Web films: Uncommon cities–Commonfloor.com
By Malay Desai From: Mumbai, Kolkata Realty portal CommonFloorhas launched a new series of web films that celebrate cities of India. The Mumbai film takes the narrative form of a poetry, its visuals depicting a day in the life of the city and its common characters. The three-and-a-half minute film winds up with the firm’s logo and URL, before the credits. The Kolkata film, created by a different production house, impersonates key elements of the city, such as a boat, Howrah bridge and a taantsaree. It uses five narrators and is in English, compared to the Mumbai one being in Hindi. Do we Like? Google ‘Find home Mumbai’ and you will be thrown over a crore results, but the very first one, after the sponsored ones, belongs to a realty portal that wasn’t really up there this time last year. But efficient SEO (search engine optimization) isn’t the only thing CommonFloor.com has done right since landing a multi-million dollar investmentin 2013,it has also made films such as these. The other players of the category – Magicbricks, 99acres and Indiahomes have tried the humour route, the ‘flash your wares’ route and more, but I, incidentally a house-hunter from the past year or so, haven’t eagerly explored them. CF’s first TVC in August, an eccentric spoof ofa corny horror film, made me do it. These films will push me to go there again. The one element that realty brands, especially in the TV/web media miss out on while advertising is to celebrate cities. In their low-budget scrambles to seek buyers, they stick to the basics, and forget that the potential buyer is already cluttered with a dozen brands in his mobile, desktop and TV. Commonfloor, with due help from some seriously talented production houses in Mumbai and Kolkata, has broken the clutter by celebrating the two cities in a way only newspaper brands can. ‘The City that Never Sleeps’ may sound like another Bombay short made by a BMM student with a film editor friend, but it looks fresh, devoid of dabbawala clichés. The narrative pauses are relevant, the colours alive, the fade-ins beautiful and the characters real. The hero of the film is poet Satyanshu Singh, of Udaan fame, who has penned breezy, caressing words. The Kolkata film, titled Nimantran, is higher on grandeur andmore pointed with its narrative. Its camera closes in on fingers and textures more than skies and waters in the earlier case.My only peeve, why is it not in Bengali? Both films, like their 1-BHK rates,are like chalk and cheese, with different production houses and approaches. The only singular thread is the final branding, and that’s enough to charm the millions in both cities. After Kindle’s stunning film earlier, here’s hoping long-winding celebratory web films is our ad world’s latest trend. To watch the Mumbai film, feed ‘bit.ly/CFmumbai’in your browser Social Newsfeed Your regular dose on the shifts in the social media universe Insta now bigger than Twitter The social media tracker in me doesn't get too surprised by most news and updates these days, but once in a while Facebook does manage to bring out a ‘wait, what?’ It happened last Thursday when FB-owned photo sharing network Instagram announced that it had 300 million monthly active users. It meant that it was effectively larger than Twitter, which began operations three years before Insta. Twitter in July had said that it had 271 million active users. In the blog post which went viral, Insta’s CEO said that the global community shares over 70 million photos and videos each day, adding that it would launch a ‘verified’ feature a la other networks soon. Now the thing is, like Twitter, Insta too has a problem with ‘spammy’ accounts, i.e. those created by automated bots, and that could be a reason for this number. Cat owners and foodies, you may rejoice. Your cat likes this Who are you, Suhel Seth? We’d reported here how the co-director BachiKarkariaof TOI’s Lit Fest un-invited TarunTejpalto avoid ‘extraneous noise’, but she couldn't do much when Bandra boy VirenRasquinha, former India hockey captainand one of the panelists at a discussion took to Twitter to vent. He said to have had an ‘unfortunate encounter with an obnoxious Suhel Seth’, who is, um, a dial-a-quote talking head for our news channels on issues small and big. His five tweets were sharp and right on the goal, implicating Seth for having asked who he was and the ParsiMsKarkaria to have been condescending. This of course set off a delightful storm on our timelines, with Mr Seth being asked ‘Who r u?’ by tweeters and Twitteratis. The man in question scurried to offer an apology, admitting to his arrogance. Now we know who you are Seth, you’re the guy who didn't know VirenRasquinha! Viren Rasquinha likes this Truecaller reaches 100 million milestone That app which has saved us many uncomfortable conversations has reached a landmark number of users and has introduced new features to quicken its way to the next landmark. Wait, if you don't know what we’re talking about, please look up Truecalleron your phone, it’s that magical app that, by recognising names of people whose numbers you haven’t stored, will save you the blushes several times. The app has made giant inroads in India alone, with us accounting for 45 million of the 100 million number. The app guys have redesigned its interface now, and it features simpler navigation and lesser memory consumption. Since its launch, the app has spawned many off-shoots, although none as successful as itself. With India’s smartphone penetration, we predict a couple more hundred millions for this fayde-mand app. ‘SirJee’ from KNPH likes this
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