Overrated, just a glorified classified website

I said this in 2006. Thats 18 years ago. My partner - kk from Media2win looked at me with ‘what’s wrong with this guy’ kind of look. We were doing digital media advertising back then. Valuepitch partnered with Media2win and KriShna KuMar was the CEO of that.?

I just got to know we lost msn.co.in account to a rival agency - interactiveavenues.com (ran by Ratish Nair )?

I wanted to win it, though they said it’s already been decided, IA is getting display and search business from msn. I had no idea what exactly media2win guys pitched and how did they loose the account.?

Desperate and frustrated I started browsing msn.co.in and something caught my eye. There was a section of cricket. There was a tri series happening during that time (India pak and some other country)?

It was a Saturday. I called Raj Dsouza my cofounder. He’s a tech wizard. A self taught programmer who doesn’t distinguish between hardware or software and in software from C to Java to Python everything is just music to him. Anyway when i tried reaching him, he won’t pick up. I call his mom and as usual she says - he’s still sleeping. On saturdays he sleeps the whole day! Begged aunty to wake him up.?

'Kya Venks' he says , agitated but not frustrated. Yet.?

Something we must do now.?I say

It’s Saturday. Can’t we do on Monday??

On Monday we need to give a live demo.?

Hmm. Give me an hour.

I call back in half and hour. He says he’s still having his breakfast and will connect. It’s 4pm.

Finally he’s ready to speak. I tell him Raj, you remember AdWords (googles) platform released api, he says yes. I need you to go to msn.co.in ka sports page, scrape the page for scores , the participating countries, and in a particular format push to the Google ads via api. Do every 3-5 minutes for keywords like ‘India vs Pakistan’, live score, cricket score etc.?

I was preparing for some resistance.

After few seconds, he says. ok. When do you want that??

Relieved. Told him tomorrow. He said fine.

Now i called up kk the CEO of media2win. Asked if he can get a meeting of Krishna Prasad the man incharge at msn. He said there will be no use as the PO is already issued. I told him bhai just get him for a meet at the nearest restaurant, just once. He has to eat somewhere, let’s invite him for a lunch meet.?

Monday morning. Called up Raj a hundred times. He was busy but asked me what time is the meeting. Now it’s full tense movement. KP agreed for the meet but I don’t have anything to show .?

We are in a restaurant. I had my dongle for the Internet and a bulky laptop. Kk was chatting something in General and i was doing fake smiles waiting for an sms from Raj. Finally KP asks so what is it? KK looks at me. Then i asked KP there is a huge TV in the restaurant with the match on - there can you see? I was opening my laptop while he answered - yeah India vs Pakistan. Asked him what’s the score? He said India 58/4

I showed the laptop. Google page was there. I searched 'live cricket score'. My heart was beating super fast as I didn’t get any sms from Raj.

The first ad said

India batting 58/4

India vs Pakistan?

For live scores and more?

Msn.co.in

He didn’t get it at the first go.?

I explained. KP when we search for Live score what do we really want? he said the score. I asked him to observe the rest of the results. They were all bunch of links.

So I said here msn ie, is Microsoft, is saying Google is not relevant when it comes to giving what you asked. Msn is better. It can have an upper hand. Microsoft can tell the world that Google is just a glorified classifieds.?

KP was ecstatic. The earlier PO got cancelled and we got search business.?

The results of the campaign was the click thru rate was 18-20% versus 1%. The cost per click was in Paise. Back then the higher the ctr the lower the cpc.?

Msn used this to do lot of PR.?

Post this, Google coincidentally changed the search display page to include live scores. This time it was careful to include not just cricket scores but other sports as well!

With LLMs my statement is coming true, albeit 17yrs later!