Google Zeitgeist Report : Films, Cricket dominate 2011 Search list

As 2011 nears its end, internet giant Google has released its search list, Google Zeitgeist 2011, which is a compilation of top search keywords that users have been using throughout the year. And as usual, there are surprises.

Zeitgeist is a word of German origin and means a general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time. It is one of the many tools that let users map and compare all searches -- globally, regionally, past and present.

So, here's looking into the hot search terms of the year 2011.

Fastest rising searches globally

The list of top searches in 2011 had Rebecca Black at number one, Google+ at number two and Ryan Dunn, who was best known for his daredevil stunts, was at number three. Fourth and Fifth spots went to Casey Anthony and Battle field 3 respectively.

The speculation that kept the rumour mills churning about an impending launch of iPhone5 that never happened, even overtook the launch of iPad 2 and Steve Jobs' death and was at sixth spot. Singing sensation Adele bagged seventh spot with the release of her sophomore album "21" and on eighth spot was Japan's Fukushima nuclear Reactor which was damaged by an earthquake.

Google's fastest rising search list also revealed how much its rival company Apple ruled not just people's pockets, but also the search. Apple's late CEO Steve Jobs who died on October 5 after suffering from chronic sickness, was placed at the ninth spot while iPad 2 took the 10th spot.

Google Zeitgeist 2011 also features top search terms from India. From Facebook to Anna Hazare, Salman Khan to Poonam Pandey, all of them made search history in 2011 so here are the categories

Fastest Rising Search

While Facebook topped the Fastest Rising Search terms, IBPL on second, Google+ ruled the third spot. The list also highlights that sports was quite popular among users with India winning the Cricket World Cup 2011. It was the fourth Fastest Rising Search followed by Bodyguard, Ra.One, Anna Hazare, Ipl 2011, Poonam Pandey and Ready.

Fastest Rising People

Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare took the top spot among personalities, followed by Poonam Pandey at second then Steve Jobs, Anushka Sharma, Salman Khan, Justin Bieber, Kajal Agarwal, Katrina Kaif, Vijay Mallya and Aishwarya Rai

People

Celebrities and cricketers are next to gods in India. Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif was the most searched in India on Google overtaking anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare at the second slot followed by Salman Khan, Poonam Pandey, Justin Bieber, Aishwarya Rai, Sachin Tendulkar, Kareena Kapoor, Steve Jobs and Priyanka Chopra.

Movies

Movies are almost a daily pilgrimage for many in India. Salman Khan-starrer Bodyguard was the top searched movie in 2011 in India and at the second spot was 'King' Khan's ( Shahrukh Khan) Ra.One which were followed Harry Potter, Delhi Belly, Singham, Ready, Mankatha, Transformers 3, Dookudu, and Farhan Akhtar's Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara at the 10th spot.

Top news of 2011

Even the Cricket World Cup 2011 which was won by Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team was placed second, behind IPL, which was the top news for 2011 in India. The others were CBSE Result 2011, Diwali, Lokpal Bill, Japan earthquake, Aadhar card, Osama Bin Laden. At the 10th spot was India's first ever F1 that was organised in November at the Buddha circuit, Noida.

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Online Retailers are Looking for a new Height in India

Online retailers have almost doubled their staff strength in India during the current financial year and will continue hiring to fuel the service sector's latest growth engine.

India has 11 million online consumers who buy everything from diapers to condoms to airline tickets on the internet. The number of e-buyers will grow to 38 million by 2015 and the booming sector has already hired 80% more this fiscal, according to estimates by financial services firm Avendus Capital.

"The pace of growth is crazy and we need more hands to enable e-commerce. By December 2012, I will hire an additional 1,000 people,"

says Rohit Bansal, COO, Snapdeal.com. From a local deal company one year ago, the portal now offers 10,000 storekeeping units (SKUs) that cut across lifestyle, home appliances, and travel. Of the 750 Snapdeal executives, 500 have been hired this fiscal. Apart from hiring 50 from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the company has hired 15 graduates from Stanford, Columbia and Harvard. For 2012, Bansal is targetting the Indian Institutes of Management.

Growth potential of e-tailing presents a very interesting challenge for talent acquisition, says an Indiatimes spokesperson, adding, in order to keep pace and succeed in this almost exponentially evolving and growing industry, one would need a good blend of domain knowledge of the brick and mortar industry, the ability to constantly challenge the status quo and learn and an intrapraneurship spirit.

The sector may be nascent, but manpower commands a premium. As per Elixir Consulting, a senior-level executive comes at Rs 75 lakh to Rs 80 lakh (per year), mid-level at Rs 60 lakh, while junior executives take home Rs 16 lakh to Rs 18 lakh. Career prospects are lucrative and there is a lot to look forward to. Internet penetration in the country changed the way Indians travelled in the past decade. Now, it's the turn of e-commerce to transform the shopping experience for Indians, who are often pressed for time and parking space at malls.

The number of internet users is rising by a third every year and people increasingly prefer the net to book hotel rooms, buy books, electronics, apparels and personal care products. Despite the 2002 dotcom fall, e-retailers seem to be confident of their journey.

"Lower working capital need and low investment in fixed assets and rental deposits are driving more players in the category. Portals offer a 10-20% discount and consumers find them irresistible,"

says Purnendu Kumar (vice-president - retail) of consultancy firm Technopak.

A 35% growth in e-shoppers will transform the sector from the current $800 million to $11.8 billion in 2015, predicts Avendus Capital. Private equity and venture capital firms have already invested $180 million in the sector since 2009.

Driven by the numbers, e-retailers are going for the best talent.

"Manpower requirement is linear to business volume. I am hiring round the year with business growing ten-fold over same time last year. Of the 1,100-member team, 800 were roped in this fiscal,"

says Manmohan Agarwal, CEO of Yebhi.com, who will double his team by December 2012. About 25 of the company's top executives are from IITs and IIMs.

Tradus.in brought in former Amazon-.com executive Krishna Motukuri as CEO in October 2011 to not just firm up the backend of the business, but also to improve the shopping experience on the site.

"The sector is witnessing a battle for brains. We are looking out for innovative software engineers, creative designers and product managers who understand consumer behaviour so that e-shopping is delightful,"

says Motukuri. Of the 50 people that will be taken on board, there are computer science engineers from IITs too. Motukari plans to go to the IIMs and Indian School of Business in 2012 to hire, he says.

"It is a space which is in a chaotic growth stage and companies realise they need to scale up quickly to ensure they match steps with the industry's growth,"

says Prateek Srivastava, manager - leadership hiring at Noida-based Elixir. He says, more than 30,000 people have been hired in the space in the current fiscal. By 2015-16, the number will be in excess of 70,000.

Be it Manoj Chandra of Allschoolstuff-.com or Vishal Mehta of Infibeam.com, the CEOs running the show are on their feet to look for the best possible talent. Chandra's venture is just three months old and he wants to double his team size by mid-2012. He spends 30% of his time on recruitments, he says.

The remuneration for graduates from coveted colleges is not making employers shy away. "If we have big dreams, we have to be aggressive," says Mehta, who too is keen on doubling his team strength to 800 by next year. He has already hired more than 10 IIM graduates and has even tapped non-resident Indians who are coming back due to the slowdown in the West. Manu Midha, who is from the 2010 IIM batch, for instance, is VP, planning and operations, while Maulik Jagirdar is a UK-returned professional who now heads customer care at Infibeam.com.

Career growth in e-commerce is at least three times faster than the in conventional industries, says Elixir's Srivastava. People in regional roles in top organisations are getting national roles with ecommerce startups, which eventually gives them a whole canvas to paint their career growth, he says.

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Global Investors Looking Towards India's Internet Business :Invested $1 billion on New Start ups

Global investors have placed a billion dollar bet on India's Internet and mobile start-ups during 2011, reposing confidence in the fast-growing base of digital consumers in the country. Marquee venture capital and private equity investors made aggressive investments in start-ups - most of which are less than five-year old - as they backed the story of rising disposable income and Internet penetration.

These investors have already ploughed more than $900 million between January and November, while deals worth another $250 million could be clinched by December-end, said an Avendus Capital report titled 'India Goes Digital'. The boutique investment bank, with work expertise in internet and technology, said the domestic e-commerce market would quadruple to $24 billion by 2015.

These global investors are bullish on India's Internet economy even as there's a waning appetite for the core sector investments stymied by highinterest rates and lack of policy reforms. The belief in the Indian digital consumer story has been so robust that start-up ecommerce firms managed to raise follow-on investments within six months, at significantly higher valuations.

Online retail, or e-tailing, will lead the internet consumer story catching up with online travel, classifieds and advertising which dominate the digital consumer industry in India right now. E-tailing will develop into a $12 billion-strong business, accounting for half of the total e-commerce market in the next four years.

"The e-commerce sector has reached an inflection point this year and will surely surpass the online travel industry over the next few years. India's online story currently is where China was five to six years back,"

said Niren Shah, MD, Norwest Venture Partners. The Silicon Valley-based-VC just announced an investment of $5 million in a soon-to-be launched shopping portal, Pepperfry.com.

The number of deals more than doubled to 66 in the first 11 months with investors rushing to board the digital consumer story. The top e-commerce firms emerged as big advertisers and employed hundreds of courier boys in the most techsavvy neighborhoods to grow their businesses.

"There seems to be a belief that you need to start working with the online players early because if they might become expensive. But next year, valuations and deal flow is likely to temper as 2011 was an exceptionally aggressive year,"

said Prashant Prakash, partner at Accel Partners, a US-based VC fund with investments in Flipkart.com, LetsBuy.com and Exclusively.in.

India's emerging e-tailers are burning cash - many of them incurring heavy operational losses - to emerge winners in an industry that is poised for a shake-out and consolidation.

"We see the potential for online retail in India become larger than that of online travel in next five years, perhaps by a factor of 2:1. Regular commerce will create more transactions as compared to travel since consumers need regular things on an everyday basis unlike travel which is mostly driven out of necessity,"

said Mahesh Murthy, founder, Pinstorm, and co-founder , Seedfund. Globally, e-tailing has cornered 6% of the US and 4% of the China retail markets.

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