A contest
of this kind is the need of the hour and a bunch of thanx to WeChat + Indi
blogger for bringing up this topic for the bloggers to write about. Because,
while we write for this contest, we as a blogging community will also realise
our responsibility as a citizen on the day of elections. Plus, Indi blogger
caters to an ever-growing blogging community that has the power of reaching
many eyes and that is reason enough to at least take a shot at it with a hope
to knock away the apathy that is largely inherent. The general Elections in
2009 had a pathetic average turnout of around 60% of the voter base of nearly 700 million. So, voters’ attitudinal
change also adds to the never-ending list of the things that has to change in
India.
So,
Social Mobile Apps and the Indian youth – Can we bring both together to make a
difference in the General Elections 2014? Indeed, we can. Let’s get some
underpinning evidences for the statement first.
According
to IDC, the Indian smartphone market grew by 229 percent year-on-year to 12.8
million smartphones in third quarter of 2013 compared to 3.8 million units in
Q3 of 2012. As of now, Smartphone user data base is around 55 million units. A Nielson survey in Feb 2013 claims that at least half of these users are under the age of 25.
So, doing a rough calculation with all these figures, I vouch for the fact that
attempting to reach out to the Indian youth through social mobile apps would
indeed give us some brighter numbers for the voter turnout.
With
the smartphone market resurging the savvy youth with attractive offers,
m-commerce is fast becoming a business concept that will forever change the
rules of commercial gameplay. Using the same concept, I believe the Indian
youth can somehow be inspired and mobilized to vote in the forthcoming
election. I have tried to put up a few ideas on how the youth could be
motivated through social mobile apps.
1)VOTER IDS:
Before we discuss umpteen numbers of ideas from various bloggers, please be
aware that most of the youth do not even possess a voter id. Unless and until
this realisation gap is bridged, every other effort will be futile. So, the
best thing is to first create a Facebook page that summarises in a few lines
the need and how to take a voter id. Then, market and circulate the page link
through messaging apps like WeChat, Whatsapp, Viber, Line etc..
2)ANIMATED
MESSAGES: Instagram is yet another way to connect to the youth. Sharing a
pictorial that carries a message to vote may also get across. Not only
Instagram, even the messaging apps can help here. For Eg, Viber wished its
users a Happy Diwali by sending a picture message on November 3. Same way, sending
a picture message about a week before the Election Day could serve as a
reminder to the youth of their responsibility to vote.
3)NEW EMOTICONS:
As we text and ping our friends, the messaging apps give us a handful of emoticons
that makes expressing our moods and emotions easier as well as comfortable.
Creating a few more such as an electronic polling machine or a hand voting or the
Lok Sabha architecture seems to be a viable option to me. This could help the
sincere voters strike an animated plea to the youth through the texting platform
and drive them to vote with these innovative stickers. Visuals have always been the strongest communicators.
4)POP UP
ADS: Though pop up messages irritate users and are considered to be old school
by now, they still prove to be useful. The pop ups could suggest the youth to ‘click
here to check out the tweets of the presidential candidates’ or ‘Check out why
you should vote in the 2014 Elections’.
5)PINNED
NEWSTAMP: When it is Xmas or New Year, the GUI of the social apps change, giving
us a more pleasant experience to feel the advent of a brand new year or the
thrill of getting gifts on a Xmas. The same applies here too. When US had its
presidential elections, Facebook helped generate awareness by putting up a
newstamp near its status box that said, ‘Today is Election day!’ Such an
endeavour has a probability of evoking awareness in India too.
6)STATUS
AWARENESS: Apart from the voter id issue, another grassroots level problem is
that the Indian youth do not even have a basic idea about politics or the
histories of the powerful netas or the political parties. It has always been a
grey area for them. Though I am short of any kinda bright ideas to resolve this
concern other than links to related webpages, an innovative proposition is
still needed.
7)POLLING
BOOTH IDENTIFICATION BY GOOGLE MAPS: Google has recently signed up with the
Election Commission. The scheme is that the EC will feed the location details
of every polling booth into the Google maps database. Over the next six months,
Google will offer EC its resources, including its search engine, to enable
voters to check their enrolment status online and locate their polling station,
complete with directions using Google Maps. Google has conceived this plan as a
part of its CSR budget and sources inform that the plan may take off by the
second week of January. This is a juicy chance for the social apps to provide
that same link when the youth log in for texting their friends. Encourage them
also to share the same link with their friends.
So, these are few of the ideas
which I felt to be practical as they could be easily built in by tweaking up
the codings by the techies. I could not boil up any more fresh technical ideas
as I am not much a tech-savvy person. So, as the internet giants(Facebook, Twitter, Google) step in to
back up the EC in moving the urban masses in India to turn up for the 2014
polls, it is also high time for the social mobile apps to support the same
cause in every way possible.
BE
THE CHANGE THAT YOU WANT TO SEE AROUND YOU,
kAy..!!
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