I write about social media and entrepreneurship most of the time at WATBlog liberal doses on online advertising some pointless news otherwise. I (no longer) sing the strangest of songs and make the weirdest of faces when left in a room full of people. I also run a digital advertising agency called Smursh. You can reach me on Twitter - Twitter.com/maneeshm or mail me - m [at] smursh [dot] com

This is so because the myriad cultures in India find its definition in the music that they play. They carve a special identity not only for themselves as folk genres but also for the people there. And we all know how much of a social part regional and linguistic identity plays in today’s India (sons of the soil anyone?). These music based services will obviously be used as caller tunes, message and ring tones, etc. One doesn’t need a hypothesis and prood to see that the reason CRBTs have worked is not just because peoplelove music but they find it identity defining. And in that context Idea already has a winner on its hand.

According to Techcrunch, YouTube is unveiling what they call the Call-To-Action Overlay,which is a semi-transparent pop-up that links viewers to any website you choose.

This is big news, especially for direct marketers and their likes. One doesn’t need to talk about the insane amount of traffic that YouTube gets. Marketers realized therefore very early the potential that the site has to drive traffic on to their web platforms. It started with funny videos, to video blogging, to ads with made for web viral elements.

Digital Media is a huge canvas, but that doesn’t mean you need bigger brushes, rather it calls for you to have a bigger vision. As children of this media it is upon us to not only safeguard its core virtues but also stretch its inherent strength. This medium needs a fresh approach, a fresh perspective with nimble feet and we all need to be in this together.

Ever since Twitter snubbed its moves of a takeover, Facebook has been upping its features to seem more and more like Twitter. The first one caused a major furore on the web, when they overhauled the entire Facebook home page of profiles to look more like a Twitter timeline. While users might have now got used to it, it certainly has dented Facebook’s appeal as something separate from Twitter (ever so slightly).

26th June, the day when Elvis did his last concert, the day MJ took his last breath. Even though the occassion demands it the place is not perfect for a Michael Jackson obituary, so we won’t talk much on the glory and guts of him as a path breaking artist. However, the scene is perfectly set to talk about the impact of his death to prove a measure of his genius.

Reliance Communications is on a roll when it comes to VAS and VAS related initiatives. They have recently announced their intention to launch mobile Tv offerings for their newly launched GSM Network. RCom is reportedly in advanced stages of discussions for an alliance with Apalya Technologies to offer mobile television (MobiTV) on its network.

We want to contribute to the growth of these mobile applications, which is why we’re happy to announce our beta launch of AdSense for Mobile Applications. And so saying Adsense has sort of opened gates for a mini revolution of sorts in the mobile applications field. It’s a revolution for not many reasons and it is mini for a whole lot more, nevertheless it is an important step.

Today while blogging about the Outlook standards saga, I remembered how I wanted to write a post on the best tutorial sites on web design and development. One of the major reasons why standards aren’t adopted as much as they should have are because of lack of awareness and knowledge. And one of the main reasons why people are beginning to talk a lot more about standards it is because of Tutorial sites like the ones below. Essentially they serve these dual purpose of awareness and knowledge dissemination.

Social media agitation took a new shape when Campaign Monitor an email marketing software provider started Fixoutlook.org. Now before we talk about the site and the response it generated on Twitter, let’s see what exactly has caused the agitation if one can call it that.

Conduit has announced the launch of a marketplace for publishers who use its toolbar. Called Conduit Open it basically lets publishers share their content with more than 200,000 other community toolbar publishers. This according to Conduit will help the publisher content reach more than 60,000,000 users of community toolbars of the above 200,000 publishers.

Microsoft is planning a collaboration with Mediaworks to build a software system that marketers can use to track everything from search advertising and e-mail newsletters to CRM systems to TV buys in one place. They plan to call the software Media Operations Management System.

Facebook Inc. said the number of customers using its automated online-advertising system more than tripled in the past year, according to Bloomberg. The advertising system in question is “Engagement Ads” by Facebook.

Yahoo today announced the launch of a DIY ad builder. According to a news release, Yahoo announced the pilot launch of Yahoo! My Display Ads. It is a self-serve display ad solution designed to help small and medium-sized businesses advertise on Yahoo! network. The service is powered by Seattle-based AdReady.

Orkut has launched a new feature called Orkut Promote. It has been developed to help brands and marketers use the viral potential that Orkut provides with its numbers to their advertisement’s advantage. Google had recently announced an exclusive focus on Orkut monetization in India and Brazil (their biggest and perhaps the only markets left).

In the short history of the web, if any resource on the web has come close to challenging Google’s position as the number one information repository it has to be Wikipedia. The powerful web resource that Jimmy Wells has built and runs purely through donations is one of the success stories of the Internet.And it is set to get bigger and better.