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Mahatma Online – Government To Launch Gandhi Heritage Sites Portal

Achalla Venugopal — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 11:00:14 +0000

Government is planning to launch a mega portal which will contain almost all the information about Mahatma Gandhi. The INR 8 Crore portal will house over 34,000 letters written by and to Mahatma Gandhi, documents related to his personal life and freedom struggle. The portal recommended by Gandhi Heritage Sites (GHS) Panel, will be managed and updated by the Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust (SAPMT).

The Ashram contains by far the largest collection of carefully preserved manuscripts of Gandhiji’s writings during his stay in Sabarmati. The Library and Archives at Sabarmati consist of 34,111 letters; original as well as photostat copies.These letters have been microfilmed and entered into Register which are also on Computer Files. All these files will serve as an Electronic Library of Gandhiji’s life and achievements.

The Government is also setting up the Gandhi Heritage Sites Mission to preserve buildings and places associated with Gandhiji.The Panel has so far recommended 39 core sites which include Porbandar, Rajkot sites of the childhood period, Tilak Ghat, Chennai, Mani Bhavan, Mumbai, Beliaghata, Kolkata, the venue in Madurai where Gandhiji took to the loin-cloth, the prison cell in Yeravda Jail, Pune, and the prison room in Aga Khan Palace (Pune) etc. The total outlay on this project will be Rs 42 crore, over a period of 5 years.

All I wish to say is that this is a well thought out act to preserve the memories of one of the greatest man to be born on Indian soil. It is indeed the duty of our generation to preserve these memories and pass on the wisdom, knowledge to our future generations, not only Indian but worldwide. Do let us know your thoughts.

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Sony Launches ‘Qriocity’ To Compete With Apple iTunes

Salil Goyal — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 09:00:10 +0000

Sony was said to be growing increasingly wary of Apple’s attempts to dominate the mobile devices market. Sony Corp. will start a video- and music-streaming service in five European countries this fall to challenge Apple Inc.’s iTunes store.

Announcing the subscription service at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Sony pronounced “curiosity,” will start in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K., the Tokyo-based company said yesterday. Interestingly the service will be available via Sony’s Bravia TVs, the PlayStation 3 game console, Blu-ray DVD players and Vaio personal computers. Qriocity will draw on Sony’s experience with PlayStation Network and its 54 million subscribers. Unlike Apple’s iTunes, where users download files to their music player, Qriocity is cloud-based, which means customers stream the media through the internet in a similar way to the BBC’s iPlayer or Spotify music services.

Sony is hoping that it can persuade the millions who own its hardware – TVs, Play Station 3 consoles, Blu-Ray players – that there is an alternative to Apple when it comes to getting online access to content. What Sony lacks though is the software muscle that iTunes gives Apple. With 160 million people now registering their credit cards to an iTunes account, there’s a lot of inertia in the digital media market.

“Services ‘powered by Qriocity’ will revolutionize the way that users play, listen, watch, share, communicate, learn, discover and create their digital entertainment content,” Chairman and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Kaz Hirai said in a statement. Video and TV on demand services are set to grow rapidly over the next year, with online retailer Amazon expected to play its hand soon.

Apple has a history of entering existing markets and transforming them and it would be interesting to watch how Japanese giant will take on Apple. Sony has a steep hill to climb and a long road to go if they’re going to start seriously competing with iTunes because Apple’s iTunes, celebrated its 10 billionth download earlier this year. They’re going to try very hardly and consumers will get to find out if their model has legs, as well as what other types of portable devices they plan on releasing to support it.

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Ekoing Loud And Clear – A Startup Review

Vivek Jha — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 08:30:27 +0000

A few of the top words doing the rounds in the Indian economic scene this past year are microfinance, mobile revolution, financial inclusion, social responsibility, sustainable solutions, etc. There is one startup that will emerge from a mash up of these words – Eko India Financial Services Private Limited. Based on the idea of providing accessible banking services to the financially excluded and unbanked section of the society, Eko has left a very impressive mark on me.

Eko provides a low-cost banking platform – SimpliBank – which ensures real-time cash transactions over a mobile phone. Considering the fact that their target group is the middle and low income population in India where cash transactions on a mobile phone will bring up substantial trust issues, they have come up with a brilliant solution. Eko appoints local retail outlets (kiranawalas or chemists) as its Customer Service Points (CSPs). They have cleverly leveraged existing distribution networks and their interaction with customers to ensure that the adoption of their service meets as little resistance as possible.

Eko has tied up with the State Bank of India and thus, “SBI Mini Savings Bank Account” was launched in February 2009. Now, each customer gets one such account with SBI. For example, a rickshaw puller can save as little as Rs 20-30 each day, go to the nearest CSP and get that deposited into his account. The procedure will involve typing in the bank’s code, mobile number of the person you are paying, amount and signature on a mobile phone. This, too, has logic behind it and that is the comfort level of masses with numbers rather than words and forms. Eko’s tie up with VeriSign helps it secure its platform preventing money laundering.

Abhishek Sinha, CEO and co-founder of Eko, believes, “Mobile phones can bring about a paradigm shift in the way that banking transactions happen today” while punching in some impressive numbers to underline the potential of the market. He cites that over half a billion of the population owns a mobile phone and only a minority has access to financial services. Eko, currently, has opened over 60,000 accounts and has opened more than 400 outlets in Delhi and NCR Region, Bihar and Jharkhand. SBI pays Eko for every new customer they acquire and every transaction they process and 10% of this is paid to the CSPs. The bank makes its savings by cutting down massively on overhead costs that comes with a traditional branch.

The startup was initially funded by pooling in personal savings of the four founders – Sanjay Bhargava, Abhishek Sinha, Manoranjan Kumar and Abhinav Sinha. Eko is currently grant funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) and is looking at bringing in investors in the coming year to expand. Bearing testimony to the effective implementation of their fundamental premise of giving everyone a bank account is the Maximum Social Impact award that Eko bagged in the PCQuest Awards for Best IT Implementation of The Year 2010.

Eko’s idea amazes me because here is a startup that has narrowed down to a fundamental problem plaguing this country – financial exclusion. It has developed a simple basic infrastructure, secured it and made it available on the mobile revolution that is penetrating India at a stunning pace. Additionally, they have kept in touch with India’s reality which reflects in the distributor system they have chosen. It also shows that social issues can be tackled aptly by proper revenue generating models.

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Samsung Unveils iPad Competitor Galaxy – Should Apple Worry?

Achalla Venugopal — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 07:50:43 +0000

Apple’s iPad got a new competitor in Samsung Galaxy, which was unveiled at Berlin’s IFA consumer electronics fair on Thursday.And looking at the specifications of the device, many feel its a worthy one.It has a 7-inch Super AMOLED display with Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz UI, a 1 GHZ Cortex A8 processor, 16Gb/32Gb of internal memory expandable up to 32Gb through an SD memory card slot, and a multitasking latest Android 2.2 OS.The device also features a 3.2 megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing which makes it suitable for video chat.

In a Nutshell, the tablet has most if not all of those features that many wanted to see in the Apple iPad.It supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G cell phone networks. It allows the users to access the web and email just as on a regular PC. Unlike Apple’s iPad, the device supports HTML5 and Adobe’s Flash player.

Swype Keyboard

The tablet also comes with Swype, a third-party application already found on Samsung’s Galaxy 5 series phone and available for some other Android-based handsets, which allows users to type on virtual keyboards by simply swiping fingers around from one letter to the next, lifting only between words.

Market and competition

All the above listed features surely makes Galaxy a formidable challenger to iPad. In fact, some of the features which Galaxy offers might even set the bar for next Generation iPad. The Tablet PC market is hot at the moment. Some big tech companies have launched their device and many are planning to launch theirs in the near future. Their aim is to take the Mobile computing to its next level and Apple is leading the way. The good thing about Apple is that whenever it launches a product; it either shakes up the segment or creates a new one. Apple IPhones have started to gain acceptance amongst the Business houses and IPad seem to be riding on their success. Apple sold more than three million iPads in the first 80 days following its launch, and Apple reported in July that half of the Fortune 100 companies are testing or deploying the iPad. So, in one way, Apple IPad is creating a market for the next generation tablets and its competitors can capitalize on that.

Launch in India?

When can we expect Samsung Galaxy in India? The answer is as usual “it’s not clear yet”. One reason could be that India poses a number of challenges for these device makers. But, India is too important as a market to be ignored for long. With 3G services set to be launched soon, we can expect a flurry of these devices hitting the Indian market. How many of them will gain acceptance in our price sensitive market is something which remains to be seen.

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Essar on a Roll – Acquires AGC and Revamps Board

Deeptaman Mukherjee — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 07:10:47 +0000

For a group that is as big and versatile as Essar, it could seem simple and smooth to achieve an acquisition like that of AGC Networks. Simple and smooth it was for Essar Group that has its presence in more than 13 business sectors to purchase AGC Networks; which also is a pioneer in the Enterprise Communication Solutions business. Essar has finally concluded the buyout wherein the acquisition contract amount came up to Rs. 288 crore.

The deal had apparently begun in the month of May, whereby Essar had plans of taking over the entire stake of 59.19% worth Rs. 205 crore that Avaya held in AGC Networks which enjoys the status of being publicly listed. US-based Avaya which also is a leading enterprise communications solutions provider, previously owned and managed the Indian (Gurgaon) based AGC Networks and was known as Avaya GlobalConnect. Essar not only bought the 59.19% stake but also extended it to 79.13 per cent by spending an extra Rs. 83 crore other than the original cost of Rs. 205 crore.

Legally the acquisition took place through Essar Capital Finance (ECF) and Essar Services Holdings (ESHL) who played the role of persons in concert. Essar has no intentions of amalgamating its name with the acquired firm, rather the idea is for AGC to be run and managed with the same brand name as AGC Networks. The major move from Essar though, comes in the form of revamping the entire board of AGC Networks after having the managers of Avaya make an exit from their primary roles. S K Jha is now the Managing Director along with Anil Nair playing the role of Joint MD. The other board members shall include Anhuman Ruia, promoter-director from Essar, Sengupta, and Jha.

Under the flagship brand name of Avaya, AGC Networks was seen as an expert in the field of customized communication business solutions and its major source of revenue came from Systems Integration (SI). Essar’s motive behind the acquisition was this exact reason, wherein Aegis a sub-brand of Essar Group, which already has its presence in several countries in the field of systems integration, can gain an added advantage. The strategy here would be to cross-sell AGC’s services to Aegis‘ existing consumers and in addition to this, AGC which currently operates in Australia and India will expand globally.

Essar as a group is undergoing burgeoning growth and this should easily run shivers down the spine of competitors in various sectors. Here is a glance at what is already under Essar’s kitty and its plans for the future -

• Essar’s acquisition of Trinity Coal
• Essar Group’s Aegis looks at European markets and hunts for more acquisitions.
• ESPL restructures its operations for better capital flow.
• Essar to hire Café Coffee Day’s Aloke Gupta to ideate and drive Essar’s retail vision.

By this, it becomes evident that Essar has and will undergo tremendous development and growth. However, it is also a must for Essar not to be complacent in initiating deals and falter in any of its future business projects.

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Skype Launches Latest v5.0 Beta: 10 Way Calling Is Finally Here

Salil Goyal — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:00:23 +0000

Few days back we wrote about overwhelming response to Gmail calling and the growing competition in internet calling market. Skype has also joined the race by launching a new beta version for v5.0 (currently only for Windows users) which will allow users to have 10-way video calling. The previous beta allowed 5-way video calling, but it seems Skype have been working constantly on their software to reach a double figured e-conversation.

Skype said the 10-person group video calling feature is being offered as a “free trial,” suggesting users will eventually have to pay for the feature. To use the 10-person group video call feature, all participants in the call must be using Skype 5.0 beta which was launched in May. There’s also a new section called “Skype Home,” where users can read their contacts’ Moods, set profile photos and mood messages, and receive notifications. The company did not say when the feature would be available for Mac versions of the software. However, the company earlier promised group video calls for the Mac before the end of this year.

Skype’s blogger-in-chief, Peter Parkes, said: “The second beta of Skype 5.0 brings a number of changes both outside and in…It welcomes in a fresh new look, as well as increased stability and better quality when making group video calls. We’ve also added Skype Home, where you can follow your contacts’ mood messages, set your profile picture and mood message, receive account notifications and learn more about using Skype.”

New Interface

The new interface is much more streamlined than the current version 4, splitting the main window much less confusingly into two simple panes: a buddy list and the Skype Home window, from which you can edit your profile and give feedback as well. And, as always, you can bring Skype back down to a compact view if you prefer to just see your contact list.

Skype which has dominated video calling, faces new competition from Google, which added a feature to its Gmail service that allows users to make calls to phones. The announcement of the 10-person group video call feature holds a considerable significance as Skype is preparing for an initial public offering too.

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Comverse Lets You Monitor Mobile Bills – Avoid ‘Bill Shock’

Anish Sadanandan — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:20:05 +0000

Has it ever happened to you that one month you are happy with your phone bill and the next month you are shocked to the core looking at the same because it has skyrocketed? That expression of yours when you look at the bill in the second month, that priceless expression is called ‘Bill Shock‘ by the telecommunication industry. What follows is a blame game where you blame the service provider for excess charges, while the service provider blatantly denies all charges. So who is to blame for this hike in the bill?

In all honesty, it is us, the customers, who are the culprits. Most of us understand the calling rates of our plans inside out. However, when it comes to data charges, not many know the charges once you exceed the limit or international roaming charges with respect to data transfer. So what is the solution?

Comverse – the solution

Comverse’s Billing and Active Customer Management allows service providers to actively track a customers bill. Any discrepancies can be immediately be informed to the customer so that they understand and cut down their usage accordingly. It also helps service providers to inform customers about simple tools to control and scrutinize their mobile spend.

Advantage for service providers

This tool will help service providers maintain their reputation in the industry. Due to ‘Bill Shocks’, customers not only express their annoyance to the service providers, but also on public forums which will inadvertently deter the services provider’s potential customer base. Some times, due to ‘Bill Shocks’, service providers have to impose limits on errant customers which again will cause customer dissatisfaction.

What is your take on this tool by Comverse?

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MHRD Partners With HCL To Rollout 35$ Laptops

Achalla Venugopal — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:45:50 +0000

HCL Technologies Ltd will help MHRD manufacture 100000 35$ laptops and roll them out to students. The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Rajasthan will carry out intensive laboratory and field tests across the country using the devices. If the laptops pass the field tests, the government will procure 1 million units in the first phase, and make them available to undergraduate and postgraduate students across the country. There are 12.4 million higher education students in India. The report of trials prepared for the ministry, will also act as the base for the scaling up of production of such low-cost computing device in future. MHRD plans to make these low cost tablets available to university-level students from the second half of next year.

Some Insights

For a change, let us not criticize our government agencies and appreciate their work. The work towards rolling out 35$ laptops has been very swift till date. With the current rate of progress, I am sure that these laptops will be available to the university students within the targeted time frame. Partnering with HCL, MHRD has clearly stated that these laptops can be mass produced and distributed at this cost and is not something to be restricted to the IIT labs (as was being speculated by some critics). This would be the government’s first tangible success towards its goal of providing One Laptop Per Child.

Do you think the $35 laptop will be available as per schedule?

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Now Tweeting – 145 Million Users

Vivek Jha — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:15:44 +0000

The Twitter bird has had much to keep up with lately. With over 145 million registered users now, the micro blogging website is concentrating on how the tweeting experience can be made as available and simple as possible.

Twitter applications moved to OAuth, an authentication which lets you use apps without them storing your password, just a few days back. This required all third-party app makers to move to the more secure environment. This did create some discomfort to the developers because they were notified about the move after the requirement was effected.

Additionally, Twitter has been rolling out its own clients for Blackberry, Android and iPad devices. The explanation offered has been rather “corporate” in nature – veiling the actual motive (ring in profitability at last) with a “user experience” jingle. Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter, wrote, “We did iPhone user tests and confirmed that even though there was a plethora of third-party Twitter apps, people were having trouble finding and selecting one because none were called “Twitter.” This kept them from using Twitter at all. For this reason, we acquired Tweetie and turned it into Twitter for iPhone, complete with a new user sign-up experience. We quickly understood that we were doing users a disservice by not having a great client on each of the major mobile platforms. So, we took a similar approach with Twitter for BlackBerry (developed by RIM) and Twitter for Android, which launched a new version this week.”

This may have come off the back of some interesting statistics that he pointed out in his blog which showed that after the Twitter and mobile Twitter websites, smart phone clients and third-party clients appeared in the top 10 Twitter apps. While Twitter is still trying to make sure developers feel comfortable, it is consistently trying to plug the gaps that developers have exploited immensely. In fact, there are almost 300,000 registered apps using the API!

I really think Twitter, being such a thoroughly user integrated service, should openly declare its motives to the users behind every move it makes. People are insanely smart to not notice corporate interests and it puts them off when it is disguised and made to sound like some social activity. Twitter can, actually, leverage their relationship with its users and become a truly loved corporate entity.

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Airtel App Store For Fixed-Line Broadband Users

Anish Sadanandan — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:07:08 +0000

It was just earlier this year that Airtel launched Airtel App Central for mobile customers. This app store was a big success and on those lines Airtel is planning to launch an app store for fixed-line broadband users. Bharti Airtel currently has 3.1 million fixed-line telephone subscribers out of which 1.3 million have broadband connection. With this move, are Airtel trying to convert the remaining subscribers? Does fixed-line broadband have enough potential?

Airtel says

According to Airtel, three years ago the revenue from voice alone was 80% for fixed line broadband subscribers. However, the number has now changed to 50-50 between voice and data, and this number is rising increasingly in favor of the latter. Airtel believes that this transition is happening due to the increased speeds that fixed line broadband users can achieve today. From almost 95% subscribers getting a speed of less than 256 kbps a few years ago, today no subscriber gets a speed of below 512 kbps and this has given rise to the increase in date transfer in fixed-line broadband.

What about portability issues?

The one question that always pops up when talking about fixed-line broadband is portability issue which is definitely the biggest drawback in fixed-line. How will increased speed ensure the success of this app store for example? Well, maybe it is in the end a numbers game. It was recently reported that one in four houses in urban India now have a PC. So though mobility might be an issue, Airtel still has a huge market to play with and this might be the reason to bring about an app store for fixed-line broadband subscribers.

Will mobile be a hindrance for the growth of fixed-line broadband?

We are not just talking about mobile broadband here but also mobile devices that can access the internet. With smartphones increasing by the day in our country, the convenience of surfing the net from just about anywhere might render fixed-line pointless. However, we would like to again point to the numbers where though mobile will take over India, there most probably will still be more than enough PCs in our country for companies like Airtel to increase fixed-line broadband customer base.

What is your take on this?

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pinkWhale Initiates India’s First All-Inclusive Online Healthcare Service

Deeptaman Mukherjee — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:55:47 +0000

It comes as a pleasant surprise for all us Indians to witness a revolution in the Online Healthcare industry. A first of its kind in India , Internet Healthcare firm – pinkWhale offers not only valuable health related information like other online websites do, but provides a complete array of medical services just like a regular health clinic or a general hospital does.

Though pinkWhale has its presence online it boasts of bestowing patients with direct medical treatment by way of innovative services like ‘Call a Doc’. Apart from this, pinkWhale also allows web users (patients) to call for a second opinion as there exists a complete team of specialist doctors each expert in his/ her medical field. There are, however, other Healthcare services providing firms that exist online like www.free-medical-service.com and more popularly Web MD, with the latter being very similar to pinkWhale.

There have been many scenarios where, individuals hailing from an urban background find it a very time-consuming and energy grueling activity to first avail a doctor’s appointment and the to drive down to the hospital for even a medical necessity that is as small as a general medical check – up. Extending this point, the scale of time and energy that is wasted for other ailments that are a little more serious than general check – ups would be even higher. There also lives a certain set of people who are so busy in their daily work routine, that they can’t afford to take time off and visit doctors or hospitals located far from their homes or offices.

Those people who prefer convenience over wasting time and energy, fall part of pinkWhale’s target audience. pinkWhale caters to this particular TA who can avail solutions for minor medical queries over the internet in quick time and gain access to expert doctors. pinkWhale grants privacy for user-patients who do not seek to reveal their identity and has also tied up with third-party service provides who help pinkWhale in performing medical tasks such as collecting blood and urines samples for diagnostic tests from users’ homes. pinkWhale members can also create their own health records online and perform regular reviews whereby they can keep a track of their current and previous medical status.

Though pinkWhale seems to have it all in terms of the provision of healthcare solutions, there are still certain hassles that do exist. Patients in India can be resistant to changing the way medical treatment takes place (from conventional treatment to online healthcare service). pinkWhale’s TA though involves the urban population, the larger medical problem in India exists in the semi-urban and rural areas. Its service predominantly provides medical aids to minor health defects, however in cases that are a little more serious pinkWhale’s services may not be preferred. Understandably, pinkwhale’s expertise lies in offering solutions for minor medical glitches, but these are just some areas that pinkWhale can work on and excel in the Online Healthcare Services industry.

Do you think online healthcare services in India will be a success?

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AppleTV & Ping – New Game Changers For Apple?

Achalla Venugopal — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:52:35 +0000

Apple on Wednesday unveiled a number of additions to its current offerings which included revamped range of IPods, new versions of iOS software, iTunes 10 with a new logo and improved features but the offerings which have elicited tremendous response from followers and critics are the introduction of re-designed version of Apple TV and Apple’s foray into social networking with Ping, a place to discover music and follow friends and artists.

New life into Apple IPods

Truly Spectacular! This is the phrase which comes to my mind after witnessing the latest roll out of IPods. The new IPod shuffle is much smaller and smarter than the previous one. It supports Genius mixes and has 15 hours playback. Its 2GB, costs $49, and comes in five different colors. The new IPod Nano is multi-touch. It is 46 percent smaller and 42 percent lighter than its predecessor with 24 hours playback.

IPod touch has also inherited some exciting features from IPhone. It’s even thinner, but more remarkable with Retina Display, featuring 4X pixels, 326 ppi, 24-bit color and LED. It has Apple A4 chip, 3-axis Gyro and a program called FaceTime with front camera. The touch has 40 hours of music playback time. It can edit videos and has a Game center.

Refurbished AppleTV

The re-formulated Apple TV is much smaller in size than its predecessor and costs around $99. It will allow users to rent TV shows for 99 cents or first-run movies for $4.99 each. Unlike other Apple devices, content on Apple TV cannot be purchased but only rented. It has no local storage and streams all of its content like music, TV shows, movies, podcasts, radio stations, photos from Internet, Mac, PC, iPhone or iPad. The device also has an inbuilt support for Netflix, YouTube, Flickr and Apple’s MobileMe.

Sure, this is another attempt from Apple to shift the TV viewing behavior, something which hasn’t changed for over 50 years now. And it is not alone in the race. There are number of players in the market who are trying hard to marry the web to Television. So the stage is all set for mass market adoption and it remains to be seen whether AppleTV can do the same to television what iPhone did to Phones three years ago.

Ping, the new Social Network !

Steve Jobs, Co-founder of Apple also used the opportunity to announce Apple’s expansion into Social-Networking through its Music-Centric social Network Ping. The idea is to provide the users with an option to discover new music in ITunes, which according to Steve contains more than 12 million songs. So the result is Ping which seems more like Facebook and twitter integrated into ITunes. Ping will be integrated into new iTunes 10 and can be accessed from iPhone and iPod Touch. It will enable the users to follow their favorite artists and friends. It will also feature a stream of activities and customized Top 10 lists based on music tastes of various users.

What’s in it for us?

While introducing Ping, Steve jobs mentioned that Apple is opening the service to 160 million existing ITunes users across 23 countries. Sadly, India does not appear in the list of those 23 which means that Ping is not available to ITunes users in India. (It took some time for me to figure this out not before I tried some tweaks like changing country in ITunes, but in vain). That’s a bit strange because Apple has described Ping as a Social-network for discovering music. One reason could be that Apple wants to link the new Ping with its ITunes Music store. Though ITunes store is available in India, it is yet to emerge as a popular destination for buying music. But If Apple has any serious aspirations to grow Ping into a global social networking powerhouse; it should strongly consider making it available to everyone.

Music is one of the few subjects which can arouse passion and conversation. So it makes perfect sense for a music service to be social, and Ping has just done that. But I feel that there is more to it. The success of Ping can give rise to new trend of niche social networks with fragmented groups sharing various enthusiasms. What do you think?

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Opera: Percentage Of Females Using Mobile Web Is Lowest In India

Salil Goyal — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:55:31 +0000

Opera recently released its monthly State of the Mobile Web report for July, offering up in-depth insight into all facets of mobile Web usage worldwide. There is a remarkable discrepancy in the male or female split when it comes to mobile data usage. Only four percent of Indian users are female, which is very low compared to the worldwide average of 23 percent. The study thus revealed the gender gap in Indian mobile web usage is the widest in the world. As usual, this month’s report has some other surprising data too.

In terms of growth worldwide, Asia showed the most substantial gains. From July 2009 to July 2010, page views in the top 10 countries in Southeast Asia increased by 238%, unique users increased by 205% and the amount of data transferred increased by 227%.

Most interesting, however, is the finding that the number of woman surfing the mobile Web has grown more than 575% in the last two years, with South Africa and the United States having the highest percentage of female users. 44% of all South Africans on the mobile Web are women, compared to 36% of all U.S. mobile Web users. Shockingly, South Africa is the country having the highest percentage of female mobile web users.

Of course, as with anything involving statistics, the Opera report must be taken with a hefty grain of salt. The survey methodology is rife with opportunities for sampling and reporting biases—namely, it only surveyed Opera Mobile users (leaving users of other mobile browsers out of the equation), and was conducted among 300,000 users who had to voluntarily opt in. Generally speaking, males are likelier than females to respond to opt-in surveys, which can further skew the samples. Clearly it is not unreasonable to say that the survey results may be inaccurate.

Perhaps it has to do with the lower literacy rates among females in India (76.9% for men against 54.5% for women). Or perhaps it has to do with the number of Indian males employed in IT, which makes them more likely to be avid mobile gadget users. Or perhaps it is simply an inexplicable cultural phenomenon. . Even with these limitations in Opera’s survey methodology, we can still reasonably infer that the gender gap in Indian mobile web usage is the widest in the world.

Undoubtedly whoever seizes this opportunity and unlocks the enormous potential of India’s 600 million women will reap spectacular benefits.

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3G Services Almost Here – Government Allocates 3G Spectrum To Service Providers

Achalla Venugopal — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:30:15 +0000

Government has allocated 3G spectrum to mobile service operators including Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communication and Tata Teleservices. The operators are excited to rollout the 3G services to the Indian customers. We can expect the world class 3G service which will redefine the telecom experience in India to be introduced in the next few months.

Roll out of 3G mobile services in Punjab and Chennai by Idea Cellular and Aircel respectively could be a bit delayed due to a technical glitch with respect to licensing. Under the old cellular services, Chennai and Tamil Nadu were two separate circles. Thus, Aircel had got two separate mobile licenses. However, in case of 3G auction, the DoT is considering Tamil Nadu and Chennai as a single unit. Idea Cellular has a case of overlapping licenses. They may have to surrender one of their licenses in Punjab. Idea had got its own license for Punjab, but also acquired Spice Cellular which had operations in the same circle. The company has been seeking a refund for surrendering the license.

Let us just hope that no more delays come in way of the 3G rollout. We are sure to expect a spectacular change in the telecom experience with 3G services. Moreover, buying the latest 3G enabled tablets (iPad, etc) would become more meaningful for the Indian customers once the service is activated in India. PWC has expected 3G subscribers to cross 107 million users in India by 2015. So, we can surely expect a new price and features war to start off amongst the telecom companies in their bid to acquire the greatest share of the 3G users. All goes in the interest of the consumers.

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Survey Says eReaders Helping In Driving Book Buying Growth

Salil Goyal — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:00:04 +0000

A survey has revealed that those with eReaders now frequently read more than they did with traditional printed books. The survey, carried out by Marketing and Research Resources Inc., showed the impact that portable eReaders are having on reading habits. The results revealed that 40 per cent of eReader owners now read more than they did with printed books, while 58 per cent read the same amount and just 2 per cent read less.

The survey looked at owners of three leading eReaders: Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad and Sony Reader. All three have seen sales success and, according to Amazon, eReaders are contributing to a steady increase in book buying. The online book shop says customers purchasing 3.3 times as many books following buying a kindle. Fifteen per cent of all US book sales are now ebooks, giving a clear indication of the rapid success of the devices.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Portability

The survey was published online in a Wall Street Journal story that explains the effect eReaders are having on the American market. Their size and portability are enabling people to read in places they never before thought possible; the gym or even in the bath (inside a waterproof cover). A 2007 study by America’s National Endowment for Arts had revealed that nearly half of all Americans aged between 18 and 24 read no books for pleasure. Wall Street Journal hopes that the recent eReader success might be a sign America is departing from these worrying 2007 figures.

New eReaders

A series of new launches have also seen a terrific response from consumers. Amazon too launched a new model of Kindle. Smaller, cheaper, faster and better connected than its predecessor, the new Kindle is to the old what the paperback is to the hardback, and on Friday it’s finally officially available in the UK. Prices start at an affordable £109. Amazon’s Kindle eReader has sold out before it was supposed to ship to the public. Sony has unveiled three new ebook readers to compete with Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle. The Japanese consumer electronics giant also announced plans to launch a Kindle-style “app” for iPhones and Android-based smartphones, which would allow people to download and read Sony’s ebooks on their mobile device. Sony said the Reader Mobile Edition would be released “later this year”. India saw a new eReader in the market too with the launch of the Wink.

Good Marketing

eReaders are providing publishers with new and more exciting ways to get people reading. The digital market is expanding rapidly as eReaders become ever more user friendly. From new launches to celebrities endorsements every trick in the book is used by companies to woo buyers. When Oprah told her audience she loves Amazon’s electronic book reader, search traffic for the word “Kindle” went up 479pc. The gadgets has become a firm favourite of celebrities, from Jennifer Aniston to Cameron Diaz and has spawned an industry forecast to be worth more than $1bn (£628m) in the US within the next few years.

The future of e-books is one of the most contentious subjects in technology at the moment. David Kohn of Waterstone’s points out: “eBooks and eReaders mark the biggest revolution in the way we read since the introduction of Penguin paperbacks in the 1930s”.

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Bharti Airtel Stops Bulk SMS Business – Other Service Providers To Follow?

Anish Sadanandan — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:22:08 +0000

When you get a SMS these days, in most likelihood it will be something like the one I got today morning which said “Best Buy for Property in Pune: Laburnam Park. Pls Call 26****00“. As much as I want to build an empire in Pune, such messages annoy me to the core. Spam messaging have almost become a part and parcel of our daily lives. With over 150 million marketing SMSes being sent each day, no one is spared. The problem is compounded with service providers giving spammers a great rate of 3 paise per message with some promising to drop the rates even further. Bulk SMS business in India rakes in an estimated INR 20 crores every month giving providers all the more reason to make bulk SMS rates better. However, Bharti Airtel have gone the other way by dropping out of the bulk SMS business.

Airtel’s reasoning

Airtel is making this move after putting the customer above anything else. According to the CEO, Sanjay Kapoor, Bharti Airtel would like to take leadership in the effort to avoid this big menace of annoying calls and SMSes. Mr. Kapoor believes that TRAI can help towards this by keeping a mandatory price of 5-10 paise per SMS in order deter companies from spamming customers. Customers who subscribe to the Do Not Call Registry (DNCR) at times end up getting such calls and SMSes and according to Mr. Khanna a heavy fine should be imposed on such companies. In the US, such calls are penalized with a fine of $11,000 per call with the fines increasing for subsequent violations.

Will other service providers follow suit?

Bharti Airtel have taken a bold step keeping the customer in mind. However, considering the high revenue in the business, it seems unlikely that other service providers will take the high road. Unless regulators take a firm step towards this issue, customers will continue to suffer.

What do you have to say about Bharti Airtel’s decision to move out of the bulk SMS business?

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WorldSIM Debuts In India With Free International Roaming

Vivek Jha — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:38:08 +0000

International travelers from India can heave a huge sigh of relief courtesy WorldSIM. The UK based global SIM card was launched in India yesterday in Chennai. Despite not being an international traveler, I cannot seem to stop my excitement at the new service.

While the local telecom market in India has come down to very competitive rates, international roaming is still a cause of concern with rates almost brutally attacking pockets of subscribers. According to Mr K. Vaidhyanathan, CEO, Hash10 Telcom Pvt Ltd, savings from the new service might be upto 85%. Hash10 is the exclusive distributor for WorldSIM in India

The card comes with a US and a UK mobile number and will feature multiple local numbers in the future. The pricing is attractive at Rs 2,750 which includes talk time of Rs 500. To top it up nicely, subscribers to the service can get free incoming calls from almost 80 countries and make calls to over 200.

WorldSIM’s launch in India might just pave the way for high quality international mobile services with competitive pricing to make a consolidated entry in the sufficiently lucrative market. Mr. Vaidyanathan summed up the potential neatly, “Nearly 45,000 people travel abroad daily but a single global roaming SIM card is not available”. This will definitely give WorldSIM a first mover advantage and other players looking at this sector should be making their move very soon.

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BCG Reports 237 Million Internet Users In India By 2015 – Possible?

Anish Sadanandan — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:05:30 +0000

India’s population and the number of mobile phone connections in the country seem to be growing at similar rate. Ok maybe, just maybe, the mobile revolution is growing much faster. A recent report by Boston Consulting Group concluded that India will reach 237 million internet users by 2015. Considering the increasing mobile connections, and the soon to be launched 3G services, the number definitely seems achievable through mobile devices, or it is?

Problems in mobile internet growth

According to the report, India’s internet usage is concentrated in the urban and metropolitan areas, while the rural neighborhoods are more or less oblivious to the existence of mobile internet. If mobile internet usage in India has to increase, having only the developed areas increase usage will not help mobile internet growth in the country. However, a bright spot is the that 3G is set to penetrate rural India by 2012 and this, along with some awareness on the advantages of mobile internet should help reach the expected milestone.

Social Networking on mobile phones

Craze for social networking in our country is another craze that might just push the mobile internet users to the 237 million mark. The BCG report says that an Indian user browses the internet for an average of half an hour, and this will just increase to 0.7 hours a day on average by 2015. With more and more people joining, and getting addicted, to social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, one might just argue that this average number might just increase.

Mobile phones for rural India

Smartphones are key in taking mobile internet forward. However, not everyone can afford these phones. People in rural India need a substitute that can help them access the internet at affordable price. IBM and IIT recently joined forces to create mobile devices for semi-literate and illiterate folks so that they can harness the power of the mobile internet. Service providers too will play an important role in taking this movement forward by providing affordable browsing.

According to us, India has the potential to reach 237 million mobile internet users by 2015, if not surpass it. What is your take on this?

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IIT Bombay’s Eureka! – Ideal Platform For Budding Entrepreneurs

Anish Sadanandan — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:40:04 +0000

You think you have a good idea for a business? Here is an opportunity for you to present it to Mumbai Angels, a company that enables startups to meet successful people in the industry and more importantly businesses or companies that have funds to invest in the startup, and in the process maybe win INR 21 lakhs! The entrepreneurship cell (ecell) at IIT, Bombay has been organizing Eureka!, a business plan competition that was declared Asia’s largest B-plan competition in 2001 by CNN, since 1999.

Previous Winners

About Eureka!

If CNN has declared it to be Asia’a biggest B-plan competition there has to be something unique about the competition. Eureka! has definitely has a unique format in terms of the competition with the competitors getting free legal and financial consultancy, mentoring, and also an online platform where participants can find answers to the queries/problems. Also, the competition is not restricted and sees participants from fields as diverse as Medical School to IITs to Banking. Last year, the competition got around 2000 entries all around the world.

Whats at stake?

If you are looking to get a piece of the pie for yourself, then believe you me it is quite a big pie. With 21 lakhs ($50,000) at stake, it is not surprising that Eureka! is expecting about 2500 participants this year.

Previous Winners

Winners of this competition through the years have definitely been in the limelight with some making Business Asia’s Top 5 list, while there are over 35 other successful startups, with some big names including Myzus.

How do we judge this?

It is a great initiative and a perfect platform for budding entrepreneurs to present their ideas to panels of judges who will give them valuable feedback on whats good and whats bad in their plan. Competitions such as these are increasing and it shows that the country is interested in moving forward and are giving entrepreneurs the opportunity to do that.

Do you have a business plan? If so, what are you waiting for?

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Ranking Search Results Via Behaviour On Facebook Through New Patent

Deeptaman Mukherjee — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:23:47 +0000

The giant in the Social Networking business has come up with yet another invention for which it has won relevant patent rights. Facebook has quite often patented most of its innovations and its recently patented innovation was that of The News Feed. The reason for such an initiation by Facebook to follow a systematic patenting process is to secure itself from being sued by rivals as it currently faces patent-related allegations from Microsoft.

This new patent application was apparently filed six years ago whilst it was being discovered by Chris Lunt, Nicholas Galbreath and Jeff Winner. Better late than never for Facebook, this new patent is a product based majorly on interests and behavioural patterns of a user’s friends and friends of friends online.

The precise definition of this patent states and I quote ‘”Ranking search results based on the frequency of clicks on the search results by members of a social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation”. This essentially means that whenever a search item is entered onto the search engine by a user, the search results that he/ she is bound to retrieve may be influenced by the online behaviour of the user’s friends. The search results that qualify with maximum frequency of clicks by members of the social network (friends and friends of friends) would pop-up on the user’s search engine results list. Some behavioural factors of the user’s friends that could have an impact on the search results are the content ‘liked’, the groups that they belong to, applications often used, etc.

The working of this patent here also explains that if the search query does not find any matching results from the third party database (which largely involves the social network) the server is programmed to throw up results in the old fashioned way. It can surely be acknowledged that this novelty is aimed at the betterment of the social search engine feature of the site. Moreover, Facebook definitely needs to be appreciated for discovering the new social search feature and with this surpassing its recent redesign of its search engine.

Facebook can hope to enhance its business with the latest social search engine feature. This newly patented feature is evidently a highlight and an extension of the sidebar ads and recommendations that are based on the likes and preferences of the user’s friends, hence gratifying Facebook’s purpose of enabling users to discover a larger social network and benefit either professionally or personally. Very few speculations state that in dire cases wherein if this feature fails to impress users on a social platform, Facebook’s Plan B could be to outsource the search feature to generic search engines like Bing. Though, it would be a challenge to achieve social networking based ranking of search results on generic search engines since there is not the existence of a large social network base.

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