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Yuvraj Follows Dhoni, Sehwag, Bhajji & Ishant – Launches Online Presence

Rajiv Dingra — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:30:19 +0000

We had recently reported how top cricketers in MS Dhoni, Harbhajan, Virendra Sehwag and Ishant Sharma had launched their online presence. Following their footsteps is the Prince of Punjab Yuvraj Singh who has gone ahead and launched his official website too.

While his team mates decided to rope in Techshot Digital. Yuvraj has opted to partner with Hungama Digital to launch his site. The official site can be found on Yuvrajsingh.co.in.

The portal has sections like fanzone – which is his official blog, my world – which is bio, my cricket – which showcases his career highlights and also a store which sells merchandise.

All in all Yuvraj’s online presence seems to be better (from a look and feel point of view) from his other cricketing counterparts. Though what is missing is his presence on social media which is missing from his official website as well. Given the deluge of celebrities on social media offlate I wont be surprised if thats in the pipeline too.

Ash & Yuvi – India’s Most Dangerous Celebs On Cyberspace

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DailyMotion Partners Yahoo! – Bullish On India

Rajiv Dingra — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:12:56 +0000

Another online video streaming company (besides for Youtube) which seems to be getting in aggressive mode for the Indian space is the French limited company Dailymotion.

Dailymotion entered India in 2008 and had taken the stance of inviting original content creators to its platform. That move seemed to have worked as over a year Dailymotion claims a growth of over 150% in India.

To compound this growth further now Dailymotion has tied up with Yahoo! in India so as to reach a wider audience. According to this tie up Yahoo users would view video content through a Dailymotion widget available on Yahoo.com.

Apart from India this partnership will also take place in markets like France, the UK, Germany, Spain, and Italy.

All in all this seems to be the only international competition to the likes of Youtube who seem to be going gung ho about the Indian market too. Unlike Youtube which already has a ton of content publishers in place Dailymotion still has a long way to go. With Hungama Digital on its side as a partner though things should become a little easier as far as monetization of content is concerned.

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Youtube Launches Bollywood Channel – UGC vs Exclusive Content?

Rajiv Dingra — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:48:37 +0000

YouTube has launched a Bollywood channel where full length Hindi movies like Raja Babu, Nauker, Bawarchi, Shaan and Mumbai Salsa are available for free online viewing. This move comes after the announcement of the release of movies like 3 Idiots and premiere of movies like Striker on its platform.

Youtube had started forging partnerships with bollywood companies since 2007. Eros Entertainment was one of the first few to launch their own channel on youtube then.

By launching this exclusive bollywood channel YouTube has partnered with Shemaroo Entertainment, Rajshri and Ultra for their content. The producers would decide how they want their content to be put up on Youtube.

This move points at how aggressive and determined Google is about its Youtube India plans. This strong association with Bollywood is to cement its place at the no.1 entertainment online video platform for India. Also its not only bollywood even IPL3 deal underlines how popular content is what Youtube is gunning for. Quite a change from its UGC stance few years ago.

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WWW: WAT Weekly WrapUp 1st – 7th Feb 2010

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:56:07 +0000

The week started off with us sharing the opening of WATMedia’s Office In Mumbai with you. On the major news this week internationally is was Monster Worldwide Acquiring Yahoo HotJobs For $225 Millions, Facebook Getting A Facelift On Its 6th Birthday and Telegraph Looking Beyond Traffic Numbers. On the Indian front it was a bunch of financial results starting from Info Edge, Sify and Vodafone. We also gave our views on Blockong of Porn Sites by Chief Justice, Indian Teledensity and how it can be kept alive and the Piteous State of The Online Newspaper Websites.

The week saddened us as well as this was another week wherein the 3G Auction got further Postponed. Though we are hoping Mobile Number Portability Will Be A Reality From The Forthcoming April Fool’s Day!

This and lots more in last weeks weekly wrapup!

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Paypal India Block Leaves IT Guys High & Dry – Need For An Indian Paypal?

Rajiv Dingra — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:07:34 +0000

Paypal the online payments system has stopped working for India payments to and from. This has caused a lot of issues especially for IT developers who used to freelance for foreign markets and charge purely via the use of Paypal. Reports have been pouring in of several users whose transactions have been reversed.

Following is the standard reply that PayPal is sending to customers:
“Your payment of xxx has been sent back to the sender of the payment. We reversed this payment because we have stopped allowing personal payments to be sent to or from India.

“If this was a payment for a purchase of goods or services, and not a personal payment, then you may contact the buyer and have him or her resend the payment as follows: (a) click the Send Money tab, (b) select “Goods,” and (c) provide a shipping address.

“If this payment was a personal payment such as a gift, then we have requested that the sender find another payment method until we restore personal payments to and from India. We are trying to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we’re sorry for any inconvenience.”

Techcrunch reports that Paypal has confirmed that personal payments to and from India have been suspended. There is no word though on why and for what concern was this step taken by Paypal.

The ewallet systems in India are governed by RBI and as you might know a Paypal like system in Wallet365 which was announced in 2006 was shut down due to RBIs directives. Offlate RBI has taken a kinder view towards mwallet and ewallet systems and also announced higher transaction amounts for the same.

As one can see from this particular incident Indians definitely need an Indian alternative for peer to peer payments both from India and from abroad. Too bad RBI is still to give a full green signal to a Paypal like system in India. But who knows after Paypal has stopped its shop the lobby for India payment services providers might just coax RBI to change its mind. Lets wait and Watch I say!

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AdNetwork Updates: NetworkPlay Adds OneIndia; Vdopia Confirms Debdutta Appointment

Rajiv Dingra — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:40:09 +0000

Ad networks seem to be on a roll these days whether its signing up new publishers or poaching away employees from large portals its all happening for them.

Networkplay adds OneIndia To Its Kitty

Latest in the news is networkplay.in which has announced yet another publisher addition in its kitty. Networkplay has announced a strategic partnership with Oneindia.in based in Bangalore where the entire India IP advertising monetisation will be solely handled by them. Oneindia has 3 Million unique users as per comscore from India every month and upwards of 100 Million page views with News, Entertainment and Regional Content leading the pack in its offerings. Oneindia also operates, Thatscricket, Thatsmalayalam, Thatskannada, Thatstamil, Thatstelegu, Thatshindi as sub-domain portals in its motherbrand Oneindia.in. Earlier networkplay has announced exclusive publisher tie ups with Linkedin, Gawker Media and more.

Vdopia Confirms Debdutta Upadhyaya As VP, India

We told you so. Our exclusive story got confirmed today when Vdopia did and official release of hiring Debadutta away from Yahoo to their team. As pointed out in our earlier post this isn’t the first time a top Yahoo team member has quit to join a startup. Earlier exits include Sharad Sharma and Pearl Uppal.

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WATMedia Opens Its 2nd Office In Mumbai!

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:32:27 +0000

Its been a long journey and a labour of love for me and all those who have worked with the WATMedia. What started as an amateur blog in the middle of 2006 by an ignorant (and some what arrogant) 21 year old (yes thats me!) is now a growing company that owns and runs not 1 but 2 offices in Mumbai.

As you might have noticed from the Job openings we posted recently we have been on an expansion mode starting year 2010. To set the platform for our expansion plans it was important to have space that allows us to grow and hence we have opened another office in Mumbai (On 29th Jan) which shall help us scale to a total size of 30 people (Currently we are about 12-13 for WATConsult and events excluding the bloggers who blog for WATBlog. We have about 20 odd regular bloggers).

Here we wanted to share with you pictures and videos of our new office which is strategically placed in town (south mumbai) at Fort very near to our current office which is at Fort as well.

Click on the collage below to check our Inauguration pictures (Mind you they are a little crazy )

Check out the video below:

The reason to share this with you is that all this wouldn’t have been possible without your support. Also there are a ton of people who have helped us along our journey by working with us, for us, standing by us, criticizing us, loving and supporting us and also ridiculing us. We have loved all these people as each person has helped us become better both as people and as a company. While we may not be the biggest, strongest, richest or the most intelligent company out there in the digital media space. We are surely the happiest as we truly enjoy what we do. Hopefully that shall matter more in the long run!

We hope all of you will continue to support and encourage us to do better! Thanks all!

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WWW: WAT Weekly WrapUp 25th – 31st Jan 2010

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:20:21 +0000

Last week was an eventful one with International buzz due to the Apple iPad Launch. There was also some interesting reports that came out like Facebook Tops Worldwide Usages In 2009 for mobile web. In new launches GovernanceNow.com was launched by Sri Adhikari Bros. We also covered the recent legal spat between Infomedia18 Being Sued by Justdial. We looked into the Future of Display Advertising and also questioned tie ups like the one between Reliance BigTV And Indiagames. One of the big news was also the announcement of India’s version of the Kindle known as ‘Pi’ For Rs.10k. There was also funding news for Via which raised 10 Million $ In Funding From Sequoia.

All in all an eventful week filled with important events and stories.

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Infomedia18 Sued, Askme.in Down & Deap Ubhi Quitting?

Rajiv Dingra — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 05:28:55 +0000

Its all happening in the wrong way for Infomedia18 the arm of Network18 which acquired burrp.com and recently launched the classifieds listings portal Askme.in. We reviewed askme and clearly stated that there was nothing new in the portal. Apparently there was a lot of copied as well. Just dial has sued Infomedia18 (thanks for the comment tip) over content theft of database for Askme and won an injunction on the operations of the portal as well.

Offlate dotcom companies suing each other have been on the rise as recently two travel portals went legal route as well.

This case is interesting as it is about database on businesses and companies and not creative rights on content. Justdial’s take would obviously be that took them great pains and a ton of funding to build their database and keep it accurate and hence any plaigiarism amounts to theft.

The directive by the courts to direct askme.in to shut operations and cease to exist is also in favour of Justdial’s stance. Currently the site askme.in is giving a database error. It will be interesting to follow this story to see how it impacts future such cases in the digital space.

More trouble for Infomedia18

Recently Infomedia18 acquired burrp.com for 4.25 crore which made us question on whether it was a good deal or no. With that came the acquisition of Deap Ubhi who was the entrepreneur behind burrp. Deap joined Infomedia as the Executive vice president of new media & internet. He in a blog post on his personal blog writes about his journey and also hints at his decision to move on. Though its not officially announced it can be understood from the post that Deap has decided to move on.

Now he also mentions that his team also rolled out Askme.in. Wonder what’s going wrong with Infomedia18 but this flurry of bad news wont please those higher up at Network18 group.

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Events Update: Proto.in & E-Summit

Rajiv Dingra — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:14:50 +0000

Proto.in – 30th Jan – IIT Mumbai

Proto .in comes to Mumbai for the first time. The last edition was held in Pune. The agenda for this year speaks for itself. Check it out below:

9:30 AM to 10:00 AM     In Conversation with Pradeep Gupta, Founder Cybermedia Group
10:00 AM to 10:30 AM    In Conversation with Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder, Naukri.com
10:45 AM to 2:15 PM    Proto.in Showcase
3 PM to 4:45 PM       Special Screening of Movie ‘Pirates of the Silicon Valley’
5:00 PM to 5:30 PM   Devil’s Advocate
5:30 PM to 6:00 PM    Angles and Demons – A Review of the Angel Investor Pitch

Parallel Sessions:

3:00 PM to 5:00 PM     Mentoring Session with Sequoia Capital
3:00 PM to 4:00 PM     Meet the Airtel Innovation Fund
3:00 PM to 4:00 PM    Angel Pitch to the Indian Angel Network
3:00 PM to 6:00 PM     Demo Pit

I guess there are just a few seats left for this years proto.in so register on http://register.proto.in

E-Summit – 7th Feb – IIT Mumbai

ESummit is an annual entrepreneurship event conducted by the eCell of the IIT Mumbai.

9:30 am – 10:15 am    Keynote Address
10:30 am – 11:45 am    Opening PD
12 pm – 1:45 pm    Networking Lunch
2 pm – 5 pm     * Attracting Top Talent to a startup venture
* Expansion : Range or Domain
* Opportunity Cost : Effective Decision Making
* Unorthodox Marketing

5 pm – 5:30 pm    Networking Tea
5:30 pm – 6:45 pm    Awards Ceremony and Closing PD
7 pm – 9 pm    Closing Interactive Session

Parallel sessions:
10:30 am – 12 pm & 2 pm – 5 pm Mentoring sessions
10:30 am – 12 pm & 2 pm – 5 pm Vulture’s Nest

10:00 am – 5 pm – Startup Showcasing
10:30 am – 12 pm & 2 pm – 5 pm Eureka!09 Finals
2:50 pm – 3:30 pm & 4:20 pm – 5 pm Innovation Redefined

One can register here – http://www.esummit.ecell.in./register.php

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Apple iPad Launched – The Apple Tablet Is AppSome

Rajiv Dingra — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:23:23 +0000

Apple announced the much awaited introduction of a new Apple tablet called Apple iPad today. Apple iPad by all definitions had a maddening buzz around it the world over. All tech blogs and twitter feeds were buzzing with excitement (at the time of writing this post Apple iPad was trending on twitter) on the imminent showcase by Steve Jobs at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco.

So what is the iPad?

iPad is a device for browsing the web, reading and sending email, enjoying photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, reading e-books and much more. So at one go its a larger iPod touch with ereader like capabilities as well. So it pretty much takes Amazon’s Kindle head on as well.

Physical Features

0.5 inches thick and and a weight of 1.5 pounds make it a size zero device if you know what I mean. It also has a 9.7 inch display which by far would be one of the larger screens for an tablet oriented handheld browsing device out there.

What makes it Appsome?

It comes 12 new innovative apps designed especially for the iPad, and will run almost all of the over 140,000 apps in the App Store.

There are three stores that one can buy from for the iPad. iTunes stores, App Stores and iBookstore which would hold ebooks for the iPad. One can also run the apps on your iPod touch or iPhone and Im assuming it would have easy synching options as well.

Storage Features

iPad comes in 3 torage size i.e. 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. This is probably quite a dissapointment when you consider that all those apps and iwork related documents would need more space. But the size of this device doesn’t allow it to pack in more storage just yet.

When will it be available?

iPad will be available in late March 2010 in US. But there is not word on International launch. So folks here in India will have to wait.

Pricing

iPad will be available for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model, $699 (US) for the 64GB model. The Wi-Fi + 3G models of iPad will be available at a retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. iBookstore will be available in the US at launch.

To actually watch an iPad in motion. Check the video below:

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Via Raises 10 Million $ In Funding From Sequoia

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:55:01 +0000

Well if you thought that you had seen the last of funding in the already overcrowded online travel space then think again. Via which was earlier flightraja has been reported to have landed a funding of 10 million $ from blue blooded VC’s Sequoia capital. Sequoia Capital had earlier funded the likes of Travelguru which was later acquired by Travelocity.

This is Via’s second round of funding as its earlier round was raised in 2007 at $5 million from NEA-IndoUS Ventures. Travel portals have been the biggest grossers of funding in the digital space with more of them raising double digital million dollar funding in the last few years. They have also been under severe pressure due to several issues ranging from Airlines cutting agents commission to airlines launching their own travel site and travel aggregators springing up to eat a piece of their pie.

The silver lining has been the lone exit in travelguru which was acquired by Travelocity. So this funding does come as a fresh breathe of confidence back into the online travel space. As we saw in 2009 a lot of OTA’s were moving towards non air businesses like train and bus ticketing for alternate revenues and also to decentralize their revenue dependence on air ticketing.

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Global Cricket Ventures Acquires Willow.tv – Why Crack A Deal With Youtube Then?

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:06:15 +0000

There are strategic moves and then there are moves that leave you confused and bewildered. Global Cricket Ventures the company that has the rights to the IPL on digital and mobile and which was recently in the news along with BCCI for entering a 2 year deal with Youtube for Online streaming has now gone ahead and announced the acquisition of Willow.tv an online portal known for live streaming cricket matches.

Willow.tv had earlier in 2008 too streamed live IPL matches to the North American audiences. This new deal makes them a part of GCV. Willow.tv was earlier reported as being sold to Reliance Entertainment and it had also announced an investment of 75 crores which was then reported to have fallen off due to valuation mismatch.

This deal leaves me scratching my head wondering as to why would GCV acquire a live streaming company on one hand and also do a live streaming deal with youtube on the other. The only logic or reasoning I could see is that the Youtube deal must be India specific only i.e. the Youtube url for streaming i.e. youtube.com/ipl would be viewable only by an Indian audience. So we spoke to the Google India PR and were updated that except for the US markets everywhere else the feed would be exclusive and streamed live via Youtube. In US Youtube would be rebroadcasting the match and it wont be a live stream. While GCV’s newly acquired property in Willow.tv would stream IPL matches live to the US centric audience.

It seems GCV would be attracting the best of both worlds as Willow.tv unlike the youtube streaming wont be free which means users in US would pay to watch the streaming. While im sure Youtube i.e. Google India paid a good amount to GVC for the global rights of live streaming (minus US markets).

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WWW: WAT Weekly WrapUp 18th-24th Jan 2010

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:13:05 +0000

Last week we did a lot of stories right from Indian to International ones. The story of the week though had to be the IPL – Youtube deal which was a first in the Indian scene. This was closely followed by the 12 million dollar funding announcement by Smsgupshup. There were many new product launches last week as well right from Tech jobsites to Money Manager tools to local review/search sites. This and a lot more in last weeks weekly wrapup.

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SmsGupShup Raises 12M $ in Funding From Globespan Capital Partners

Rajiv Dingra — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:21:34 +0000

Smsgupshup the sms based social network had just a few months ago stated that it was only 6 months away from breaking even. Also recently they launched social cause driven groups to further their reach and marketing efforts. All in all Smsgupshup has the numbers to boast of. They claim 26 million users in over 2 million sms communities which is no small number by any standard. Also as we have pointed out earlier there are huge costs associated in supporting this kind of mass messaging which is why they needed their earlier 11 million dollar funding from Helion in the first place.

Now it seems that Smsgupshup has broadened its horizons beyond India and is looking towards a global strategy. To power the same it has raised a D series funding of 12 million $ led by Globespan Capital Partners and supported by earlier investors Charles River Ventures and Helion Ventures.

As we have stated earlier at WATBlog India is the fastest growing market as far as mobile penetration is concerned. And currently Smsgupshup accounts for 5% of all text messages sent in India. With The mobile market pegged to reach 771 million in India and 4 billion globally as per Gartner the future certainly looks bright for the company.

This latest round brings the total funding of Smsgupshup to $37million which is quite something if you ask me! They are also planning to increase their headcount from the current 100 to 130. The real challenge for Smsgupshup is to win advertiser confiddence in the sms medium without pissing off their current users with spammy and intrusive messaging. In the longterm its this tight rope that Smsgupshup would need to walk.

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We Are Hiring! – Social Media, Ad Sales, Events & Wordpress Job Openings

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:57:26 +0000

We at WATMedia Pvt Ltd (the company which runs and manages WATBlog, WATConsult and the entire WAT brand) is on an expansion mode. We need your help in helping us grow. We are looking to hire the best in the industry for our new office (2nd one) which is soon to be launched in Fort area (Near CST a.k.a VT Station), Mumbai. Check out the following openings across our divisions WATBlog and WATConsult and do forward it to your friends incase you already have a great work place.

Following are the current openings for which we are hiring:

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WWW: WAT Weekly WrapUp 11th-17th Jan 2010

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:30:55 +0000

Last week we broke 2 important industry movements stories. One was about Sunil Nair quitting Nautanki.tv and second on Debadutta Upadhyaya quitting Yahoo and Joining Vdopia. We also gave you the low down on Google vs China fiasco happening internationally. There we some interesting feature launches by facebook and on the telecom side there were tie ups and further reduction of tariffs by the tata group. There were some interesting portal launches too in Buytheprice.com and Hitchiv.com.

We also reviewed Ibibo’s move at cloning farmville and calling it ibibo farms. This and more in last weeks weekly wrapup.

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Google To Take On China On Censorship Issue – Reacts After Data Theft

Rajiv Dingra — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 08:43:47 +0000

Google has posted an elaborate blog post on its official blog titled ‘A new approach to China‘. Most people know that Google had compromised its freedom of speech stand to enter the chinese markets in 2005. The blogosphere was abuzz with multiple proofs of Google’s double standards and censorship of search results when it came to the chinese markets.

Google in china has been involved in several controversies over the last 3 years. So much so that there is a wikipedia page dedicated to Google’s troubles in china. But now it seems google has made up its mind to take on the Chinese government. Google elaborates in a blog post stating ‘ We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.’

The above reaction came from Google after it discovered an attack originating from China which got through its security measures and compromised some intellectual property. David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer explained the attack “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.

We have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.”

Given the issue on human rights and also the fact that Google itself was attacked it seems that Google has had enough. The blog post in no uncertain terms makes it clear that Google would not filter any search results even if it means that they need to pull the plug on Google.cn in China.

So will Google’s exit from China cost them a lot?

Well not exactly. I mean reports suggest that Google was anyway fighting a losing battle in China. Last year financial reports suggest that Google infact lost market share to China based Baidu which is their largest search engine. Baidu’s market share for search in China was about 77% in the third quarter 2009, up from 75.6% in the second quarter while Google lost share in China, dropping to 17% in the third quarter, from about 19% in the second quarter. This surely suggests that Google was anyways not going from strength to strength in China.

All in all it does seem likely that if Google refuses to buckle under the censorship pressure then its exit might be confirmed from Chinese markets. If not an exit it may be possible that its existence might be marginalized. Lets see how this battle fares in the days to come.

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10 Digit Landline Number? Or 11 Digit Mobile Number? Your Call?

Rajiv Dingra — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:13:02 +0000

There was a talk before of the 10 digit numbers being exhausted and a new DoT directive which aimed at adding an additional 9 to mobile numbers thereby making the mobile numbers into 11 digit numbers. But as news has it the current 10-digit format would stay but instead of adding another 9 DoT would open up digits 2 to 9 for mobile numbers. As one would know currently large no of mobile numbers start with 9 and some with 8. So soon one would need to get ready for numbers that read 2984734933 or 3453539534.

So while its good news as far as mobiles is concerned its bad news for the landlines as the 40 million odd landlines could convert from the existing 8 digits to 10 digits if DoT has their way.

As per this report a consultation paper will be launched by Trai to take feedback on this issue before the proposal is implemented.

“If we open up all levels, say from digits 2-9, this will provide us with a further 8 billion mobile numbers. The Indian population will never exceed 1.5 billion and therefore this pool of numbers will never ever be exhausted,” the Trai official told ET

Countries like US and even the middle east have the same digits when it comes to both landline and mobile numbers so it seems very likely that Trai and the regulatory bodies in India would solve the issue of mobile numbers by moving the landlines to the 10 digit code rather than mobiles moving to 11 digits.

Whats your take on this? 10 digit landline numbers? or 11 digit mobile numbers?

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Yahoo India To Power R&D At IITB

Rajiv Dingra — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:33:18 +0000

Indian Institutes have always had great students and professors and the IIT’s and IIM’s of this country have made a name for themselves in the world. But if there is one thing that Indian institutes have lacked is the research that is carried out in the western institutes like Stanford and Harvard especially in the technology field.

To plug this area of concern and to initiate innovation within Indian campuses Yahoo India research and development has tied up with Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB) to provide a cluster of servers running Yahoo’s open source Hadoop software, and web data for research to the students.

Such initiatives are important for innovation at the grass root level. It was this very infrastructure that was provided at stanford that lead to the creation of the google’s of this world. I believe more such initiatives should be taken at IIT’s and BITS and other such institutes across India for more innovation to come through in the arena of tech apps.

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WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India » Rajiv Dingra

Yuvraj Follows Dhoni, Sehwag, Bhajji & Ishant – Launches Online Presence

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