bangaloreinc

Lifeblob breaks new ground in photo sharing and discovery

2009-11-16T05:04:00.000-08:00

PRESS RELEASE – 12 November 2009, Bangalore
Topic Lifeblob breaks new ground in photo sharing and discovery
Details Lifeblob, a leading social network that helps you connect with your friends through photos and videos has announced yet another innovation that will change the way you discover and navigate through photos forever. This innovation pegs lifeblob as one of the most interesting photo sharing services to watch out for. Lifeblob was recently in news for being the only Indian company in the Business Week Asia's Top 25 Entrepreneurs 2009 list. Lifeblob, founded in 2007, is based on the concept that every event that happens in the life of a person relates him/her with other people, places and often specific interests. These relations have a tendency of connecting like-minded individuals together and are also a very interesting means of navigating from one event to another. This journey through relations is what lifeblob is all about. When you sign up for a lifeblob account, you are presented with a neat interactive timeline that shows you all your photos chronologically. Each of these photos can be face tagged with people present in the photo, related with the place where it was taken and also augmented with tags. If you already use an existing photo service like flickr or picasa, its easy to import all your photos to the timeline with a single click. As you start adding photos and the information around it, the lifeblob magic begins to happen. As you add a photo and build relations around it, you instantly see photos from friends or other lifeblobbers that are connected to your photo popping around it. Imagine adding a photo of your college reunion and instantly discovering other photos of your college friends. Or imagine adding photos of your picnic at a hill top and discovering photos of other people who have been there before. Or imagine posting a photo of your recent cycling trip and getting connected with other cycling enthusiasts. The possibilities are endless – with each photo you add, you have an opportunity to discover photos that you would never see otherwise, meet people you would never meet otherwise, become a part of a community that you would never find otherwise. In addition to discovering photos connected to you through people, places and interests, lifeblob also understands the time context around a photo to connect photos across time and builds a timescape for you. As an example, if you add a photo of Mahatma Gandhi, lifeblob intelligently detects that the relevance of Mahatma Gandhi is towards the early 1990s and lets you explore more photos around that era. This provides a very powerful way to skip across time and discover content that is connected with the photo that you just added. And ofcourse, there is the classic timeline visualization, revamped to discover through relations as you move through time. In addition to letting you to breeze through your photos and see a moviereel view of you life over time, the timeline also shows you how your relations and their importance to you change over time. So if you have photos spanning high school through college, you will actually see your high school friends fading away in strength as you scroll closer to your college years. Lifeblob is simply the best place to share your photos with friends and family and also instantly discover photos that are connected with yours. To take a test drive, sign up for a free account at http://www.lifeblob.com and savor the experience. For all users who signup this month, lifeblob offers unlimited photo space at no additional cost – use the promotion code NOLIMITS during the signup to avail this offer.
About lifeblob
Lifeblob allows you to share your experiences, memories and events with your friends through photos and videos. As you share your experiences, lifeblob understands the context around them and intelligently discovers other photos that are connected to it. Lifeblob is based in Bangalore, India and has received venture funding from Google backed SeedFund.

Web 2.0 effects : Israeli Start-ups not doing well either?

2009-10-26T01:25:00.000-07:00

Just landed on an interesting perspective (based on facts) about how Israeli startups aren't doing very well in the last 4 years from 2006.

From the original post

In 2006, 2007 and 2008 there have been very few "exits". 2009 is not much better. These are sales of companies or initial public offerings in the stock market. Exit(s) is a buzz word in the Israeli start-up sector. It is what Israeli entrepreneurs seek more than anything else: cash for a 5 to 10 year hard work. Selling a company brings good returns to the investors and does not involve the process of taking a company public. But the shift in technology from software and networking to Internet and software services has slowed down the investment-development-exit train. Established venture capital funds were dealt a blow, many small ones are completely gone. Entrepreneurs in many tech sub-sectors needed to reformulate their ideas and start working on new prototypes. What Israel can teach the world is how quickly change happens. In US and other large markets change does not have to happen as quickly. The market's momentum can hold up companies and financial pipelines. But then they eventually crash. In Israel small scale reveals quickly what changed and where the new developments are going.

Read the full post here.

This holds true even for India. In fact, there are whispers that are turning to murmurs, and murmurs turning to voices, that even Silicon Valley model is breaking, the VC model is melting down and so on. Is it difficult to sustain or make money purely from internet based services or startups? Or is there a silver bullet to pierce through? And what about cyclic change where innovation and money is going to be made in non-tech world? We 'll have to keep watching the startup space world over.

Mobile Application Conference, October 31 2009, Bangalore

2009-10-14T23:38:00.000-07:00

Silicon India Mobile Developer Conference on October 31 2009 at Nimhans Convention Center in Bangalore

Just wanted to let you know about an exciting event siliconindia is organizing on October 31^st (Saturday in Bangalore). This is a full-day conference that will explore the new opportunities that are emerging and ask the larger questions of the industry leaders within mobile space, shedding some light on where the industry is headed and how entrepreneurs and developers can take advantage.

Come listen to some of the brightest minds in mobile technology discuss the future of mobile technology.

SPEAKERS
Arvind Rao, Chairman, CEO and Co-founder, OnMobile
Vishwanath Alluri, CEO,Chairman and Founder IMImobile
Vishnu Sunderam, Co-founder CEO, Interchain Solutions
Selvamuthiah Somasundaram, Sr. VP & Co-Founder, Satnav
Raj Oswal, Founder & CEO, O'interface
Dilip R Mehta, IIM Bangalore, Ex-MD RPG Cellular and HMV Saregama
Prashant Dogra, Customer Marketing Manager, Navteq
Shanker Janakiraman, Director & CEO - India, Symbioun Technologies

TOPICS
Mobile applications explode. Who wins and who loses?
Carriers and handset makers want a piece, too: Where will they go?
LBS Challenge: Maximising Revenue and Engaging the Consumer
Mobile Payment Services: The Road Ahead
Mobile Marketing

Sponsors: Nokia, Sun, Navteq, Satnav
Exhibiting companies: Eterno, iPath, MapmyIndia, Mobikwik, OnMobile, ObjectSol, Satnav, ShortHand, Symbioun, Tencube, Trakut, Trademarkia, Vassoft, Wirkle

WHEN: October 31, 2009 (Saturday)
TIME: 9 AM to 6 PM
WHERE: NIMHANS Convention Center, Near Diary Circle, Bangalore

To attend this event, register FREE at http://www.siliconindia.com/mobileconference/register.php

Thanks
siliconindia Team
080 43402031

Transitioning from Wordpress to Blogger!

2009-10-04T09:13:00.000-07:00

Well! Just felt like blogging back for a while, did not want to go through setting up my domain again, so came up with a slightly convenient solution, migrate my blog from the all pervading Wordpress to Blogger.

Yes, you heard it right, transition from Wordpress to Blogger. The only downside is Blogger does not allow hosting of images, so a post has images, they have to be hosted somewhere else like Picasca. Right now, my previous posts, comments etc are transferred to bangaloreinc.blogspot.com except for the individual post images that are still residing on my previous domain, well, as long as the account exists. Will have to think of a way to get those on to other host.

But before that, how to migrate from Wordpress to Blogger, if at all you want to?

The Instructions:

Simply land at http://wordpress2blogger.appspot.com/

For detailed roundup, here are the steps

Login to your WordPress account and navigate to the Dashboard for the blog that you'd like to transfer to Blogger.
Click on the Manage tab below the Blog name.
Click on the Export link below the Manage tab.
Download the WordPress WXR export file by clicking on Download Export File.
Save this file to your local machine.
Browse to that saved document with the form below and click Convert.
Save this file to your local machine. This file will be the contents of your posts/comments from WordPress in a Blogger export file.
Login to your Blogger or create a new user.
Once logged in, click on the Create a Blog link from the user dashboard, and then click on the Import Blog Tool
Follow the instructions and upload your Blogger export file when prompted.
After completing the import wizard, you should have a set of imported posts from WordPress that you can now publish to Blogger. Have fun!

NOTE: This hosted application will only allow downloads smaller than 1MB.

The catch is if your Wordpress Export file is more than 1MB you cannot use this appspot, but rather you will have to go to Google Appengine Blog Converters Project here http://code.google.com/p/google-blog-converters-appengine/ and download the latest release to your machine locally, and run the wordpress2blogger scripts on the Wordpress export files, to generate Blogger xml format.

Then create a new blog on blogspot, go to Settings > Basic > Import Blog, voila your blog is instantly transferred to Blogspot.

Caveat: You are very likely to get an error of the format bX-xxxxx, one of the reasons could be that your previous blog posts had tags beyond limit, either edit those posts to delete the tags or delete all the tags (which is what I did), then you ll not have a trouble uploading.

Happy transitioning!

planforme.com - Your 24*7 friend

2009-05-21T08:22:00.001-07:00

PLANFORME.COM – Your 24*7 friend

A Multi-utility web portal to plan and execute your hangouts and your fun source engine

PlanForMe.Com is a comprehensive web portal offering an assortment of services related to food and dining options across Delhi and NCR for one and all. It acts as an information bank containing all that one needs to know about food whether it is knowledge about the several food joints or health tips, culinary details, recipes etc.

The website captures the very thinking of customers resulting in high degree of customization in its services. In fact the logo deliberately says ‘You Wish…We Plan’ and the customers are free to wish any time as the services are available 24*7. So next time when you are hungry or bored of routine,

Dial 011-43104310 (30 Lines) or sms PFM to 56767.

“In a place like Delhi with its hectic lifestyle and people doing multi tasking, one hardly gets time to plan an outing, despite that there is no dearth of food outlets. Keeping this in mind, we decided to take all our customers anxieties and offer them a complete solution so that they can enjoy their food whenever and wherever they want without much effort except a Call or a SMS” said Mr. Sumit Goyal, CEO, Planforme.com

He further added, “PlanForMe presents a win-win situation for both its users and food joints registered with it as the former gets a specialized service without any charges for arrangement while the latter enjoys the double benefit in terms of exposure and potential customers. The customers also enjoy special discounts on food if they avail our services.”

PlanForMe.Com not only provides personalized dining facilities but also plans big occasions like wedding, birthdays, anniversaries, corporate parties, bachelor and bachelorette parties and so on. Its USP lies in its customized offers for every budget no matter how big or small it is, the motive always remains the same, that is, “Customer’s Delight”.

Other interesting features of the website range from novel services like Online Cakes and chocolates, flowers to pure information like Delhi Insight, Kaleidoscope etc.

Future Plans:

With its high success rate in Delhi, PlanForMe.Com plans to expand its services to Mumbai, Bangalore and other metros soon.

About PlanForMe.Com:

PlanForMe.Com is promoted by Katyani E-commerce Ltd., an ISO 9001:2000 certified company. PlanForMe.com by far is Delhi's fastest growing "one of a kind" online Food and Beverage (Dining) portal catering to diverse range of clientele. The portal is a precisely sorted out platform which enables the most specific searches in minimal timeframe. Planforme.com through its value centric approach and customer driven innovative strategy offers key service proposition in its domain.

OMCAR 2009, the Online Marketing Summit

2009-05-20T08:30:00.001-07:00

OMCAR 2009, the Online Marketing Summit, which revolves around empowering businesses to grow by leveraging the power of Online Marketing', is being LIVE blogged at OMShare - the 1st from India, Online Events Promotion Platform. This event is presented by TiE Delhi and OM Careers with Amity University as the incubation partners.

New Delhi, India : OMCAR 2009, the Online Marketing Summit, which revolves around empowering businesses to grow by leveraging the power of Online Marketing', is being LIVE blogged at OMShare - the 1st from India, Online Events Promotion Platform. This event is presented by TiE Delhi and OM Careers with Amity University as the Incubation partners.

OMCAR 2009, The Online Marketing Summit, which focuses on 'empowering businesses to grow by leveraging the power of Online Marketing', is being held on May 23rd, 2009, from 8:30 AM - 6:00 PM at Amity Innovation Incubator, Noida. OMCAR 2009 is presented by OM Careers, in association with TiE, New Delhi. The event aims at bringing together professionals from the Online Marketing industry and provides opportunities for networking, sharing of views and interacting with domain experts and thought leaders.

OMCAR 2009 brings together thought leaders into the online marketing space in India, sharing their views on topics constantly defining the online marketing space. The event aims at discussions through case studies, thus creating real value for the participants. The event should be attended by Online Marketing professionals, CMO's, CXO's, Webmasters, web developers, Media planners and buyers, Agency professionals and brand managers. The event promises wealth of information on how businesses can leverage online marketing and networking opportunities with some of the leading entrepreneurs and thought leaders in the online marketing space.

The event is of immense value, hence we would also be covering the event LIVE at OMShare. Currently in its beta, OMShare is OMLogic's maiden initiative aimed at leveraging social media for providing outreach and visibility to global events & conferences. Since its inception OMShare has covered some of India's leading events across various industry verticals. OMShare is the official social media marketing partner for PanIIT and Leaders in India, two of the biggest global events, covering them LIVE apart from creating the right buzz about the events.

“We are glad to be setting new examples of leveraging the power of Social Media in creating immense business value through innovative propositions” said Mr. Pradeep Chopra, Co-founder, OMLogic."We are proud to cover OMCAR 2009 through live blogging which will go a long way in increasing participation and creating immense value for the delegates."

"In this economic downturn, when events are taking a hit, OMShare brings immense value by establishing an ecosystem for event organizers, delegates, bloggers and other stakeholders. I feel great to be a part of OMShare", said Paritosh Sharma, Social Media Marketing Evangelist, Co-Creator OMShare. "Live blogging the OMCAR 2009 event will be a great way to have the key takeaways of the event made accessible post event".

We are thankful to our sponsors and supporting partners to OMCAR 2009 - Innobuzz, SEMPO, MILAGROW, SearchMyCampus.com, i2k2 Networks, MBAUNIVERSE.com, OMLogic Consulting and easy2communte.com.

About OMShare

OMShare is the 1st from India online platform which aims at leveraging Social Media to help conferences reach and access Global Audience. OMShare is OMLogic’s maiden initiative in taking Social Media to a new level, creating a platform for creation of focused communities around an event. There are always various facets to an event. OMShare increases Conference Outreach by reaching out to potential Delegates and converting Delegates to Attendees.

By improving the Delegates' Participation & Networking (before, during and after the Conference), OMShare helps in Information Access, Managing Feedback, Archival and Retrieval of Knowledge-base created during the conference.

Vaatsalya Healthcare gets funding

2009-05-10T07:18:00.001-07:00

Ashwin Naik CEO and founder of Vaatsalya says, Vaatsalya Healthcare announces funding from Oasis Fund and Seedfund to expand hospital network across India. The investment was led by Oasis Fund, a Luxemburg based investment fund with a successful track record of investing in emerging enterprises across the world. Vaatsalya is expanding the Vaatsalya Hospitals network from seven hospitals in Karnataka to twenty hospitals across India. Existing investor, Seedfund also participated in this round of funding. More about Vaatsalya

Proto Vs Headstart

2009-05-05T02:41:00.001-07:00

Estimated reading time [2 mins 48 sec - 3 mins 30 sec] I believe this would be a thorny and tricky post, as I really have to walk the tight ropes not to antagonize the people involved. At the same time this is a straight forward attempt to critique the flag bearers of the Indian startup system and is to be taken in the right spirit, no offense meant at anyone whatsoever. And these were some thoughts going on in my head since last few days. Most of it concerns the recent efforts and newly renewed startup nurturers, more so at the grass root to middle layers. I have been an avid watcher of startup scene in India in general, and Bangalore in particular for more than a year past now (also much earlier but nowhere as passionate and regular as in last year and half). Why the title? - "Proto Vs Headstart" Simple answer - There is a tussle going on between the two startup nurturers cum showcase platforms. More on that, read on. So how many people like and support both the entities? And how many prefer to belong to one camp and not the other? Following is a rough comparison of both events.

	Proto	Headstart
Operation start dates	Started almost 3 years ago	Started more than a year ago
URL	http://www.proto.in/	http://headstart.in/
Backing	Backers mostly from Chennai	Based mostly out of Bangalore & Mumbai
Naming	Proto from the beginning	Headstart and Kickstart, then a merger to Headstart Network Foundation and now finally settled to Headstart Network. So far so good. Headstart Network Foundation sounded awful for a while.
Format	Startup showcase event with demos, panels and discussions every 6 months across cities in India	Started with a yearly format but have switched to hold the event half-yearly after first two editions (countering Proto?) Demo pits, panels and booths. Now also across cities in India
Additional events	Startup chat session every Saturday via online Proto chat portal with topic discussion in first half of day and startup plus product review during second half of day (contering Headstart?)	Start up Saturday events spread across the country in Banglaore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Very nice initiative from the beginning seems like the organizers had a plan to create efficieny and involvement amongst entrepreneurs and wannabes. Includes knowledge sharing, demos, pitches etc.
Google groups	prototalk@googlegroups.com Dormant	headstart-network@googlegroups.com Very Active
Popularity	Widespread	Just started, and gaining ground, especially with the Startup Saturday events in multiple cities
Response to previous event	Held in Jan 2009 at Nimhans Conventions Center, Bangalore, smaller auditorium and room full of people	Held in Jan 2009 at Nimhans Convention Center, Bangalore, bigger central auditorium not really, wonder if they over-estimated the response
Team outlook	Has approachable and friendly members, also responsive	Also have approachable members but need to improve their friendliness quotient.
External alignments	Pluggd.in looks pro-Proto but recently mentioned both Proto and Headstart in same post. Last Proto event covered by Pluggd.in. Of course, we covered it in real-time.	No coverage from Pluggd.in for the previous event. Headstart is heavily backing Watblog. MediaNama covered the previous event. We did cover startups in last Headstart.
Social Media	Using social media quite well.	Headstart has own blog and quietly spreading through the social mine.
Summing up	Proto started much earlier is popular widely. Well organized events, brining in some variety with varying formats.	Headstart has a robust and distributed team and well-trenched strategy. Gaining ground both online and offline. Event organization is good but some confusions like last minute announcements of demo-pit being free and then hearing a different story at the actual venue. Demo booths need more audience.

So Headstart is giving tough competition to Proto and with similar or extra efforts, is all set to outdo everyone. We can expect more blitz from Proto in near future. But bipolarity is always better than unipolarity, we don't really need monopoly here. I haven't compared these with other premiere events like TIE summits and Startup City held every year. One of downers is that there are only as many people in the Indian startup arena and you tend to meet the same old faces. We need more new faces and young blood coming in. The quality of startups also needs tremendous improvement. I will probably cover more players in coming posts. The interplays are setting up an interesting scene for the coming years. What do you think?

Gmail spam filter getting worse?

2009-04-27T13:41:00.001-07:00

Estimated reading time [ 37 secs - 46 secs]

It was by chance that I checked out the spam folder on one of my gmail accounts. First I was surprised to find one of Google Group approval mail to be listed under spam. If you don't believe, check out the following image.

[caption id="attachment_1659" align="alignnone" width="596" caption="Google spam getting worse"][/caption]

Second, I was even more taken aback to view a host of legitimate messages, upto 50% of valid messages ending up in spam category. I wonder what has happened with the spam filter, whether its a tweak or an algo change. To date the default Gmail spam filter was supposedly the best in my view, but alas, no longer, it seems. Third, now it forces me to check all my alternative gmail accounts for valid but lost mails or spend time adjusting the Gmail spam filter.

Do check out your gmail accounts, to see if the quality of filtering has lowered.

Brief lull, traffic overshoot, sporadic postings..

2009-04-27T09:24:00.001-07:00

Estimated reading time [ 1 min - 1min 13 sec]

We have had a traffic overshoot starting January and running into February, for which, our account was suspended.

As there is only so much traffic that is earmarked for a minimum paid account in a shared hosting environment. Web hosts advertise their plans promising unlimited bandwidth and extra storage, but the catch is in the CPU usage and memory usage. If your site traffic overloads CPU usage and memory usage beyond a lowly limited threshold, the web host can just cut you off or ask you to upgrade to dedicated hosting that costs almost 4 times a limited plan, that too monthly and doesn't really make sense for a small sites or blogs unless your advertising can break even real quick.

So I had to slow down or put in more of my time that I couldn't afford.

There is also the possibility that a heavy or gaudy wordpress theme can eat up per process memory on the server than a simple theme. Looks like that is the case with current bangaloreinc theme.

I had to reject some of the requests for reviews and PR posts in recent past, apologize for that. Sporadic posting is all I can do for a while till another door opens.

Suksh Technologies launches India’s first complete home and home services portal – www.100nests.com

2009-04-27T09:03:00.001-07:00

Bangalore, April 07, 2009:

All your basic home needs will now be addressed with just a click of a button ….

Suksh Technology, a company which develops various technology and web solutions for consumers has launched a first of its kind website – www.100nests.com, a complete home and home services portal. The portal goes far beyond just offering B-S-R (buying-selling-renting) facilities that is currently the norm with other service providers in this genre. The USPs of www.100nests.com includes free valuation of property for users, real time localized neighborhood information and trouble free availability of daily use service providers like carpenter, plumber, electrician etc. in your neighborhood. Also present was Model turned bollywood actress Aditi Gowitrikar who launched the website amidst all the glitz and glamour and became the first member of the website.

The household market in India is currently 3,483 Billion INR expected to grow whopping 4 times in next 15 years.

Household Consumption	2007-2008 (Rs. Billion)	2025 (Rs. Billion)
Rent, Utility, Repairs etc.	1,288	3,424
Electricity, consumables	731	3,000
Household services	987	5,415
Non Durable, home wares	356	1,148
Appliances	107	460
Furniture	14	15
Total Market Size	3,483	13,462

Source: Rise of Indian Consumer Market- McKinsey CO. 2007-2008

Online advertising household market stands at about 70% of total online market at 420Cr, covering personal/home banking, FMCG and consumer durables. This household market would grow to 1400Cr by 2010, as quoted by Indian entertainment and media industry, FICCI, PWC 07-2008.

Commenting on the launch, Shreyans Chopra, CEO and Founder, Suksh Technology Pvt. Ltd. said, “We are really excited about the launch of this portal. It’s unique and promises to be a one stop shop for all home needs. 100nests is in a league of its own that will offer its members a plethora of services targeting homes, neighborhood, home consumer needs, home service and utility needs etc. In short you can even treat this as your own home replica online”.

Also added Bhushan Patil, COO, Suksh Technology Pvt. Ltd., “One of the main aim of 100nests is to enable end consumers to make data driven real estate decisions and bring out transparency and awareness on price, pricing related information and factors which affect real estate pricing in India. Our extensive research teams and strong algorithms, combined with social interaction to further enable this”.

Attractive features –www.100nests.com:

Free Valuation Report - know the exact worth of your home, how your home compares across other homes across many top cities.
Your home and Neighborhood – Add your home and find out what is happening nearby, who’s who next door, events, news in your locality
Home Services – an exhaustive listing of home service providers right from a basic carpenter to high end services like interior decorators etc.
Dream Price – helps home owners specify the ‘Dream Price’ for their home, that’s the worth one assumes his house would carry, this need not be related to market it can be completely sentimental, emotional value of your own home.
City / Locality / Home index - denotes the livability and quality of the city / locality or the home. Further you can also compare locality, cities across various factors and indexes helping you decide your next home choice.

About Suksh Technology:

Suksh Technology Pvt. Ltd (STPL) is a company formed to develop various technology and web solutions primarily focusing Indian PC and Internet users, starting with realty vertical. STPL will be venturing into various online and offline software products and services targeting Indian consumers. www.100floors.com is their first product in the marketplace which has been active in the market since last year and is seen as one of the fastest growing portals among the competition on Alexa and Google insights.

STPL is seed funded by one of the Director of South City Projects Kolkata, INDIA and ex-veteran from Goldman Sachs, USA. The company’s vision is to invest and build network of easy to use, mass, consumer friendly applications. The company is headquartered in Bangalore and has operations across leading Indian cities.

Weekly Wrapup Feb 14th - Feb 21st 2009 @bangaloreinc

2009-02-21T10:26:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [2min - 3min]

bangaloreinc update: Lesser posts this week

News

Backlog

Weekly Wrapup Feb 7th - Feb 13th 2009 @bangaloreinc

PR: i-nable Solutions partners with WOLF Frameworks to create the LeaP suite ‘Learning & Productivity bundle’ for small & medium IT customers

2009-02-19T02:59:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [1 min 58 sec - 2 min 27 sec]

i-nable Solutions bundles it’s Collective Intelligence(KM) Platform ‘Kreeo’ with WOLF based ready-to-use SaaS Business Applications for small & medium IT businesses to leap ahead
i-nable Solutions, a Bangalore based new age Knowledge Management(KM) and social computing solutions company, announced its partnership with Wolf Frameworks, a web application designing Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider to offer a complete business productivity & efficiency suite of SaaS applications ‘LeaP’ for small & mid size IT service, ITES, R & D and Product companies. The offering comprises of Kreeo as the portal and KM platform with key enterprise applications from WOLF, like Project Management, CRM, and helpdesk with an additional option to choose more business applications.
Kreeo is the flagship platform product from i-nable Solutions. Kreeo brings a new paradigm to the whole aspect of managing knowledge for improving productivity and innovation capacity of an organization. It enables employees to reduce time spent on web research, solving information and experience related problems faster & enables users to collectively share, organize and evolve a comprehensive body of knowledge around various concepts as they learn new things. It combines various best practices followed by knowledge professionals and provides a social computing platform driven by a knowledge framework.
WOLF is a 100% browser based Business Application Designing and Delivering Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) which offers a host of ready-to-use Business productivity applications targeting specific industries via partners. Founded in 2006, the company has developed a disruptive platform which designs & delivers web application 70 times faster without writing a single line of technical code, offers service uptime guaranteed cloud computing infrastructure with options to save customers application data in the customers own private database server.

The LeaP solution bundle is currently being deployed in multiple customer locations, having 15 to 200 employees & a live demo version is made available online at http://www.kreeo.com/sandbox/. Interested customers can click on the Kreeo My Apps section, test drive the CRM application suite and discuss their specific needs & commercials.

“Whether it’s open web or the organization, we intend to enable collective management of knowledge, learning & information without introducing complex technology which leads to poor adoption, stagnancy and organizations fail to realize the real benefits of modern internet based IT systems and social computing” added Mr. Sumeet Anand, Founder & CEO, i-nable Solutions. “Our partnership enables us to combine the benefits of KM, CRM, Helpdesk - Issue Mgmt and essential project management information into a single solution bundle, drastically reducing cost, with high scalability, extensibility and the ability to add custom business processes.”

“We have created LeaP with the 4 most essential online tools for running an IT business which even a small company can’t ignore” said Mr. Sunny Ghosh, CEO WOLF Frameworks. “With sophisticated WOLF PaaS and the Kreeo knowledge & learning SaaS framework, we are able to work backwards and offer a very lucrative monthly user based rental model with the rare ability to incorporate additional custom processes within days.”

PR: Inkfruit Ties Up with Mocha

2009-02-19T00:53:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [ 40 sec - 1min]

Inkfruit merchandize will now be available at Mocha Coffee Shops - starting with 3 of their outlets in Bombay viz. Churchgate, Bandra and Lokhandwala. Depending on the response this tie-up will be rolled out across all Mocha Coffee shops across the country. Both brands believe that there is a perfect match between their clientele - both Inkfruit and Mocha appeal to a young audience who is on the lookout for something new and different. Now they can enjoy great coffee and flip through some creative merchandize! http://www.inkfruit.com

Mocha and Inkfruit have entered into a tie-up! Inkfruit stuff will now be available to browse through when people visit Mocha coffee shops. Currently Inkfruit tees will be showcased in three outlets in Mumbai - Churchgate, Bandra and Lokhandwala. Depending on the response this tie-up will be rolled out all over the country.

So now you can drop in to these quaint Mocha shops and while sipping at a froody drink you can take a look at Inkfruit tees! :)

PR: mKhoj hires Anne Frisbie to head North America

2009-02-19T00:47:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [1min 38 sec - 2min 44 sec]

Anne Frisbie’s profile is available on: http://www.mkhoj.com/home/management/

February ’09, Bangalore, India: mKhoj, the leading mobile ad network for Asia and Africa announced that it has brought Anne Frisbie aboard as Head of North America. Frisbie joins mKhoj after almost five years at Yahoo! where she served as Vice President of Category and Sales Intelligence and was charged with leading Yahoo's advertising sales strategy for its most important industries.

Anne’s experience prior to Yahoo! includes founding an online shopping service in 1996 that was ultimately funded by CMP Media. She then focused on local search at Zip2 Corporation where she served as a Director of Publisher Development until it was acquired by AltaVista in 1998. She worked at AltaVista as a Director of Strategic Alliances, and later ran sales and business development for the company until it was sold to Overture. She moved to Yahoo! when it bought Overture.

On taking up this new challenge, Frisbie said, “The growth of the mobile internet in Asia and Africa is astounding. The strength of mKhoj’s ad network in that region - combined with its strong local expertise - brings tremendous value to our North American partners as they look to grow their sales and consumer acquisition efforts in these ‘mobile-first’ markets.”
As Head of North America, Frisbie will be responsible for helping US based publishers monetize their mobile inventory in India, South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East and will also help advertisers reach their target audience in these geographies.

“We are writing a new chapter in our growth and believe that mKhoj will transform the way mobile internet traffic is leveraged for marketing in Asia and Africa. Anne is a critical addition to the team and key to our growth strategy in North America. Her deep experience qualifies her uniquely to help mKhoj broaden its base”, said Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO of mKhoj.

About mKhoj
mKhoj is one of the largest mobile ad networks in the world that offers solutions for advertising and monetizing on the mobile web. It enables global, regional and local advertisers in extending their reach in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. mKhoj allows advertisers to discover their target audience using its advanced targeting technology via mobile internet sites and it enables publishers of such sites to monetize their traffic. The mission of mKhoj is to provide business model and technology to enable the growth of mobile internet.

Entrepreneurship Cells to get mentorship from IIMs and IITs

2009-02-16T20:48:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [ 1 min 10 sec - 1min 25 sec]

(source)

The premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) will mentor smaller entrepreneurship cells across engineering and management institutes. The decision to this effect was taken at the Global Conference of e-cells (entrepreneurship cells) held at IIT-Bombay as part of recently-concluded Entrepreneurship Summit. The summit was attended by 55 e-Cells, including major e-cells not only from IITs and IIMs but also international institutes like UC Berkeley, MIT and Stanford.

The conference concluded that 10 developed or mature e-cells will mentor smaller e-cells and create an ecosystem to encourage entrepreneurship.

“We want to replicate what MIT and Stanford have achieved in terms of creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem. The international e-cells gave a perspective to their own growth story and also shared their insight on how to create one,” said Varun Bhalla, coordinator, e-cell, IIT-Bombay.

Under the mentorship programme, the mentors will guide e-cells of institutes about educating masses on entrepreneurship in terms of patents, intellectual property rights, the way to start new ventures and build their trust in these organisations; team building; sponsorship; and faculty advisors for the entrepreneurship cell.

Also, the cells will look at developing an entrepreneurial culture on the campus itself. This is a major problem most of such organisations have faced, considering the risk-averse nature of students, their peers and parents, who would not want their prospects to get marred by a risky affair.

“We will help new colleges in forming a board and structure any event. We will help them with ideas and on how to address the problems in formation of e-cells,” said Bharat Vijayvargiya, student vice-president, C-Tides, IIT-Madras.

A key issue which the mentors will address is helping the new institutes raise finances for funding their ventures.

After Airtel, Vodafone blocks Netcore's MyToday SMS service

2009-02-16T20:44:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [50 sec - 1min 6 sec]

Netcore's MyToday SMS service, with 3.8 million subscribers to date has run into yet another blockade, this time from Vodafone. Earlier Airtel had blocked the service without giving adequate reasons in November 2008 last. Vodafone's initial remark has been that MyToday service does not

India’s (Trai) National Do Not Call (NDNC) regulations. TRAI had rolled out NDNC to curb unsolicited commercial communications (UCC), including unsolicited SMSes and pesky calls, and had even set up a registry

(just in via BS)

Vodafone-Essar has blocked the services since morning today, for which the company has not quoted any reasons. We were informed of the 'block’ by our value-added service provider Smart Wireless, while some customers also complained of not receiving the service, a top official of Netcore Solutions told Business Standard today.

The GSM operator has blocked the short-code ‘575758’ to which users had to sent-in their ‘opt-in request’. Netcore, through its service provider Smart Wireless, is in talks with Vodafone-Essar to resolve the crisis, they added.

A couple of Vodafone-Essar subscribers also confirmed the development and said that the services could not be accessed on Monday.

When contacted Netcore officials confirmed the development, but declined to provide details. Vodafone Essar declined to comment on the issue. Vodafone-Essar is believed to have blocked the services, alleging these do not comply with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

Hungama features Orkut apps for Shah Rukh Khan movie Billu

2009-02-16T08:04:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [

Hungama has launched two new apps that will help you get back in touch with all your friends on Orkut, and all of you to share the love for Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan. To promote the actor's newest release 'Billu', Hungama has launched apps called 'Dosti ke Rang, Shahrukh ke Sang' and 'Billu's Official Makeover Salon'.

(just in via Techtree)

'Dosti ke Rang, Shahrukh ke Sang' is meant to rekindle friendships by letting users create reunions with their old friends. And the deal is -- One lucky gang planning a reunion using this application will have the superstar Shahrukh Khan attend the reunion in person. The second app, 'Billu's Official Makeover Salon' lets Orkut members play around with their friends' hairstyle -- virtually, of course!

Once the app has been added to a profile, users would be able to create a group photograph of his friends with pictures that they upload, or from their social network profile.

bangaloreinc update: Lesser posts this week

2009-02-16T08:00:00.001-08:00

You will be seeing lesser activity and lesser posts this week at bangaloreinc, I have been travelling to Beijing, China.

Meanwhile do keep updating us about newer startups, services and products anything relevant to be covered over here.

Back to the grind, soon, by weekend!

Qualcomm ventures invests $9 million in Mapmyindia

2009-02-15T11:55:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [41 sec - 51 sec]

Qualcomm ventures, the venture capital arm of global wireless technology company has ventured to pour $9 million into MapmyIndia.com (source)

In a strategic partnership with Qualcomm, MapmyIndia will leverage the former's technology to strengthen its services in the country and explore overseas opportunities. "Through the partnership, we will leverage Qualcomm's leading wireless technologies to grow in the telecom, automotive and internet ecosystems--handset manufacturers, mobile operators, automotive manufacturers, hardware vendors, chipset providers, and application developers," MapmyIndia MD Rakesh Verma told PTI.

Apart from Qualcomm Ventures, the other investors are Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Sherpalo Ventures and Nexus India Capital, who had invested USD 3 million earlier. MapmyIndia is now looking at expanding its presence overseas as well. "After the acquisition of Navteq, the field has been opened. We are examining and have plans for venturing overseas in 2010-11," Verma said declining to give further details. MapmyIndia provides digital maps, location-based services and GPS navigation in the country on handheld devices, mobile phones and automobiles.

News: Accel invests in Healthcaremagic, Apnacircle acquired by French Viadeo

2009-02-14T10:50:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [48 sec - 1 min]

Bangalore based Healthcaremagic has received venture funding to the tune of $2.5 million. (source)

HealthcareMagic is a medical consultation and referral portal which allows users to interact live with doctors. It currently has around 50 employees, which include 34 doctors. While some of these doctors are full time employees, others are consultants on contract. The company earns its revenues through medical consultations. The interaction can be done either through internet or through mobile phones.

While payment for online consultations is done through credit cards, for mobile phone HeatlhcareMagic has signed up deals with network operators. The mobile phone consultations are done at charge of Rs 8-10 per minute, said Sinha. HealthcareMagic has tied up with five operators - Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular, Aircel, BPL Mobile and Tata Teleservices, while only BPL is live currently.

The company was providing its services free of cost for 10 months between January and October '08. "We would be cash flow positive in next 3-4 months," said Sinha. It has clocked more than half a million medical interactions since its launch.

French business networking player Viadeo has acquired Sabeer Bhatia's social networking foray ApnaCircle, that was earlier reviewed here. (source)

"The deal is cashless and the exisiting investors will get stake in Viadeo", Yogesh Bansal, co-founder of the Indian networking site told VCCircle.

The French networking site already has operations in China and Mexico and is eyeing other emerging markets. The cash-less deal will enable the registered users of ApnaCircle to be linked with the members of Viadeo.

Weekly Wrapup Feb 7th - Feb 13th 2009 @bangaloreinc

2009-02-14T02:56:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [3 min - 5 min]

Startups, Services, Products

Pustak - Online store with 12 million titles and best of service

Mobile VAS companies in India: a whole lot of them

VeriCar - Advisory service from experts for buying used cars

MyTVS a 24 hours roadside breakdown service now available at carsalesindia.com

Saviour - Missed call mobile service for safety and emergencies

Find-Guru - Find tutors to suit your needs

Geotrackers - GPS and Wireless based location services

Conversations

banginc Talk Time: In Conversation With Operations Manager of book service Pustak

Events

Bizwit - The national Business Idea Competition

News

Kaamsutra : A catchy viral campaign

Nielsen Online rolls out service in India

Manipal Education and TutorVista form JV with investment of $15 million

Some stats about the health care market in India

Affle’s 20% stake taken by Microsoft India

A toast to four billion mobile connections / subscriptions worldwide

Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Nagpur amongst top emerging Indian cities: KPMG

Backlog

Weekly Wrapup Jan 31st - Feb 6th 2009 @bangaloreinc

Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Nagpur amongst top emerging Indian cities: KPMG

2009-02-12T09:10:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [48 sec - 1min]

Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Nagpur amongst top three emerging Indian cities for IT and ITeS services with the best environments, says a KPMG compilation that lists 31 locations within India.

KPMG in its report- 'Exploring Global Frontiers- the new Emerging Destinations' said, as the existing favourite locations for shared services and outsourcing have started to become saturated the newer cities are emerging, offering new and improved incentive packages and talent, that are better geared for the IT and ITeS industry.

Though the list is dominated by cities in developing countries, it also includes three Indian locations - Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Nagpur - which may be valid competitive alternatives to the existing favourite destinations.

Commenting on the findings KPMG Sourcing Advisory services in India Partner-in-Charge Viral Thakker said, "Realising the growth potential of the IT-BPO industry, Tier II cities in India have now jumped on the sourcing bandwagon and can be projected as viable destinations."

The report stated that besides Bangalore, Mumbai, the National Capital Region (NCR), Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad, which are now regarded as "emerged destinations", several smaller Tier II and III Indian cities have the potential to attract IT-BPO investments.

(Source)

Geotrackers - GPS and Wireless based location services

2009-02-12T03:17:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [1min 48 sec - 2min 15 sec]

GeoTrackers is a location based solution and service vendor making use of technologies like GPS and wireless innovations. Some of the scenarios addressed are fleet management, vehicular tracking, children tracking via GPS, asset management and round the clock asset tracking. Geotrackers has developed their own platform know as the Geotrackers Mobile Resource Management (MRM) solution that leverages GPS location technology, wireless networks, broadand internet and fleet management software to help you track & monitor your vehicles and physical assets wherever they may be and wherever you may be. All you need is a PC with internet connection or even a mobile phone like E71 to the logon to the Geotrackers web-site with your unique username and password (basically SaaS model)

A detailed description of the features is as below:

Track & monitor your vehicle on online street level maps employing multiple zoom levels.

View present position of mobile asset(s)

Monitor direction and speed

View comprehensive trip history for each asset with time stamps

View exact trace of route driven with time stamps.

Monitor all halts with exact time & duration and location of each halt.

Monitor Over-speeding violations with timestamps

Get real time alerts in case your vehicle overspeeding

Get Milegae report with exact log of kilometres driven.

Monitor critical vehicle status e.g. opening & closing of doors, AC, Engine

2-way voice communication possible with add on vehicle voice-kit

How do they do it? - Small devices [ Geotrackers ZVT-1 : A State of the Art Tracking Unit consists of GPS, GPRS, Microprocessor Controlled, Internal Memory, Backup Battery with Power Saving Intelligence, Full Two Way Voice Communication, 100% Data buffering during Voice Call, 100% Data Buffering when network lost, RFID Support, 4 Inputs, 4 Outputs] with GPS receiver cum GPRS modems are available that are custom fitted to the vehicles and physical assets, these small devices continuously upload the location data via GPRS to a central server. This is the basic mechanism applied for fleet management. One can then accurately monitor the vehicular movement, determine the direction and speed all in real-time. Their proprietary platform would provide customizations tailored to specific requirements. They have different portfolio for business entities and normal consumers.

Some good use cases include - tracking rash driving by drivers, unnecessary route detours and unavoidable accidental happenings can be tracked thus adding efficiency and productivity to the whole setup. It could be used by corporate house with travel arrangement, taxi owners to monitor their entire fleet (they are being currently tracked manually via radio updates, but GPS would automate the whole process), medical vehicles can be tracked and helped.

We had earlier covered Interchain solutions that also provides fleet management and GPS services.

Find-Guru - Find tutors to suit your needs

2009-02-12T02:16:00.001-08:00

Estimated reading time [48 sec - 1 min]

Find-guru is a simple service, aggregation of teachers and tutors profile for variety of subjects including accounting, history, bio-chemistry, physical education, hotel management, music, etc etc along with online tutoring classes and rental of books. There are similar services that offer aggregation of online courses offered by all kinds of tutors. I tried searching for dance teachers, but could find none.

Anyways, you can search for tutors and classes by location and course subject, there were courses with as low fee as Rs 1/- per course. The online tutoring classes take place via the site. The site is very tutor centric, they can create profiles, upload audio and video and anybody can write reviews about the tutors. The site also provides and exhaustive listing of worldwide and especially Indian universities, schools and colleges. You can also upload assignments.

Business model - Find-guru works on paid model.

The site works fine, maybe certain UI aspects can be improved. More information about the virtual classrooms can be explained on a separate page so that visitors and early users can get to know the service without registering.

If you do try this out, do let us know your feedback.