracy has been causing a great amount of loss to the IT industry. Are there any steps being taken in India to check piracy.
A: Rajesh Sawhney: You can find the materials online as well as outside the Churchgate Station. It has to become affordable and easily reachable.
A: Martha Bejar: Companies, like ours, will be certainly combating the piracy stigma. There is a need to raise the level of technology on a constant basis.

Mass Media Internet Companies

Q: Member of the audience: The Internet medium is becoming mass media today. Should that be regulated?
A: Viren Popli: Google and Yahoo are the media of the future. In India, it is still limited. Internet connectivity is patchy and GPRS and CDMA are yet to develop.. There is huge opportunity for the entrepreneurs. As far as regulation is concerned, it should be in place for traditional as well as new media. Some amount of regulation is certainly needed but it should be at par.
Counterpoint: Vir Sanghvi - Is regulation possible?
A: Viren Popli: That is where the real challenge lies. Regulation will always be a problem.

Q: Sydney Ribiero: Is there any kind of a system to regulate and control the content?
A: Tarun Katiyal: The consumer should be allowed to judge content and classify it as good content and bad content.
A: Viren Popli: There is a huge amount of choice in the market. People want few things but they cannot arrange it themselves. The web does that for them.

Q: Member of the audience: Most radio and TV channels have broadcast limitations, while Internet has none. Is that a cause of tussle between the new and the traditional media?
Panel: We can migrate between different media and it isn’t a battle anymore. It’s about co-operation.

Branding, Marketing & Advertising Strategies

Q: Member of the audience: What is quality and non-quality inventory? There could be a forged inventory.
A: Manish Vij: It is about forged impressions. If you have five banners at the bottom of the page, where the viewer can’t notice, it is a non-qualitative inventory.
A: Ravi Kiran: Comment is not less valid for any other media. By quality we refer to value. And this can vary from channel to channel.

Q: Member of the audience: Do you see the use of power of business analytics in the ad world?
A: Manish Vij: I fully agree with you. People do not use the analytics in a better manner and that is why they are losing money. People think search works much better than display, but that is wrong. The display is much more effective. We should all start using it.

Q: Member of the audience: By listening to the session, it seems that digital media has really arrived. But, can a brand really be built online? Every brand is still on TV. If we spend online, it's not of much use. But if we spend on TV, it appeals to the masses. Why is it so?
A: Lloyd Mathias: For a marketer, it is not the medium. It is the cost effective way of doing it. So, television is presently more accessible and then the product reaches the Net. Reality is that you do provide the air cover to the brand.
A: Rohit Sharma: I don’t think it is about building the brand online. The quantum of spending worries. It's not only on TV or only online. We have to adopt a 360-degree approach.
A: Ravi Kiran: From a media planner's point of view – they don't begin by thinking about the brand. There are challenges of communication and consumer. Every planner's job is to figure out the best medium to advertise on. For example, we launched an online brand called Sharekhan. In the beginning, it was not picking up. So, we put an SMS band on it. The sales just shot up. And it was not due to TV. So, it's a marketing challenge and a marketing planner has to plan according to that.
A: Manish Vij: A lot of brands have been built online in India as well as abroad. Every media participates in branding. Google, facebook etc haven’t used television for brand building.