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Google Looking To Buy Waze For $1 Billion, Sparks Bidding War With Facebook

Rohit Singh Jain — Fri, 24 May 2013 09:26:34 +0000

Google Inc is considering buying Israeli mobile satellite navigation start-up Waze Inc, which may lead to a bidding war with Facebook Inc, who has also earlier expressed interest to buy up the maps company. Waze has already been receiving expressions of interest from various Silicon Valley giants like Facebook. Reports had surfaced some time back that Facebook wanted to buy Waze for more than $1 billion, but the deal hasn’t taken ground as of now. The possible reason we can speculate is that Facebook will want the Waze team to move to California after the buy, something which the founders of Waze are against.

Google and other parties approached Waze after the Facebook talks became public but none of the bidders are close to clinching a deal, though the start-up might decide to remain independent.

Industry analysts have already started reasoning as to why Facebook would want to buy Waze. Waze is a mapping app for smartphones that’s infused with some cool social features. The deal will improve Facebook’s chances of their mobile conquest and also create a mobile application platform that can be effectively monetized. Maps and geo-location apps are the way for location-based industries in the future, and this fact seems to be driving Facebook’s acquisition of Waze. Another reason could be that integration of Waze could provide a richer experience to mobile Facebook users.

I believe Google too has plenty of reasons to gobble up Waze. Google Maps could become a stronger product after the incorporation of Waze. And it would also secure Waze from it’s competitor Facebook’s hands.

Waze has not communicated regarding this development, and nor have Facebook and Google. Waze uses satellite signals from members’ smartphones to generate maps and traffic data, which it then shares with other users, offering real-time traffic information. The four-year-old company has 47 million users. It has raised $67 million in funding from firms including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Blue Run Ventures and semiconductor company Qualcomm Inc

Facebook has been making powerful in-roads into the mobile space lately, time after its founder announced Facebook will start focusing on the mobile platform. It announced Facebook Home for Android, which even hit 1 million downloads. On the mobile front, Google recently announced the Google Play Music All Access App at the Google I/O 2013. Today it overhauled its Google Drive App for Android devices as well.

Let’s see how all three companies, especially Waze, react to this development.

Image Courtesy | forbes

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Dentsu India Acquires An 80% Stake In Digital Agency, WebChutney

Denzil — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:33:29 +0000

News has broken that advertising and communications group, Dentsu India has acquired a majority stake in WebChutney, one of the leading digital agencies in the country. We had written earlier that a deal between Dentsu and Webchutney was in the offing but both the companies did not confirm anything. The news now is that Dentsu has a majority stake of 80% in the agency and will look at it being a wholly owned entity by 2017.

Afaqs has speculated that the deal is around Rs. 40-50 crores and has resulted in a 300% return for Capital 18, which invested in Webchutney previously. Dentsu has thus effectively bought out Capital18’s share in the company. With this Dentsu gets two of the most creative independent companies in the country under its belt, the first being independent mainline agency Taproot, in which they acquired a majority share last year.

Sidharth Rao, chief executive officer and co-founder, Webchutney said,

“We are thrilled to be working with such a strong global leadership and are ready to enter a new phase of our growth. I am also personally grateful to Sarbvir Singh (MD, Capital18) who has been my mentor for the last five years and his web team at Capital18 for ensuring that we shared a wonderful journey together.”

Rohit Ohri, executive chairman, Dentsu India Group, spoke about the development,

“Dentsu is the first global network that’s being built out in the post-digital era. We believe we’re building the network of the future. Our partnership with Webchutney is another step in that direction.”

Many international groups over the course of the last year have tried to consolidate their segment by getting in independent digital agencies into their mainline line-up which speaks volumes about how much digital is being banked on by these companies in order to deliver their marketing, advertising and communication services to brands and other clients.

Source | Afaqs

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Foursquare Is Now Able To Narrow Down Explicitly With ‘Super-Specific Searches’

Alap Naik Desai — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:30:33 +0000

Geo-Tagging & local-check-in engine Foursquare has announced a new update that allows a very high degree of specificity within the searches.

The recommendation engine, now grown into a full-fledged location based Social Network; offers people multiple natural language searches that allow them to be very narrow & particular about their requirement. Simply titled ‘Super-Specific Searches’ “Foursquare helps you find exactly what you want, whatever that may be” announced an official Blog post.

How to use it: As always such high degree of user specific information begins with user’s contribution about a particular place of interest. While earlier the app for iOS & Android offered an option to merely check in or find ‘nearby’ places, that has been extended, by adding highly specific criteria, like ”I haven’t checked in”, “I’ve checked in before”, “my friends have checked in”, “offering specials”, “open now” and “I’ve saved”. Additionally, users can also further narrow it down based on the intended expenditure.

“When you’re looking for somewhere to eat, sometimes you know exactly what kind of place you want — cheap or fancy, sushi or Mexican, an old favorite, or a place you’ve never been,” the Foursquare team continued.

Such degree of particularity aides in enhancing the appeal of the platform, not only in locating a place of interest like hotels, museums, restaurants, etc. but more importantly, the app gets a lot of importance as a vehicle of ‘Discovery’. So far, users had been adding information about their ‘Check-ins’. Now Foursquare has started to give back the information based on the finer requirements of the searches.

Foursquare has been on an overhauling spree. Just last month it completely overhauled the User Interface for its iOS app. Such updates are indications that the platform now considers itself comprehensive enough to start intelligently recommending instead of just collating location-specific data. With ‘Super-Specific Searches’ Foursquare is hopeful of bettering its rivals like Google, Yahoo, Burrp & others. What do you think?

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PlatformPlay Announces Tie-up With NLPCaptcha

Denzil — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:31:34 +0000

PlatformPlay, Rammohan Sundaram’s new startup has announced a tie-up with the innovative CAPTCHA service called NLPCaptcha which is designed to use to the spam blocking mechanism of CAPTCHA and integrate advertising messages. The company announced that the entire sales inventory of NLPCaptcha will be moved to PlatformPlay in a phased manner.

NLPCaptcha launched in 2011 and has since since seen wide implementation across the Indian online publisher network. The boom in online advertising has ensured the presence of many brands on the CAPTCHA medium. The logic behind the NLPCaptcha seems very sound to me. Online advertising is not always effective and can be frequently annoying when it is thrust into your face. Many Internet startups have tried solving the problem of online monetization for publishers by trying to make ads (mobile, online) more relevant so that they don’t necessarily look like ads. In this case, turning the CAPTCHA into a brand message is genius because it ensures that people will read what your brand has to say. You can see the implementation below.

Agreed, that this does not take relevancy into account but I would rather have ads on the Captcha than other forms of advertising. This could definitely be a good new stream of revenue if you are a publisher who gets a lot of interaction from your readers. Adding to this to the comments section ensures that these readers see a brand’s message.

PlatformPlay taking this up goes with their mission of helping Indian brands monetize their inventory in a better. Earlier, they announced that the company would be bringing TechCrunch events to the country.

Amit Mittal, founder of NLPCaptcha explained the reason behind handing over the monetization bit of the service to PlatformPlay.

“I think that our own sales team has done a fantastic job on the field but still we do realize that we are an ad-tech company and in order to achieve the exponential growth, we should focus on our core business and handover the monetization part in the hands of the right partner. Tie-up with PlatformPlay is a strategic decision and PlatformPlay would now be driving the monetization part of the business while we continue to focus on more innovative product offerings, driving the client side relationship & understanding their needs and expanding to new geographies.”

Website | NLPCaptcha

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MakeMyTrip’s Financial Results Indicate Online Travel Preferences Of Indians

Alap Naik Desai — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:07:10 +0000

Online Travel Agency (OTA) MakeMyTrip’s (MMT) financial results have a few interesting patterns that indicate the progress of the segment & preferences of online travelers. MakeMyTrip generated gross revenue of US$ 228.8 Million in the year ended March 31, 2013, an increase of 16.4% (29.7% if currency fluctuation is not factored) over the previous year. However, the company reported 1.4% decline in its revenues less service costs, which stood at US$ 21.7 Million for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2013 over the year-ago period.

Air Ticketing segment to blame for the decline: Decline in revenues less service costs (a crucial metric for OTAs) can be attributed to the sharp fall in sales from its key revenue earner; Air Ticketing. This segment declined 26.3% (21.2% in constant currency) to US$ 13.14 Million. All this negatory shift clearly represents deteriorating performance in air ticketing.

How are the OTA doing?

Overall, Air Ticketing was one of the most financially lucrative avenues. Driven by wildly varying pricing structure that fluctuated not only by season or availability, but also time-duration, OTAs had a very good profit margin. By pre-empting demand, these companies routinely pre-booked tickets & hence could offer a holistic holiday package that included air fare too.

The company blamed the decline in revenue less service costs, to a fall in Net Revenue Margin (defined as revenue less service cost as a percentage of gross bookings) to 5.3% from 8.4% a year ago, mainly due to a reduction in airlines’ Base Commission. In other words, the demand has largely remained stable, but OTAs cannot earn well from the transactions as their revenue margin has been almost halved.

Is there an upside? Fortunately for MakemyTrip, it’s Hotels and packages sector is proving very successful. Despite being a relatively smaller contributor of revenues, this segment grew an astonishing 141.6%. Interestingly, this is exactly what MMT desires revealed Deep Kalra, chairman and CEO of MakeMyTrip, “As part of our long-term strategy to grow the hotels and packages business, we significantly improved our annual non-air net revenue mix to over 35 per cent”

Reducing reliance on Air Ticketing is certainly a good business tactic. This could even be a response to big OTAs like IRCTC entering the field. What do you think?

Image Courtesy | kotakcards

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Dhingana Introduces Video Ads On Its iOS Apps, Coming Soon To Android

Sneha Bokil-Paranjape — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:50:24 +0000

In a bid to strengthen its revenue even further, Indian music streaming service Dhingana has rolled out ‘Premium Video Advertising” – video ads that run for 10-30 seconds, and which are displayed on-screen before or after a song is played. For now, they’re available within Dhingana’s iOS app, with Android to follow. Speaking about the launching video ads, Rohit Bhatia, CEO of Dhingana ”Video is one of the best forms of advertising, delivering two-to-four times higher performance over regular display banner ads on mobile devices. Our video ads are carefully integrated to be shown when the user is already engaged with our music for several minutes to maximize the impact for the advertising brand without compromising the listening experience.”

The video ads service will enable advertisers and brands to engage consumers with pre-roll and post-roll TV quality commercials for 10-30 seconds, in place of album art or anything else that’s on the Now playing screen within the app. Launching for iOS — both iPhone and iPad — the ads will come to the Android app soon. I believe ads are a big turn off and hope the addition of video ads does not affects Dhingana’s user base.

Dhingana launched its ad platform last year, selling out ads on their portal and targeting advertisers such as movie production studios, music labels, independent musicians and telecom operators. The streaming service founded by twin brothers, Snehal and Swapnil Shinde recently partnered with Coca Cola to launch their new campaign. In March Dhingana launched 16 online radio stations.

Dhingana app which has been downloaded over 3.5 million times, offers more than 500,000 songs across 35 languages and claims a monthly active user base of more than 15 million. Currently, Dhingana is the only service which has an app for every Mobile Operating System (OS) including iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and even the ageing, proprietary Nokia Phone OS.

The way music is distributed and consumed has changed over the past few years. A report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents the global recording industry, found that streaming services accounted for 20 per cent of the $5.8 billion of digital revenues earned by the music industry in 2012.

Image Courtesy | lsvp

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Yahoo’s Board Approves $1.1Billion Acquisition Of Tumblr

Rohit Singh Jain — Mon, 20 May 2013 09:45:52 +0000

Yahoo Inc’s board of directors has approved the acquisition of social media blogging site Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash, according to sources. Rumors that Yahoo might be in discussions to buy Tumblr emerged last week, and on Friday, Yahoo announced a mystery press event to be held in New York City on Monday afternoon. Tumblr’s headquarters are in Manhattan.

This acquisition would be Yahoo CEO Merissa Mayer’s biggest ever since she has joined the company in July 2012. Yahoo is keen on fast-growing Tumblr because its younger user base would thrust the older website’s “cool factor,” as quoted by the company itself. Previously, Yahoo has also purchased a to-do app Strid, a news aggregator Summly and others within just a period of one year.

In acquiring Tumblr, it’s said that Yahoo will keep the social networking site largely the same as it is today as far as how independently it operates. It’s suggested, on the other hand, that advertisements may be incorporated on a much larger level than they are today, generating revenue for Tumblr and Yahoo.

Mayer, who spent 13 years at Google Inc , is trying to revitalize a former Internet powerhouse that in recent years has struggled with declining business. On its home page, Tumblr says it hosts 108 million blogs, with 50.7 billion posts between them. Tumblr, one of the more successful Internet start-ups out of New York, has only just begun earning revenue through advertising. They also announced this past week during Google I/O 2013, the company’s yearly developer conference, that they’d be delivering an official app for the wearable device platform Google Glass. The company has also been regularly focusing on the mobile and tablet platforms, and keeps updating its apps for various platforms.

Both Yahoo and Tumblr were unavailable for comment on the news. Tumblr has just $13 million in revenue right now. It should be able to increase that revenue following the model of Twitter and Facebook. Tumblr could also go the way Facebook and Instagram went.

I believe there are both positives and negatives regarding this development. Many have already started calling ‘Rest In Peace Tumblr’ while others sound optimistic as to how Yahoo might take advantage of Tumblr and improve its service while at the same time maintain the independence of Tumblr. I’m eagerly watching this space and let’s see how things pan out in the near future for both the companies as the purchase definitely affects both of Yahoo and Tumblr.

Image Courtesy | businessinsider

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Pinterest Teams Up With Brands

Sneha Bokil-Paranjape — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:40:10 +0000

In a bid to attract potential advertisers, Pinterest has introduced two new features. First up is ‘Pins with useful information‘ and second is a ‘Pin It‘ button that is now available on some mobile apps. The popular social scrapbooking site has integrated images with associated brands thereby making it easier to click through links and purchase them directly. This move will not only benefit users but also make the site potentially more attractive to advertising partners.

“From your feed, you can tell when a pin has more information by the icon that appears below the picture,” the company explains on its blog. Pinterest is launching three distinct types of pins, with one type each for food, retail products, and movies. It has partnered with several brands, including eBay, Target, ModCloth, Sony and Netflix, to introduce these informative pins. The content of these pins will vary based on the brands who post them.

Moreover, in order to expand its mobile presence, Pinterest has also rolling out another new feature that gives users the option to pin from mobile apps. This will make make sharing content to the site more seamless. Currently only a handful of apps will get the pin it button.

When I tried to check out these feature I was unable to find them. Pinterest said that the pins are available only in the revamped site which rolled out in March. The company said to get the new look by clicking the ‘Get it now’ button on top of your home feed. But I did not find it either. It seems the rollout is still in the pipeline for India.

Anyways, Pinterest has been pretty active lately. Last week it rolled out updates for its iOS and Android apps. It then added a feature that lets users send pins to their friends. In March Pinterest added data analytic tool for businesses. Last year in November, the three year old start-up launched free business accounts for marketers thereby sending signals to the multitude of brands and retailers already active on its platform that it’s getting ready to open for business. Also a survey in October 2012 revealed that Pinterest is driving more e-commerce sales than Facebook

I believe the new feature will increase engagement on the site and also help users track their favorite item on the site. This will only help the company if in future it plans to take the e-commerce route.

Image Courtesy | mediaemerging

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Yahoo Looking To Buy Tumblr At $1 Billion

Rohit Singh Jain — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:30:02 +0000

Yahoo is reportedly looking to buy Tumblr as part of its series of acquisitions and buy-outs to improve the service. The deal, according to sources, could reach as high as $1 billion (€778 million), which would put it in the same league as Facebook’s Instagram acquisition last year. Since taking control of Yahoo, CEO Marissa Mayer has pursued a string of acquisitions, including Summly, Astrid, Jybe, and others. Earlier this month, Yahoo had acquired to-do app Astrid.

Yahoo is seriously considering buying the social micro-blogging site Tumblr for almost 1 billion. However, since the talks about the deal between Yahoo and Tumblr are ranked as “rumors” so far, which means neither company wished to comment on the matter.

Tumblr is focussed on generating social content, such as text, photos and links. Since Tumblr’s majority of users are the youth, I think it is highly logical for Yahoo to think about Tumblr in the youth-centric sense. Tumblr has over 107 million blogs and over 50 billion posts, mostly made by young users. That definitely opens up doors to a big new audience for Yahoo. Also, Tumblr made $13 million in 2012 and is looking to bring in about $100 million, thanks to its new advertising initiatives. It also introduced mobile advertising recently.

Yahoo’s CFO has been giving the impression since recent times that the beleaguered search engine wants to sign up more and more young users, and wanted to make themselves cool and visible.

In addition to the failed Dailymotion acquisition, the company has also been rumoured to be looking at Hulu, although Mayer has previously said that the company is shopping for smaller targets valued in the $100 million range.

“If you could pick a company that fits in with what Marrissa Mayer has demonstrated in her career – aesthetics software technology and fast-growing – you could not land on a better choice,” sources said to AllThingsD.

Another thing I can say is certain is that unlike the other acquisitions Yahoo has made over the past months, Tumblr will not close in case they sign the deal. The one thing that the sources have confirmed is that the deal will happen, but whether it might happen in the coming weekend can’t be ascertained.

As far as my opinion is concerned, I believe Yahoo is on the right path but there’s no telling when the deail might get a risky one. I would look at it like Tumblr is one of the few players in digital media who has positioned itself at a sweet spot for brand advertising and youth-friendly, which Yahoo isn’t used to at the moment. The question undoubtedly remains as to how far this deal could make Yahoo relevant to new users who are stepping onto the Internet.

Image Courtesy | allthingsd

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Vodafone & Idea Add Customers Faster Than Airtel, Threatening Its Lead

Alap Naik Desai — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:32:40 +0000

Bharti Airtel appears to be in a quandary. Though it is adding customers, the number is much lesser than those acquired by Vodafone & Idea. According to latest figures collated by Cellular Operators Association of India, the industry body representing GSM operators indicated that Airtel may have lost its leadership at least in pure subscriber acquisition.

The Indian Telecom sector had been adding customers, but more significantly it had been losing them as well. In fact, we have been witnessing this decline for quite some time now. Fortunately for the companies, customers seem to be returning back.

COAI has shared that GSM operators across India added 3.5 Million customers in April. Though this number is significantly lower than 5.4 Million additions in March, the numbers have added a respite to the mobile companies. Airtel, Vodafone & Idea collectively account for 2/3^rd of the telecom sector’s total revenues & the trio jointly managed to add 3.3 million customers last month. Of them, Vodafone (1.4 Million) & Idea (1.3 Million) managed to add more than double than Airtel (0.6 Million).

Why is Airtel losing out on additions?

The answer may lie in the way Vodafone & Idea have been promoting themselves. The ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) Cricket matches have seen a flurry of activity from Vodafone. The company’s ZooZoos have been well received. On the other hand, Idea too has been running a long-term ad-campaign with the, now-famous, concept of ‘Telephone Exchange’. In comparison, Airtel’s campaign has been mellowed down significantly.

The Promotional Campaigns may have worked in adding customers. However, what matters in the Telecom circle is the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). And this is where Airtel still trumps other service providers. In terms of Revenue Generation, Airtel still has a lead. Additionally, with its unique tie-ups with Opera & other internet based services, allow the company to offer bundled services (VAS) which are highly attractive to the youth.

Do you think other companies should focus more on Value Addition to enhance Revenue Generation rather than focusing on Customer Addition?

Image Courtesy | egov.eletsonline

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Rumor Roundup: iPhone 5S Release Date And Speculations

Rohit Singh Jain — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:51:09 +0000

iPhone rumors can easily be defined by the word ‘unstoppable.’ The iPhone 5S rumors started as early as September 2012, and as the year 2013 is going by, the iPhone 5S has become hot as far as rumors are concerned. At this stage, we do have a possibly accurate picture of release date timing, features and what the iPhone 5S will look like.

All the rumors so far do represent as to what Apple Inc exactly has in store for the company’s cult following with the next generation of its hugely popular smartphone series, the iPhone 5S. As of now, by iPhone 5S rumors help paint a picture of what Apple is planning for the iPhone 5S release and likely right along side it iOS 7, a new version of the iPhone software.

Apple is obviously working on the next iPhone, and based on the company’s past actions and naming schemes it is very likely that the iPhone 5S will arrive this year. The first iPhone 5S rumor arrived just days ahead of the iPhone 5 announcement, pointing to an iPhone 5S with a focus on security, and soon after we began hearing rumors of an early 2013 iPhone 5S release date and suggestions that Apple would launch the iPhone 5S and the iPad 5 at the same event.

From big rumors to small rumors and iOS 7 features we hope Apple adds to the iPhone 5S, there is no shortage of iPhone 5S rumors. For shoppers who are waiting to buy the iPhone 5S, rumors offer a glimpse at what might make it to the store shelves later this year.

Here, we are taking a look at what analysts and leaks are saying about the iPhone 5S, as well as what Apple’s own patents and industry insiders hint at for the iPhone 5S.

iPhone 5s Release Date

The iPhone 5S release date remains up in the air, though the early rumors of an iPhone 5S release early in 2013 don’t look good anymore. While Apple has traditionally held an event in the Spring to announce new products, the iPhone is announcement has taken place in summer and fall.

Apple avoids announcing products at major trade shows like CES and Mobile World Congress, preferring to invite the press to events in or near the Cupertino, California. Headquarters when the company is ready to show off a new product. Occasionally Apple will send invites to an event the day of, or the day before a competitor’s launch. If Apple is planning to hold a Spring event for any product, we could see invites come out on March 14th, which saw Samsung announcing Samsung Galaxy S4, which is at the moment iPhone 5S’s greatest rival.

Image Courtesy | au.ibtimes

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Vserv Augments Its HTML5 Mobile Ads With Social Sharing & A/B Testing

Alap Naik Desai — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:28:04 +0000

Vserv.mobi, a prominent player within the Mobile Ads Segment has bolstered its HTML5 based Ads with additional features like Social Media Sharing & A/B Testing. These Rich Media Ads will now feature some nifty & interactive marketing features. Additionally, the company has also announced that it will offer HTML5 Creative Services for free to Digital Marketers.

HTML5 based ads are one of the most versatile platforms ever evolved for the Mobile Ecosystem. Being device agonistic, the content can be displayed or interacted on any Browser that supports HTML5 web-standard. Besides, by choosing HTML5, marketers need not worry about compatibility & cross-platform operability. As long as the portable electronic device has an Internet Browser & a steady connection to Internet, HTML5 based ads will play flawlessly.

Vserv, via its latest additions, have ensured ads are much more interactive & intuitive. The developers have added features like Touch, Click, Drag, Scratch and 360^o Panoramic View functionality. Through this comprehensive Rich Media based offering Vserv has ensured Brands & Digital Marketing Agencies can extensively leverage their mobile marketing efforts & content therein. If that’s not lucrative enough, Vserv’s present bouquet of products, when used in conjunction with these new features will offer benefits like ad creative development, distribution, social capabilities, analytics and measurement.

Vserv may have rightly chosen HTML5 for its present-day versatility. But, the company must have considered its sustained future prospects as well. Modern Mobiles may be capable of incorporating HTML5 compatible web-browsers, but newer Mobile Operating Systems (OS) like Firefox OS, are actually running atop a core layer of HTML5. Being ultra-light, HTML5 based OS uses very low resources & can yet relay rich multimedia & has extensive third-party application support.

Research firm IDC conducted a survey recently which pointed out that by the end of this year itself; there will be over 1 Billion Devices with HTML5 Mobile Browsers. Ensuring it can reach such a large demographic, is certainly a good business foresight. What do you think?

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NASSCOM Aims $10 Billion Revenue From Software Products

Alap Naik Desai — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:45:59 +0000

National Association of Software and Services Companies or more commonly known as NASSCOM has just commissioned an Independent Unit to give impetus to Indian Software Products. An ambitious target of exceeding US$ 10 Billion in revenues by the year 2020 has been set. The Chairman of this new Product Council will be Ravi Gururaj, a seasoned entrepreneur who is the co-founder of a seed-stage angel fund; Frictionless Ventures.

Why the need for a separate body?

Strictly speaking, the Product Council is not a completely separate body, but is actually setup with a singular purpose of securing financial agility within the sector. Additionally, the body will help upcoming startups too clarified Krishnakumar Natarajan, NASSCOM chariman and CEO of software firm Mindtree, “Product companies and startups are the next growth engines for the industry”

New & emerging companies had recently expressed reservations about the body. They felt NASSCOM wasn’t particularly attentive towards the growth, aspirations & ambitions of SME software companies, but tended to focus only on national level issues & that too of software giants. Earlier this year, some 30 software product companies even formed a separate group called Indian Software Product Round Table (iSpirt).

What are the core issues of Tech Companies?

A recent survey involving about 100 tech companies revealed Market Access and Customer Acquisition were the primary concerns for more than 75% of the companies. Financial based issues too were troubling the companies. Realizing this, NASSCOM had setup a panel headed by NR Narayana Murthy, the chief mentor of Infosys whose agenda was, “To bring NASSCOM up to date with the current needs of the industry.” The Product Council was the result of the recommendations.

India presently has an immensely gifted & vast talent-pool. Besides, there are clear avenues like Cloud based services, Social Media based product development, Big Data & others which have shown promise for a sustained future. It is high time a body with direct lobbying power with the Government pays attention to the Fledgling Startups. What do you think?

Image Courtesy | indiastudyclub

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ICANN Not Sure If Global Top Level Domains Will Confuse Internet Users

Alap Naik Desai — Mon, 13 May 2013 10:00:30 +0000

At a Public Hearing Forum, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) answered a few fundamental queries about its newest endeavor of offering generic Top-Level Domain names (gTLDs) to corporations.

Last year in January, ICANN had announced that it was now able to offer custom extensions that went well beyond .com, .org or .in, among other prevalent ones. At that time multiple Indian Corporations like Tata, ICICI, SBI, Reliance (RIL), & others had filed applications claiming extensions from the abbreviations of their names as domain extensions. Costing US$ 1,85,000 (Rs 1.03 Crores) for registration alone & an annual renewal charges to the tune of US$ 25,000 (Rs. 13.9 Lakh), these extensions are certainly not cheap, but over 2000 requisitions were made nonetheless.

What could the confusion be?

Even now, there are multiple extensions, but they can still be remembered albeit with a little difficulty. With such high amount of customization the internet domains can get extremely confusing if the name of the company becomes a domain extension. This would directly promote the usage of search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo to first discover the relevant domain & then access it. In essence, Search Engines would become the first point of entry to any domain name.

ICANN feels it will enhance competition: ICANN emphasized that the primary agenda behind offering such domain extensions was to encourage competition in the industry and enhance the utility of DNS. However, as with any decision pertaining to the future of the internet, making the same holistically secure, is simply not possible shared the body, “We cannot predict the outcome of the users, and how this may impact their behavior on the internet”

So far the city of Melbourne has officially received approval for the first of the custom domain extensions (.melbourne gTLD). With ICANN approving the gTLDs only after thorough scrutiny of the rightful ownership, Indian companies could soon be expected to flaunt their own names as extensions to their websites.

Do you think such developments are confusing?

You can go through the entire response given by ICANN here.

Image Courtesy | icann.org

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Indian Companies Do Not Need To Deduct Tax At Source While Advertising Online

Denzil — Fri, 10 May 2013 12:50:44 +0000

We happened to come across some good news for Indian companies and startups which advertise their services and products on online advertising platforms like Google and Yahoo. According to a ruling by an Income Tax Appellate Tribunal in Kolkata last month, Indian companies can be relieved with respect to the dilemma of not being able to claim tax on business expenses incurred while advertising on these platforms.

Earlier, all the Indian companies had to either pay the amount corresponding to tax deducted at source (since Google and Yahoo do not allow tax being deducted from payment) or lose the opportunity to claim advertising expenditure as tax deductible revenue expense.

This new ruling by the tribunal now clearly states that if you are paying for advertising on Google and Yahoo which do not have permanent establishment in India, you do not have to be subjected to TDS. This can also be interpreted for other payments that have to be made to companies abroad.

Here is a copy of the 31 page ruling made by the Kolkata tribunal.

Right florist vs income tax on google, yahoo advertising from Jayadevan Pk

Source | Moneycontrol

Via | NextBigWhat

Image Source | Shutterstock

Disclaimer: This post does not equal legal advice. Consult with your CA/Lawyer before you apply this ruling to your tax planning.

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70% Of Brand Engagement On Pinterest Is Community Driven: Infographic

Rohit Singh Jain — Fri, 03 May 2013 12:30:50 +0000

Pinterest is emerging as a suitable platform for brands and companies looking to expand their digital marketing bases. According to a new infographic by digital analytics firm Curalate, 70 percent of brand engagement on Pinterest, comes from fans versus the company or brand specifically. The firm has also pinpointed brand engagement on Pinterest particular to the Fashion/Retail, Automotive and Electronics industries and found that Pinterest and clearly indicates that Pinterest is a lot more about the ‘brand story’ now. I might as well add that the company analyzed nearly 10 million pins, repins, comments, likes and keywords across more than 120 automotive, electronics and fashion/retail brands.

Any social media platform that comes up needs to be able to find ways to monetise itself and create avenues for brands to be able to utilise the platform. After all, that’s what digital marketing may refer to in one sense of the term. With that respect, Pinterest is coming up at a rapid pace and seems to have become the next-haven for digital marketers looking to expand their online social media influence. Suddenly, brands are loving Pinterest which is becoming a great social network for them to interact, engage with fans and people and spread their content. The reason for this I believe could be the manner in which Pinterest has been vying for the marketers’ eye- in the last two months itself it has started rolling out data analytic tool for businesses. The social site also got a Desktop Web UI overhaul with several new features.

The team at Curalate has done a great job in identifying and examining Pinterest pins and the approximate traction they gain for the brand by breaking down the pins categorically i.e. industry by industry. Curalate also looked at the best day and time for brands in each vertical to pin—3 p.m. ET on Friday for fashion/retail, noon ET on Friday for auto and 10 p.m. ET on Monday for electronics.

This infographic release directly implies that brands who swear by the principle of throwing up hundreds of Pinterest updates won’t make them a brand with a greater amount of influence and followers on Pinterest.

Check out the full infographic to discover which keywords and other best practices will help you gain more traction on Pinterest. The infographic also highlights the way users are diving brand engagement and content-creation.

Image Courtesy | socialtimes & viralblog

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Mobile Web Site Or Mobile App? Here’s Your 101

Rohit Singh Jain — Fri, 03 May 2013 09:30:43 +0000

There’s no doubt that mobile has gone mainstream with consumers increasingly on the move and companies seeking more ways to stay in front of their eyes and right at their fingertips. As a result, businesses are realizing the importance of maintaining a mobile presence, yet many are uncertain whether a mobile application or mobile website is the best way to go to reach consumers on the go.

If you’re planning to establish a mobile presence for your business or organization one of the first considerations that will likely come to mind is whether you want to create a mobile application for users to download or a mobile website, or perhaps both. Mobile websites and apps can look very similar at first-glance, and determining which is most suited to your needs will depend upon a number of factors, including target audiences, available budget, intended purpose and required features.

Before going on to take a pick as to what suits your organization/brand, you first need to comprehend as to what is the basic difference between a mobile-specific website and a mobile app that is built for the various ecosystems out there.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MOBILE SITE AND A MOBILE APP

Even though both mobile sites and mobile apps will directly be made available to the end user on their respective mobiles and smartphones,both of them have a lot of key differences.

If I go by the definition, I would say a mobile website is similar to any other website in that it consists of browser-based HTML pages that are linked together and accessed over the Internet (for mobile typically WiFi or 3G or 4G networks). The obvious characteristic that distinguishes a mobile website from a standard website is the fact that it is designed for the smaller handheld display and touch-screen interface.

Like any website, mobile websites can display text content, data, images and video. They can also access mobile-specific features such as click-to-call (to dial a phone number) or location-based mapping.

On the other hand, mobile OS-based apps are actual applications that are downloaded and installed on your mobile device, rather than being rendered within a browser. Users visit device-specific portals such as Apple’s App Store, Android Market, or Blackberry App World in order to find and download apps for a given operating system.

The app may pull content and data from the Internet or it may download the content so that it can be accessed without an Internet connection(in offline mode).

SO HOW DO YOU CHOOSE?

When it comes to deciding whether to build a native app or a mobile website, the most appropriate choice really depends on your end goals. If you are developing an interactive game an app is probably going to be your best option. But if your goal is to offer mobile-friendly content to the widest possible audience then a mobile website is probably the way to go. In some cases you may decide you need both a mobile website and a mobile app, but it’s pretty safe to say that it rarely makes sense to build an app without already having a mobile website in place.

Frankly speaking, I would say that a mobile website should be your first step if you want to venture into the mobile and devices space. Also, it may be noted that a mobile app might be the choice for you if you’re looking to accomplish something with the app that you can’t do with a mobile browser. No, this is definitely not the end. In order to make the right decision, you need to know about the advantages of each option before you vis-a-vis the other contender.

ADVANTAGES OF MOBILE SITES

If your goals are primarily related to marketing or public communications, a mobile website is almost always going to make sense as a practical first step in your mobile strategy. This is because a mobile website has a number of inherent advantages over apps, including broader accessibility, compatibility and cost-effectiveness.

1. Mobile Sites are instantly available

A mobile website is instantly accessible to users via a browser across a range of devices (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, etc) and even feature phones, which still account for a significant portion of sales in emerging economies. Apps on the other hand require the user to first download and install the app from an app marketplace before the content or application can be viewed.

2. Mobile Sites are compatible across devices

Like I mentioned in the last para, mobile sites can be accessed across a range of devices, and you need not develop apps for specific mobile ecosystems for that matter. Generally speaking, the same mobile site can be made available to users of different device sets, regardless of their hardware and software specifications.

3. Mobiles Sites can be updated instantly

A mobile website is much more dynamic than an app in terms of pure flexibility to update content. If you want to change the design or content of a mobile website you simply publish the edit once and the changes are immediately visible; updating an app on the other hand requires the updates to be pushed to users, which then must be downloaded in order to update the app on each type of device.

4. Mobile sites have a broader reach

Because a mobile website is accessible across platforms and can be easily shared among users, as well as search engines, it has far greater reach capability than a native app.

5. Time, Cost and Support

Last but certainly not least, mobile website development is considerably more time and cost-effective than development of a native app, especially if you need to have a presence on different platforms (requiring development of multiple apps). Supporting a mobile site over time is relatively cheaper than maintaining a mobile app.

ADVANTAGES OF MOBILE APPS

Despite the many inherent benefits of the mobile web, apps are still very popular, and there are a number of specific use scenarios where an app will be your best choice. Generally speaking, if you need one of the following, an app makes sense:

1. Interactivity/Gaming – for interactive games (think Angry Birds) an app is almost always going to be your best choice, at least for the foreseeable future.

2. Regular Usage/Personalization – If your target users are going to be using your app in a personalized fashion on a regular basis (think EverNote) then an app provides a great way to do that.

3.Complex Calculations or Reporting – If you need something that will take data and allow you to manipulate it with complex calculations, charts or reports (think banking or investment) an app will help you do that very effectively.

4.Native Functionality or Processing Required – mobile web browsers are getting increasingly good at accessing certain mobile-specific functions such as click-to-call, SMS and GPS. However, if you need to access a user’s camera or processing power an app will still do that much more effectivley.

5. No connection Required – If you need to provide offline access to content or perform functions without a network/wireless connection then an app makes sense.

DRAWING A CONCLUSION

As long as mobile remains a relatively new frontier, the “app vs web” question will remain a very real consideration for organizations seeking to establish a mobile presence. If your mobile goals are primarily marketing-driven, or if your aim is to deliver content and establish a broad mobile presence that can be easily shared between users and found on search engines, then the a mobile website is the logical choice. On the other hand, if your goal is interactive engagement with users, or to provide an application that needs to work more like a computer program than a website, then an app is probably going to be required.

Image Courtesy | techwench | foreseeblog | edudemic

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InMobi Now Provides Ads To 691 Millions Unique Users Every Month

Rohit Singh Jain — Fri, 03 May 2013 07:13:35 +0000

Bangalore-based mobile advertising network claims it now provides ads to more than 691 million customers on their mobile phones across a massive country user base of 165 million. That, according to the mobile ad giant, covers about 40% of the world’s total smartphones. The USA is home to their largest customer as well as end user base, which according to its report, is pegged at 156 million unique users, while the other regions are quite behind in these terms- SouthEast Asia on 69 million and China on 63 million.

Naveen Tewari, CEO and founder at InMobi, commented on the development: The advances we are making in tracking and analytics enables us to share our insights for the benefit of the industry at large. The 691 million number represents the anonymous profiles we have built on our user-driven ad network, which enables us to offer advanced audience targeting solutions to our customers.

He also spoke about how he perceives the future of InMobi and how emerging software trends will pioneer smartphone adoption and finally boost their business scope. “We now have over six billion mobile subscribers worldwide and more than a one billion smartphones; this growth has had a phenomenal impact on the InMobi global mobile advertising network. We anticipate that the introduction of Mozilla’s Firefox OS and Ubuntu OS will increase rapid adoption of smartphones and open the gates for emerging markets. With current growth projections, we expect to reach a billion users within 18 – 24 months.”

Global monthly unique Users on the InMobi global mobile ad network -

InMobi has been recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of 50 Disruptive Companies of 2013. InMobi platforms enable the world’s leading brands, developers, and publishers to engage global consumers through mobile advertising. InMobi builds mobile-first technology platforms that leverage advances in big-data, user behaviour, and cloud-based architectures to simplify advertising and deliver an end to end solution to its customers. Agencies and advertisers leverage InMobi platforms to create HTML5 rich media ads and engage 691M consumers across 165 countries. Developers and premium publishers use InMobi platforms to acquire and monetise their mobile apps and their mobile websites across the globe. With offices in multiple continents, InMobi provides global reach with local service and support across the globe. InMobi is venture-backed by investors including: SoftBank, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures.

I think is indeed great news for inMobi and the mobile advertising industry in general. This doesn’t come as a surprise to me as Inmobi has been frequently taking steps to improve their strategies and enhance the existing products. In March, InMobi introduced a new app store distribution tool for Android developers. A few months back, InMobi acquired Overlay Media, a UK-based mobile data analytics startup.

Mobile advertising, Mobile TV and other related trends are escalating rapidly across the globe and the future of mobile ad networks looks really bright.

Image Courtesy | prnewswire

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Facebook Reports A Sizable Increase In Revenue Fueled By Their Mobile Advertising Business

Alap Naik Desai — Thu, 02 May 2013 12:01:42 +0000

Facebook had been ramping up its mobile-centric endeavors for quite some time. It appears those efforts are paying off. However, the social media giant’s equally rising expenaditure towards the same, has partially diminished the impact.

Ad Revenue, is Facebook’s largest aggregative source of income. Fortunately for the company, its mobile-centric efforts have been reaping benefits on a steadily ascending manner. At present ad revenue from the social portal’s mobile based endeavors contribute about 30% of the company’s total ad revenue. However, the trend should go even higher & at a faster pace to be counted, shared Ben Schachter, a financial trends analyst at Macquarie Research, “It needs to be higher for people to get really excited about trend lines”.

What’s working for Facebook?

Revenue from Advertising had declined abruptly last year. Additionally the downward trend continued for quite some before it plateaued. But, taking a strong note of this disastrous phenomenon, the company worked diligently on almost all of its platforms. Out of the efforts, the company was able to come up with a new news-feed. However, the single biggest feature was the ‘Unified Search’ feature that captured the attention of its users. Riding on the enhanced traction of these new features, Facebook has been able to bring back some of the momentum in its display advertising segment. Least one might forget, there was also Facebook Home, an Android only home screen replacement that positively reinforced the portal’s presence on the mobile front.

Though all the endeavors have won public approval, it also indicated the excessive spending Facebook committed to revamp the entire platform. Hence, though the company has been making more money as compared to last year, it is burning much more. Facebook’s spending has risen 60% on an Year-on-Year Basis, as compared to 38% rise in revenue.

Where Facebook is heading?

The expenditure on such grounds-up rework is only one-time. Once products like Facebook Home & Unified Search have been adopted by the masses, the company has to merely maintain these & add more features to make the same more appealing to advertisers. With selective feeds & promotional posts, the company can easily insert advertisements even within the mobile platforms too & quickly start making more money than it is spending.

What do you think?

Image Courtesy | euronews

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Ant Farm Launches Its First Digital Advertising Venture, Fork Media

Denzil — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:22:30 +0000

Ant Farm is a startup platform which calls itself the ‘innovation sandbox’ with an aim to create global brands by supporting bright ideas, concepts and people in India. The platform was launched last year in November and has announced the launch of its first company today in the advertising space. The company is called Fork Media and is going to offer content based marketing solutions to advertisers by using ad formats which show high engagement and by giving advertisers exclusive access to leading publishers in the country across various digital platforms. Well, so says every other company. We are waiting to see how Fork Media does this differently.

The company has been founded by Samar Verma and Upen Roop Rai, both of whom previously worked at Times Group. The founders are of the view that current ad formats on the web and mobile are flawed. Fork Media plans to rectify them by giving the brand more importance than measurability and has created an index which is supposed to help the advertiser reach out to the right publisher so that the ads stay relevant. The company also has something called ThinkTank which is a content marketing division which will take care of ideation, creation, design and execution of content on the various ad formats.

The company says that currently it has signed up publishers like HT Media, The Daily Mail, The Hindu and The India Today Group. They also revealed that their current publisher partnership gives the company access to around 25 million premium users across digital platforms.

We wanted to check out the website but it seems the domain is parked. This was the domain name mentioned on their press release and it is strange that the website is not live on their launch day!

Website | Fork Media

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