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Groupon Expands Its India Team’s Responsibilities To Include Emerging Markets In APAC

Denzil — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:07:25 +0000

Groupon has announced that it has entrusted the current Indian senior management team with additional responsibilities dealing with growth in emerging markets in Asia Pacific. In addition to India, the Groupon India team will now focus on developing and expanding their platform in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Ankur Warikoo who is currently the CEO of Groupon India, has been handed the additional responsibility of Groupon APAC Emerging Markets. Bharath Devanathan has also been made the COO of the Emerging Markets group. Sumeet Kapur who was the CFO of the Indian operations till now has been named as the Regional Finance Director in charge of these markets. Groupon is happy with the work of its Indian team over the last 2 years and believes that it can also drive the adoption and growth of the service throughout the APAC region.

Joel Neoh, IVP, Groupon APAC spoke about the development,

“India is a key market for Groupon and has been one of the fastest growing countries in the APAC region. The leadership team in India has played an instrumental role in making Groupon the undisputed industry leader within a period of two years. This reorganisation will only make us work closer, tighter and more unified than ever in APAC, towards building a great global company . I wish them success in their new role.”

Times have not been easy for Groupon since its IPO more than a year ago. Since then, Groupon’s founder and former CEO, Andrew Mason was made to leave the company. This development hints that Groupon India (formerly Crazeal) is now running in a stable manner. We cannot yet comment on how the company is doing globally.

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Goibibo Releases Data On Online Booking Of Bus Tickets

Rohit Singh Jain — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:50:56 +0000

Online travel portal Go-Ibibo has released data regarding the state of online bus bookings in the country. The study is based on data sourced from its consumers’ booking habits.

According to the data insights, more than 50% of online booking of bus tickets seem unplanned, signalling towards an immediate bus ticket purchase nature among consumers. 32% of it is on the day of the travel (Last Minute) and 24% is one day prior to travel.

The chief aspects contributing to this growth story are Real time inventory being made available online from thousands of Bus suppliers and consolidators; Price and price comparison; convenience of booking on mobile and PC. Additionally, the availability of luxury buses companies like Volvo and Mercedes too seems to have boosted online bus ticket sales.

The study also highlighted the sales of online bus tickets specifically by region. While Bangalore-Hyderabad-Bangalore (10% of the bookings) sector tops the list, closely following regions are Chennai-Bangalore ; Pune-Hyderabad; Bangalore-Vijaywada. On the other hand 55% of bookings comes from a massive long tail of 10000+ sectors.

The report also throws light on the types of bus services chosen for online booking i.e. 72% buses booked online are AC with an average price of Rs. 899. However, 28% buses booked are Non-AC with an average price of Rs. 399. Women’s safety too is a concern that determines online bus booking ticket sales: Ladies seats were a hit among consumers looking to book bus tickets through the online medium.

Goibibo was launched in September 2009 and is now one of the top 3 online travel e-commerce platform in India. GoIbibo launched their iOS and Android apps for bus booking.

Travel portals like GoIbibo have been cashing in on the bus booking sector, as luxury bus travel is a sector not hit by the economic slowdown at any time. A host of Indian travel portals have sprung up in the bus booking scene, the most prominent being RedBus which possibly get acquired soon. Needless to say, there’s a lot of competition, and I believe these services need to offer something ground-breaking in order to lead the pack.

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National Roaming Calls And SMS To Get Cheaper; Not Free

Rohit Singh Jain — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:45:09 +0000

Telecom regulatory Authority of India(TRAI) said it would allow carriers to offer free nationwide mobile roaming to subscribers for a fixed fee from July 1. It has said there will be no complete reduction from roaming charges as such.

“TRAI has reduced ceilings for national roaming calls and SMS and instituted a new regime for providing flexibility to telecom service providers to customise tariffs for national roamers through STVs (Special Tariff Vouchers) and Combo Vouchers,” the regulator said in a statement.

Starting July 1, 2013, ceilings for national roaming calls and SMS will be a reduced – Re 1 per minute for outgoing local calls and Rs 1.50 per minute for outgoing STD calls on national roaming, against Rs 1.40 per minute and Rs 2.40 per minute, respectively. The ceiling on incoming calls on roaming have been cut to 75 paise/minute from Rs 1.75 earlier, while outgoing local SMS will cost Rs 1 and outgoing STD SMS will cost Rs 1.50 from July 1.

“With increased subscribers and usage, the costs associated with national roaming have declined, but not vanished. There are still real costs incurred in providing the national roaming facility.”

“Mandating a fully free roaming regime is simply not practicable at this juncture. Compelling a transition to a fully free national roaming regime would result in telecom service providers not being able to recover their costs from roamers,” the regulator said.

Trai has decided that STVs and Combo Vouchers which were as of now allowed only for home tariffs can be permitted for roaming tariffs. This will provide service providers with innumerable flexibility options with their pricing options.

Also, TRAI has directed telcos to offer special plans for subscribers on roaming. The consumer will now be able to choose between full roaming and partly roaming service plans.

The move is quite significant, but I definitely don’t understand why the Indian telecom industry hasn’t quite matured when it comes to consumerism. When consumers want no roaming charges, they mean that lcacl charges should equal those applied on roaming, which is not what TRAI seems to have worked towards. TRAI should look at EU, which is in the final stages of abolishing roaming charges.

Source | Tech2

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Rumor: Instagram Will Debut Video Sharing On June 20th

Denzil — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:23:22 +0000

According to rumors doing the rounds of the Silicon Valley blog circuit, Instagram will be launching its video sharing capabilities on June 20th at a Facebook ‘Big Ideas’ press event. Although clear details are yet to be received, Techcrunch notes that their anonymous source has confirmed the news and its launch at the press event. Facebook has also been rumored to be working on a feed reading (RSS) service, now that Google Reader is nearing the date of its impending demise.

If the news is true, it can be seen that Facebook is actively attacking many areas in a bid to drive up the usage and thus the dependability on Facebook’s platform. Video sharing would make sense for Instagram because that is the logical growth for a platform like that. Also, since Instagram will sooner or later be integrated deeper into Facebook’s platform, it makes sense for their photo product to also have video sharing features so as to complete the feature gap. Facebook and Twitter were more or less head to head when it came to social media and sharing innovations but Twitter took the lead when it debuted Vine first for iOS and then for Android. Vine has been seeing good traction and also has been hailed as new tool for citizen journalism and also as an outlet for creativity. Facebook, will understandably not want to be left behind and is now looking to ‘copy’ successful features from Twitter onto their platform. The first instance of this inspired feature set was the simplification of the default timeline coupled with graph search which adapts easily to mobile. The next bit was Facebook adding #hashtags in a bid to index content on its platform in a better way.

Vine recently surged ahead of Instagram in terms of the number of shares on Twitter. This new feature may get it back on top although I am not very sure about it yet. Instagram has a good user base and that should definitely factor in.

Source | Techcrunch

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Indian Intelligence Bureau Calls For WeChat To Be Banned In The Country

Alap Naik Desai — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:02:37 +0000

WeChat , the mobile messaging platform is apparently within the crosshairs of Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) as the body has proposed banning the same. The internet dependent smartphone based messaging platform is quite similar to immensely popular rival Whatsapp.

The intelligence tracking & monitoring authority feels that proliferation of such a service is a threat to National Security. In fact based on an internally circulated note, Deputy National Security Advisor Nehchal Sandhu has asked IB to discuss about the ban with the Home Ministry and the Department of Telecom (DoT). “Blocking access to such websites in accordance with the licensing conditions governing Internet service providers is one way of checking them,” the country’s internal intelligence agency pointed out at the second meeting of the Inter-Agency Operational Working Group on June 4.

Why is IB threatening a shut-down to WeChat?

Based on the aforementioned premonition, IB hasn’t clarified why it feels WeChat alone should face a ban. It operates on the exact same principles that Whatsapp, Viber & others follow. All these internet based messaging platforms make use of the unique mobile number as registration & as the users’ handle as well. This ensures that the content exchanged is always tied to an identifying entity that can be tracked down in the event of National Security.

The Government may want to ban WeChat in particular, mainly because it is Chinese in origin. In the past, India & other countries have seen an alarming increase in the hacking & unlawful entries by Chinese Nationals. In fact, there appear to be many theories that claim China deploys hackers to break into foreign national’s secure databases. When we first heard about WeChat entering the Indian market, we expressed doubts along the same lines. Here is a link to that piece.

While this ban may be a fairly new concept, messaging companies like BlackBerry’s BBM have been facing a lot of heat from Indian as well as Middle Eastern Authorities to share their database. While eventually BlackBerry did relent & opened up a server in India, can’t Indian Government insist the same to WeChat?

We would love to hear your thoughts on this particular development. Let us know in the comments.

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DealChaat Updates Android App; Aims To Offer Better Personalization

Rohit Singh Jain — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:23:23 +0000

DealChaat, a mobile app service that lets you find you deals around your location, has updated its Android app, and has attempted to offer varied personalization options inside the app service for its users. The upgraded app, dubbed as ‘DealChaat 3.0′ packs some interesting features revolving around customization by users according to their preferences. The update allows for the users to directly interact with merchants as well as other shoppers around them.

These changes are rolled out in an attempt on DealChaat’s side to provide merchants direct access to enthusiastic online shoppers ready to take on the platform. This change in the service is focused to improve the outlook of shoppers using the DealChaat app and directly impact the way merchants and traders get across shoppers looking to gain in on the location marketing biz.

Here is the specific changelog of some of the newly added features to the DealChaat Android app:

1. App personalization through Social Login and DealChaat connect

2. Rating deals and sharing with friends in-app and through Facebook & Twitter
3. Brand / Store review as a means for merchants to attract / retain consumers

The app will facilitate reviewing of user ratings and reviews to the traders and merchants in a big way. All ratings info will reach the concerned tradesmen right in their inbox. They will also aid shoppers in the same area who wish to opt for a deal. At the same time, these users will get recommendations from other shoppers as well.

Now retailers can get direct feedback from shoppers regarding their deals, insights on what shoppers expect, and get a platform to directly communicate with consumers. The revised app focuses on higher levels of user customization. Additionally, DealChaat has ensured that the app doesn’t lag behind in terms of user experience. The User Interface of the mobile app has been revamped keeping in mind the needs of mobile and smartphone users. Users now get details of the number of deals available to their locality, all categorised neatly from the home screen itself.

DealChaat is a do-it-yourself platform for mid-market retailers to directly publish and manage promotions, and delivered through a location-aware smartphone app.

Location and check-in based services are witnessing a massive boom in the mobile ecosystem currently, and I only predict greater scope and rise in this sector. DealChaat seems to have comfortably centered its service around the deals and location-based app service sector, and a great service too. Shoppers are the ones that can leverage this platform, and services like DealChaat make shopping and scouting for deals a real easy job.

You can download the updated DealChaat app from here.

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MobStac Teams Up With Vdopia To Monetize Video Content

Sneha Bokil-Paranjape — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:30:30 +0000

Mobile cloud publishing company MobStac has partnered online video advertising company Vdopia to monetize their digital properties and video content effectively across all mobile devices. As a result of the partnership publishers and businesses using the MobStac cloud platform to power their mobile websites and apps now have easy access to brands that wish to advertise on their premium video content through Vdopia’s VDOAd network.

Founded in 2009, MobStac claims it is currently serving over 2,000 customers in more than 40 countries in 12 different languages. In September last year, search engine giant Google had announced a partnership with Mobstac to drive adoption of mobile platform among media and publishing firms. Earlier in April, the company launched an API platform that lets developers build & manage both mobile websites and apps for their customers.

Speaking about the partnership, Sharat Potharaju, CEO and Co-founder of MobStac said, “Mobile video consumption is growing at a break-neck pace and video advertising provides a huge monetizing opportunity for publishers and media companies using MobStac. We understand the significant value a video and network like Vdopia can add to our mobile publishing platform and look forward to mobilizing more publishers who currently use the Vdopia ad network”.

Vdopia provides advertisers the opportunity to advertise on the most premium online and mobile video content available on the internet. The company recently collaborated with the International Cricket Council to monetize websites for the ongoing Champions Trophy.

Nikunj Arora, Manager, Business Development – India, Vdopia said, “The shift in the paradigm of internet consumption from online to mobile makes this the most appropriate time for publishers to reach out to premium advertisers and obtain the maximum for their content on mobile.”

Videos have become an important part of the internet ecosystem and has eventually given rise to video advertising. The increasing use of smartphones and internet has also fueled this growth.

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75% Of Youth Prefer Social Networks Over Phone Calls For Communication: TCS Survey

Sneha Bokil-Paranjape — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

A recent survey by TCS has revealed that about 75% of India’s youth prefers social media over phone calls to communicate, with more students using the internet for school-related tasks. Titled ‘(TCS) Gen-Y survey 2012-13‘, the survey touts that smart devices and unprecedented levels of online access are making this generation the most connected yet. This is changing the way they communicate with each other and transforming both their academic and social live.

Conducted on 17,478 high-school students from age 12-18 years across 14 cities in India, the survey reveals that today’s youth are collaborating through social networking tools and building virtual communities aided by affordable bandwidth and smart devices. “India’s post-millennial generation, those people born in 1996 and afterwards, seem set to overtake the preceding millennial generation, taking communication over social networks like Facebook and Twitter and instant messaging modes like Whatsapp to newer extremes,” said the survey.

The survey further stated that 73% of students accessed internet for researching school work while 62% used it for chatting and staying in touch with friends. According to the survey, 92% of respondents prefer Facebook as a medium to connect with their peers. Twitter came in second where one in three reposondants used tweeting as a medium of communication.

Giving insights about mobile phone ownership, the survey highlighted that almost 70% of students own mobile phones and nearly 20 % use mobile phones to access the internet (compared to just 12 percent in 2009). Talking about tablets use, the survey said that 20% of students in Metro use a tablet compared to 17% of those is Mini Metros.

60% of youth today own not just a mobile but a smartphone. Surprisingly the difference in ownership patterns between metros (58.50%) and mini metros (59.36%) is not much, with the smaller cities scoring over the larger ones. Samsung continued dominance over Nokia and Apple once again in terms of brand popularity. 48% of the new generation preferred Samsung while Nokia came in second with 46% which was followed by Apple ( 39%) and HTC (36%).

The TCS Survey further stated that India’s urban Post-Millennial generation is turning to text and chat as alternatives to voice. 74% of those surveyed said they use Facebook the most to communicate, while 54% used SMS – both significantly higher than the number of students who said they used voice calls (44 %) for the same purpose.

The survey by TCS echos a recent IAMAI report which said that social media users in India with hit 6.6 Cr by June 2013. Also, some schools have started supporting students towards bringing in electronic gadgets like tablets, smartphones & even laptops to school. Some state governments are also distributing tablets in rural areas to incorporate technology. Hence, I believe era of digital education has dawned upon us and it will only expand in near future.

You can check out the entire TCS survey here.

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BookMyShow & Others Questioned By Bombay HC For Charging Internet Handling Fees For Movie Tickets

Alap Naik Desai — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:08:39 +0000

Online Ticketing Agents (OTA), especially for movies, are being questioned by Bombay High Court (HC) for overcharging patrons who purchase movie tickets from them, reports Medianama. The HC has asked multitude of online companies like BookMyShow.com, Big Cinema, Fame India, INOX, Fun Multiplex, Sterling, Globus Cinema, New Excelsior, 24 Karat Multiplex, HDIL Broadway, Abhiruchi City Pride and E-Square to respond to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Sunil Lulla.

What the PIL about: Interestingly, Lulla is merely asking the companies to implement a Government Order already issued on 4^th April of this year. The government of Maharashtra had ordered cinema halls to follow the Satellite Computerized Ticket Printing from April 1^st 2013 and also allowed single-screen cinema halls who were losing business and facing shutdown, to double their service tax in order to adopt digital technology.

While the order seems to favor the Single Screened Movie Theatres, the decision was taken to bring in transparency & accountability within the highly lucrative Entertainment Sector. Owing to decentralization in the way tickets are printed & sold, there was no perfect way to keep a tally on the business & in turn Government couldn’t get its revenue from the taxes. Coincidentally, Entertainment Tax is one of the highest money-spinners for the Government which stands to earn as much as 30% per ticket sold.

The rule states:

“For any of the cinema hall in the state, the exhibitor or owner or agent should not charge any additional charge to the viewers for online computerized ticket sale. The said amount given to the agency should not be charged to the viewers by the exhibitor/owner.”

In other words, the charge for the ticket sold online should be the same as, when purchased at the counter.

This simply means online ticket sellers cannot add charges like ‘Ticket Handling Charges’ or ‘Convenience Fees’ in addition to the Ticket Charges. Even though PVR Cinemas has agreed to abide by the rule, last year alone, it earned Rs. 5 Crores (US$ 0.9 Million) as Convenience Fee revenue. Online Ticketing Companies will surely feel the pinch of this stream being truncated. Now they may have to turn to the Movie Theatre owners for their revenue or look elsewhere. What do you think?

Image Courtesy |   livemint

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Google Introduces Balloon Powered Internet Access With Project Loon

Rohit Singh Jain — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 07:18:59 +0000

Google has just announced Project Loon, an initiative from Google X Labs to bring affordable Internet access to remote places by means of giant balloons. Project Loon involves flying large helium balloons made of polyethelene film, measuring around 15 meters in diameter. These balloons are sent to high altitudes of around 20 kilometers above the ground. This is twice as high as the space where commercial airplanes travel. Such balloons are powered completely by solar energy, and rely on the wind in the stratosphere to move from one area to another. Forming what Google calls a “network in the sky”, these balloons have technology that is able to communicate with other balloons and with antennas on the ground.

Supposedly, these balloons can provide Internet connectivity at 3G network speeds, or even faster.

Once the balloons are up in the sky, Google maintains control over them, and may direct them to the ground in specific areas where they can be collected and reused.

The company has already begun the pilot test for the initiative in the Tekapo area in New Zealand’s South Island. During the pilot test, thirty balloons were launched. These balloons provide Internet access to 50 pilot testers from Canterbury and Christchurch. These testers are tasked to report on the quality of the connection. Google will collect the information provided by these pilot testers, and use it to improve the technology.

Google is inviting those who are in New Zealand and want to take part in the project as a pilot tester to sign up on its official website.

New Zealand supposedly was selected because it had been the site of an earthquake back in 2011, which disconnected plenty of people from Internet access, apart from killing almost 200 residents. Google claims that other areas which would suffer from natural calamities in the future could benefit from Project Loon.

Google is quite active on the innovative front. A study by eMarketer revealed that Google actually took up 50% of world’s mobile marketing revenue. Last week, the company gobbled up maps service Waze in order to consolidate their mobile services, and possibly improve Google Maps as well.

At this point, Project Loon is still in the experimental stage, I definitely think that the wider reach of Internet access may be used in the future for purposes like education, agriculture, and medicine, among others. This, in turn, will provide better opportunities for the billions of people who still do not have access to the Internet today. The concept is innovative and path-breaking, and I’m of the view that Google can actually pull it off, thanks to the massive cash flow the search engine giant has got.

Image Courtesy | techradar

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OpenTable Snaps Up Mobile Tech Company JustChalo For $11Million

Sneha Bokil-Paranjape — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 06:44:35 +0000

US based online reservations provider OpenTable has acquired Mumbai based mobile technology firm JustChalo for $11 million in stock and cash.

“Mobile is increasingly important to our business and the JustChalo team’s expertise will help accelerate our development efforts in this area. We’re looking forward to integrating JustChalo’s engineers into our team and continuing to enhance the mobile experience for diners and our restaurant customers”, said Joseph Essas, Chief Technology Officer of OpenTable in a company statement.

Founded by Kashyap Deorah and Rishi Deshpande, JustChalo has offices in Mumbai and California. The company had received some initial funding from Ash Bhardwaj & Rakesh Mathur. Although JustChalo is a mobile technology company, it has not launched any apps yet.

Open Table said in a company statement that  mobile reservations accounted for 36% of the 34 million reservations in first quarter of 2013 in North America. Since the introduction of its mobile solutions in November 2008, OpenTable has seated more than 60 million diners through reservations booked via mobile devices. Headquartered in San Francisco, OpenTable provides services in the US, as well as in Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico and the UK.

Restaurant search and reservation start-ups are gradually mushrooming in the market along with the food delivery services. Recently a similar start-up TabelGrabber which allows restaurant reservation was selected for Startup Chile, an accelerator run by the Chilean Government. Dineout and Tablewalla are another players in this segment.

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Twitter Opens Up Analytics To Everyone

Denzil — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 10:25:20 +0000

Twitter has quietly opened up its analytics platform for general use. This was first reported by The Next Web and it seems that anyone can sign up to see and measure how their tweets are doing. The analytics can be accessed by going to the Twitter Ad dashboard and clicking on the analytics tab.

The timeline activity section in analytics shows a graph of how your tweets have been doing over a period of time. You have a list of recent tweets and the corresponding favs, mentions and retweets that they have received. Twitter tracks this data using the built-in t.co links. This also enables Twitter to show you how many times the link your tweet has been clicked. The mechanism is the same as bit.ly but may be more accurate because this is Twitter’s own analytics. You can also download a CSV file of the data for reference.

When I checked it out, it first asked me to set up a campaign. If you don’t want to set up a campaign, you can go to billing history in the dropdown on the top right hand side of the page and click on ‘switch to advanced’. The analytics tab should now show up.

Earlier general users could only access analytics and performance of their tweets by using third-party analytical tools and clients but now Twitter is ready to serve analytics on its platforms itself. This reflects the change that Twitter has been going through since last year when it began curtailing third party services and restricting some API aspects, purportedly to protect and strengthen its own brand, in addition to increasing its revenue. The social network has been making a good amount of revenue since those changes took place. It has also forged partnerships with media heavyweights like WPP is likely to make many more partnerships in order to increase its revenues.

Website | Twitter Analytics

Image and Story tip via | The Next Web

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Techzone Teams Up With Aircel To Offer Videos @ Rs 1

Sneha Bokil-Paranjape — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 10:07:51 +0000

Techzone, a player in the Indian VAS industry has joined hands with telecom operator Aircel to offer mobile video downloads at Rs 1. The company is providing users with content of over 20,000 videos across genres like Bollywood, Hollywood, realty, lifestyle, music, comedy and more. It also offers rich content in over 12 languages including English, Hindu, Marathi, Gujarati, Assamese, Bhojpuri, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam amongst others.

Titled as ‘Video Store @ 1′, the service enables users to access videos on mobile via WAP or GPRS/2G/3G and download them on their mobile handset at just Re1/- per video. Techzone aims to add 800-1,000 videos per day to the existing video library.

Users can avail the service by following four simple steps:

Step 1: Sms VDO to 56060 or dial Toll-free short code 52010

Step 2: You will receive a WAP link on your mobile

Step 3: Access the link and browse to your video of choice

Step 4: Download the video at Re. 1/video

Aircel has already launched Video store@ Re1 in both prepaid and post paid segments. Speaking about the Anupam Vasudev, Chief Marketing Officer, Aircel said, “With our focus on the youth who have a need to stay connected and updated at affordable prices, this unique VAS product will offer our customers the freedom to download videos at just Re.1”.

Naveen Bhandari, MD, Techzone said in a company statement, “Through this VAS offering, we aim to increase the monetization and the availability of the content which we have acquired over a period by multifold. The pricing strategy of this VAS allows it to be a preferred choice of the masses.”

Earlier in March, Techzone tied up with a Bollywood movie and launched an IVR application Magic Voice. With 67 Million subscribers across India, Aircel is presently the sixth largest mobile service operator. The company has been striving hard to garner a large user base and is hence involved in partnerships and launched apps. India has seen a huge increase in total online video consumption since past two years. As per the latest report from comScore, India has watched 3.7 billion videos per month on their personal computers. Hence, I believe videos is one of the best factors on which telecom players can bank upon right now.

Image Courtesy | fonearena

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E-Commerce Logistics Provider Delhivery Grabs Cash-Handling Services Of GharPay

Alap Naik Desai — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 09:02:46 +0000

Times Group backed, Delhivery, a Gurgaon based logistics service provider has acquired the offline cash collection network of GharPay. Though the financials have not been disclosed, GharPay has confirmed that only its cash collection part of the company was picked-up.

GharPay was developed to primarily address one of the most important & challenging aspects e-Commerce; The Payment Stage. To promote the practice of buying online, web-businesses have to offer Cash On Delivery (COD) facility. COD mode of payment is wrought with immense risk for the web-store. This is where GharPay comes into picture. The Sequoia backed startup collects cash on behalf of e-commerce companies in case, mode of payment is not credit/debit or Internet banking.

GharPay is presently active in 17 Cities & claims to be working for 700 Clients including Times Internet, Fetise & others. The company employees about 250 ‘Collection Agents’ & promises to cover over 1000 Pin Codes across the country.

Why did Delihivery acquire GharPay’s facility?

Delhivery could have opted to pay GharPay to handle COD process, but then it would have to pay anywhere between 2–7% of the order as handling fees which GharPay usually charges other e-commerce players. The startup launched in 2011 by Arpit Mohan and Abhishek Nayak was seed-funded by Raju Reddy and Sequoia Capital. The company has even managed to add automated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) based offline payment methodology by tying-up with cloud telephony company Kookoo.

E-Commerce companies are steadily moving onto the marketplace model from inventory based one. Hence they will require all the expert help they can get to ensure each step of the business is handled expertly. Since GharPay promotes Pay After Receipt, it could certainly boost the appeal of e-commerce websites who avail Delhivery’s back-end logistics.

What do you think?

Image Courtesy | iamwire

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Kerala Government And Livares Technologies Launch m-Governance App On Android

Denzil — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:27:33 +0000

The State Government of Kerala is taking some very progressive steps towards integrating the emerging technologies and devices into its long term technology plans. The Kerala State Information Technology Mission has recently released an m-governance app in collaboration with a startup called Livares Technologies, which is incubated by MobMe’s Startup Village initiative.

The m-governance app is available on Android and requires an Android device with OS version 2.2 and above. The app provides information about state departments and the various functions so that people have have a better idea about the workings of the government. The app also provides information about things like State Transport travel times, Kerala Lottery information, Polling Station details just to name a few.

The app is simple and straightforward and uses SMS as a primary input and output mechanism. When you query a particular service from the app, the app sends a message to m-governance service which then reverts with the information you wanted. This process seems really odd when the web can handle all this without the need to use SMS. Also, the entire app can be used offline and this is good thing. The service can be scaled to include more Government related information. Livares are in the process of creating an app store for the various app that may be needed to support additional e-governance of the Kerala Government.

If you are based out of Kerala, then you should download this app.

App Link | m-governance on Google Play

Via | NDTV Gadgets

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Google Beefs Up 50% Of Global Mobile Ad Revenue: eMarketer

Sneha Bokil-Paranjape — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 07:55:32 +0000

A new set of digital advertising revenue estimates from eMarketer reveals that Google has captured 52 % of global mobile ad revenue in 2012. According to the report, Google “earned more than half of the $8.8 billion advertisers worldwide spent on mobile internet ads last year.” The $4.61billion Google raked in from mobile ads, represented 52.36 % of the total worldwide spend. The eMarketer report also says that the most popular Internet search engine giant, is projected to control about a third of the digital-advertising market this year, extending its lead as mobile and video marketing gain ground.

Google reached such heights mainly due to Android. The company was able to spread its revenue-generating mobile services across the globe because its own mobile operating system features them prominently on its default home screen. Its products are also popular on mobile devices such as digital maps, Gmail and the Chrome browser. Another factor that helped Google was YouTube.

EMarketer also forecasts that Google’s total take of the digital ad market including personal computers would reach nearly $39 billion, a 19% jump from last year and one-third of the nearly $117-billion market. Our own big blue social network, Facebook comes in second with 5% of the market. Yahoo is third with 3%, according to the EMarketer forecast. Facebook, meanwhile, which had no mobile revenue in 2011, took in $470 million and is expected to increase mobile revenues by more than 333 % to over $2 billion in 2013.

That would account for a 12.9 % share of the global online mobile advertising market, eMarketer said. Together, Google and Facebook accounted for about 70% of the mobile ad market. In comparison, fellow monetization newcomer Twitter brought in $140 million in 2012 and is projected to double that to $310 million in 2013.

With the explosion of smartphones and tablet computers, mobile advertising is the holy grail for Internet companies. EMarketer’s forecast for digital-ad revenues at select major publishers indicates that online ad spending, like mobile advertising, continues to consolidate among a few major ad sellers.

Image Courtesy |   france24 | emarketer

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Amazon Starts Its Affiliate Program In India

Denzil — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 07:00:20 +0000

Amazon has now brought their popular affiliate program to India. This was spotted by the Digital Inspiration blog last week. This combined with the roll out of Amazon’s marketplace in India means that the company is looking to aggressively expand its operations in the Indian space soon. They have also announced that their Kindle Fire and Paperwhite series will be available in India starting June 27th.

The affiliate program will help support bloggers and website owners in India earn extra cash from posting Amazon product links on their respective properties. Amazon will pay upto 10% commission on the products bought by users by following these affiliate links.

You can go to this link and get started. You will need to create an Amazon account (if you don’t have it already) and submit your website/blog details. After filling in the form, Amazon will approve your request within 24 hours. You can then go ahead and start featuring relevant Amazon product links on your website or blog.

Amazon’s 10% discount offering when compared to the 6% and 5% offered by Flipkart and Infibeam respectively will definitely lead to higher adoption of the Amazon Associates program. The link building over a period of time will get Amazon products to appear in search results and is a very good strategy for organic growth of the platform. Amazon is famously frugal with the way it spends money and I don’t really expect it to shell out money on mainline and digital advertising as opposed to the major campaigns that Indian e-commerce companies have been coming up with recently.

This is an interesting time for the e-commerce industry in India. It remains to be seen how Flipkart, Homeshop18 and Infibeam will deal with the entry of this formidable global player.

Source | Digital Inspiration

Via | NextBigWhat

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Gaana Unveils Karaoke Web App SingAlong For Enthusiastic Singers

Sneha Bokil-Paranjape — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 06:31:28 +0000

In a bid to enhance user engagement on its platform, music streaming service Gaana has introduced a Karaoke online app SingAlong. The unique feature by the Times Internet’s music portal is actually a Karaoke service that allows users to sing their favourite songs along with scrolling lyrics and music. This is the first time any Indian music streaming portal has launched such a service which actually is a game as you have points to score.

Powered by Karaoke Garage’s technology, the SingAlong web app lets users not only sing along but also rates the quality of your singing. An enthusiastic singer myself I tried to give my vocal cords some exercise. In order to use the service you have to click the SingAlong tab on Gaana’s website and choose your favourite song from. Gaana claims to offer 300 plus songs in English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali. However, currently the SingAlong app has a large variety of popular Bollywood tracks while few songs in other languages.

I tried the app with one of my favorite number ‘Kolaveri Di’.

The SingAlong web app is interactive and becomes addictive as you play along. As soon as you select a song the service asks your permission to access your device’s mic and advises to use headphone to avoid outside noise. The app shows song lyrics at the bottom along with beautiful interactive bubbles on a music sheet like display which indicates the song’s actual pitch. While singing if compares and matches it against the sheet and scores you based on accuracy. If you’re singing well, it will plot your voice on the bubble. The closer your voice is to the bubble, the higher the score you get. The app also has a leaderboard showing people who have scored the highest and are also featured on their Champions page.You can then challenge your friends via Facebook and turn this into a game.

Speaking about the launch, Satyan Gajwani, CEO, Times Internet said, ”SingAlong is the most engaging community feature we’ve ever seen in music, and we can’t wait to see how users interact with it”. The company is looking forward to expand song catalouge and bringing the feature to mobile platforms. I personally enjoyed SingAlong app and have kind of become addicted to it. I believe this is a really good initiative by Gaana as this gives the platform a much needed edge over its established competitors. Although the music streaming services in India are flourishing they are facing touch competition due to strong players. Last month, Flipkart closed its music service Flyte.

Meanwhile, Gaana has become aggressive with new app launches and tie-ups. Coming back to the SingAlong app, I believe it is must try and our readers should definitely give their vocal cords a stretch.

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Yahoo To Recycle E-mail Ids By offering Inactive Handles To New Subscribers

Alap Naik Desai — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 13:00:25 +0000

Search, news & content aggregation portal Yahoo Inc. has found out a novel idea to recycle e-mail ids that no longer see any activity. Yahoo will give away dormant E-mail Ids to new users who wish to avail a handle that was previously unavailable.

The program announced yesterday, will contradict earlier claims & will offer a rare chance to pick up unique names which were once used, but later were steadily neglected by Yahoo’s subscribers. More often than not, users quickly pick up unique names & then genuine users are deprived of usernames of their choice. The revival of the dormant accounts seems to match well with Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s long term efforts to create more enthusiasm about the internet pioneer that has clearly fallen out of fashion in light of growing dominance of other players like Google with Gmail. Additionally Microsoft too recently retired Hotmail to make way for new & improved spam-free Outlook email.

One of Yahoo’s main concerns is the rapid decline in e-mail users as people readily opted for Gmail. To ensure users flock back to Yahoo’s offering, Mayer has been personally involved with the redesign of the email service along with the main home page and Flickr photo service. Not to mention, she was in the news a lot lately for her tech startup acquisitions including news collation service Tumblr for a princely sum of US$ 1.1 Billion.

How to get that coveted id?

Unfortunately, Yahoo is not declaring the e-mail id pool that will be freed up. Hence it is advised that users who wish to have a unique & desired id should visit Yahoo post July 15. This date is apparently the deadline Yahoo will release inactive accounts unless the current owner logs in again before the scheduled ultimatum.

Yahoo is apparently trying to lure back users. It hopes that once users start using Yahoo’s mail service, they will realize other useful & attractive features & content that will entice them to re-visit. Once users become regular they will help Yahoo make more money by beaming contextual & relevant advertising. Do you think such a technique will work?

Image Courtesy | thenextweb

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Delivery Hero Invests $5 Million In Online Food Ordering Service TastyKhana.com

Sneha Bokil-Paranjape — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:45:00 +0000

Online food delivery service Tasty Khana has secured $5million in funding from Berlin-headquartered Internet company Delivery Hero Holding. In early 2012, Delivery Hero had also invested an undisclosed seed round in TastyKhana. Founded by Shachin Bharadwaj and Sheldon Dsouza, TastyKhana has also partnered with Delivery Hero to list its services on Delivery Hero’s site.

Pune based TastyKhana claims to have partnered with 1000 restaurants in Mumbai and associated with more than 3,000 restaurants across the seven cities it operates in. The company which claims to have served more than 1 lakh customers has apps on Android, iOS, Blackberry along with a website. It says that a 40% increase in mobile orders has been witnessed.

Delivery Hero is a global network of online food ordering marketplaces. The company’s global platform for ordering food online is now present in 12 markets and extends to more than 30,000 local restaurants. Speaking about the fuding Niklas Östberg, CEO of Delivery Hero said,”The strength in our core markets allows us to invest in smaller, innovative companies like TastyKhana to accompany them with technological know-how and financial resources on their way to the top.”

TastyKhana competes with other players like FoodPanda, Hungryzone, Justeat, Deliverychef, Bigbite etc. Last year, similar food delivery portal Titbit.com acquired FoodKaMood.com. Although it does not deliver food order, popular cold drinks maker Coca Cola recently ventured into e-commerce by launching Coke2Home.com which offer doorstep delivery of its soft-drinks.The food ordering segment is currently in its nascent stage, but it might grow gradually considering rise in mobile and internet use.

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