Virtual Bollywood

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: Kamla Bhatt is a technology trend watcher and host of The Kamla Show on radio

Bollywood is on my mind these days. I can’t seem to escape all the Bollywood-related news that comes my way in the online world. Well, cut, cut. Let us try that again. I have a Bollywood Google alert and that is how Bollywood news comes my way every day in real time. This virtual Bollywood is an exciting place where I can flit from a blog post to a video clip to a social networking site and within minutes I have a pretty good idea of what is happening. Recently a news article on Adlabs Cinema caught my attention.

Adlabs has commissioned a comprehensive survey about new age movie goers as the article put it. Specifically, Adlabs is interested in finding out the characteristics of this new cinema age cinema audience. The news report quoting Tushar Dhingra, COO of Adlabs said this is the first time that a comprehensive survey of Indian movie goers is being undertaken. Now, this is interesting when you think that India produces the most number of films in the world and for over 60 years the dream merchants of Bollywood have kept millions of people entertained around the world. But, what caught my eye was what Hemant Mehta of IMRB, the company that will conduct this survey, had to say about using cutting edge technology for their survey. I don’t know what he means by cutting edge technology, but my sense is that this cutting edge technology may or may not include Web 2.0 tools like blogs, wikis, social networks etc and their impact on people around the world. This cutting edge technology has changed the characteristics of the new age movie goer and has in the process added a whole new set of first-time Bollywood and Indian film fans.

What piqued my interest was the term “new age movie goer.” I wonder what they mean by it. I am not sure if this new comprehensive survey that Adlabs plans to roll out will include millions of Bollywood fans that live outside India in Singapore, USA, Canada, UK or The Netherlands. For instance, I don’t think this survey will include folks like the cab drivers of New York or San Francisco. Just ask any New York city cab driver and the chances are he (I have not met a female cab driver in NYC) has fond memories of watching a film like Sholay or Dharmatma and they invariably recollect Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor and Rekha. These folks continue to rent movies and watch the latest movies at a local cinema theatre in their cities.

I wonder if using cutting edge technology would by any stretch of imagination include the virtual Bollywood world that is studded with rich content, conversation and community. Will the survey look at the characteristics of the new movie goer in virtual Bollywood? Just do a quick search for Bollywood on Wikipedia, FaceBook, YouTube, MySpace, you will see what I am talking about. It is just not the fans, but even artists and film production companies have discovered the power of Web 2.0 tools. Bachchan has discovered the power of blogs and makes time to write his posts on a daily basis. Then there is Aamir Khan, Karan Johar, Ramgopal Verma and others. Some Bollywood production studios have discovered the power of building an online community in FaceBook and Orkut. For instance Subash Ghai harnessed the power of FaceBook for his last film as did Ajay Devgan and Kajol for their home production of Hum, Tum and You.

The new age movie goers are in some ways a little different since they extensively use technology to keep tabs on their favourite movies and stars. The new movie goer is like this young Univeristy of Berkeley sophomore I know who talks to his friends on MySpace to get their input about a new movie or song, then goes over to YouTube and checks out the promo and then makes up his mind if he wants to see the movie. He watches a film not for the story line but to check out the dance moves since he is part of a Bollywood dance club in his school. The new movie goer is like this American blogger I know who reads other Bollywood blogs and gets suggestions on what to see and then watches the film. And often the suggestions are for old films from the 1960s and 1970s. Or, is the new movie goer a well-known Silicon Valley venture capitalist who makes it a point to catch the latest movies when he visits India?