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

Will Microsoft’s Suicidal Attempt Change Search Engine Dynamics Forever?

Raghav Soni — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:00:18 +0000

Rupert Murdoch has started a heated debate on Google’s policy of not sharing revenues with news publishers. Their argument is simple if Google is making billions by providing links to their content then they ought to get a pie of those Ad dollars. He has even cautioned Google for removing links from its search engine if they don’t meet their demands.

We at WATBlog always thought there was more to tussle between news paper publishers and Google then what meets the eye. We even covered WSJ attempts for micro-payment solution before staking their claim for content tie-up.

So why is NewsCorp so mad at Google’s Indexing?

NewsCorp currently is a partner for Google’s ‘First Click Free’ programme through which any person visiting site’s like WSJ from Google News can read the first paid article for free and after that he/she has to shell out money to read the other content. The loophole allows many visitors to frequent WSJ through the backdoor from Google news thus catching all the paid content as free. This has resulted badly for WSJ’s flight towards micropayment.

The end result is that NewsCorp has almost made their mind and are in the market to sell their ‘Content is King’ argument to Bing or whatever search engine they could find to pay hefty fees for the same. Some sources say that Microsoft is even willing to forge a Content deal in a desperate move to beat Google’s monopoly in search engine war.

Search Engine Dynamics to Change Forever?

Microsoft should perhaps know that if it signs any such content deal then it would also be changing the search engine dynamics forever and would send all of us in the pre dot com era where content was sold at exorbitantly high prices. Any attempt to thwart Google’s monopoly would only worsen the case for the whole search engine business because other big media publishers would not sit in the offing and can try to snatch money from Microsoft and even perhaps from Google.

This could perhaps start an epic business war with social networks & Media publishers on one side pressurizing search engines to pay or else forfeit their rights to Index. It is also correct to assume that no search engine could earn even normal profits forget super-normal if they start to cough up money just to index links.

NewsCorp must also understand that charging search engine for content can be viable in short term but it will be suicidal for even publishers as any downturn in search engine revenues would see direct assault on their Ad-rates. Even the publishing business has become very dynamic as even exclusive news loses its importance in few hours in a industry mirroring news headlines.

So what is the middle path?

As suggested by Josh Cohen, Product Manager Google News, publishers could easily put a firewall around their content and still get listed in Google News if they show the landing users the same preview content it shows to Google News Index bot. Google is even ready to help big publishers in placing a micro-payment solution on their site as it thought of doing few month ago .

Let’s hope news media publishers don’t degrade the Web Ecosystem for sake of few extra dollars as it would do more harm than good for both the concerned parties and most important to web searchers.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

Ex-MySpace Hari Krishnan Bags Top Job At LinkedIn India Operations

Yash Gandhi — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:25:13 +0000

The Mecca of Professionals on the Internet, Social Networking website, LinkedIn has finally setup their base in India. Ex-MySpace Hari V Krishnan has been appointed as the first country head for India.

LinkedIn sees India as one of their biggest markets with 3.4 million of their total 52 million members coming from the country. Also the rate of new additions is about 10,000 per day, making India one of the major contributor to the compay’s growth. Krishnan’s vision as a country head will focus on LinkedIn’s business model comprising user subscriptions, ad sales and enterprise software licensing for the Indian market.

Quoting Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn on the appointment, “India is one of our fastest growing markets. We help employees manage their brands and we see user interest (from individuals and corporates alike) growing significantly. Hari’s addition to the LinkedIn team will not only help us better serve our membership and customers on a local basis, but will also help accelerate our goal to connect the world’s professionals. He is the first country manager in Asia Pacific region for us and reinforces our commitment towards India.”

Hari, 31, is a Business Administration Grad from the INSEAD Business School, Fountainbleau, France. Prior to LinkedIn Hari held the top job at MySpace India which he had taken over last year. Hari brings a huge Experience of about 10 long years in the Industry, having held Significant Posts like VP at Travelguru, Yahoo! India and Cisco. He has also Co-founded Stylkist.com with some of his colleagues at INSEAD.

In a post written by him on the LinkedIn Blog after the induction, he says “In the coming years I believe talent, professionalism, collaboration and networking will play an increasingly important role in sustaining India’s position in the global economy. The years ahead will also be full of great learning and growth for India’s professionals.”

LinkedIn is one of the most used platforms by professionals in India, with High volume searches coming from here. The main Member communities of LinkedIn comes from Software Industry(about 350,000) followed by Telecom Sector(about 100,000). IT Giants in India are major contributors with 38,771 TCS employees, around 30,000 Infosys employees and 28,634 Wipro workers are members of LinkedIn.

The major reason why LinkedIn is favored by Indian Majors is the features being offered, penetration and the level of professionalism. Also as a pleasant change, Recruiters have started using Linked as a medium to hire new employees, as this is, an easy and a very economical platform to converse. The setting up of India shop, proves that company wants to bank on these new trends of Indian Market and use it as an epicenter to conquer professional social media space in South Asia. We at WATBlog wish LinkedIn Good Luck on their future plans for India.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

Internet Comedy – Jay Hind! Gets Advertisers Thinking, Shall We Or Shan’t We?

Abhishek Kapoor — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:32:14 +0000

It all started with ‘The Great Indian Laughter Challenge’ on television where the magic of humor was injected in people’s mind as a daily dose of health ailment. Shekhar Suman on Movers & Shakers before that, was known for his candid remarks on Indian politicians and filmstars on TV with a funny touch. The internet too, hasn’t been far away from this humor brigade contributing in the amusement of its audience.

Well, of course when it has been rated as the most infectious mode of reaching them why not give them something to smile about. If we can have an online shoe rack, we could also afford to watch clowning videos on it. BuzzinTown.com introduced Jay Hind! in collaboration with Undercover Productions who apparently also produced and wrote Movers & Shakers.

Jay Hind! was recently in news for being the first ever internet TV show in hitting the 12 million views mark in just 3 months. And, for obvious reasons they have advertisers queued up at their doorsteps. If compared to Suresh Menon’s chintzy but slapstick jokes, Sumeet Raghvan does a far better job at least when it comes to ravishing his knowledge about ‘what-India-wants?’

Mrinal Jha, Producer of Jay Hind! and co-founder of Undercover Productions says, “The internet is the only entertainment medium where the content is consumed by the audience through a ‘pull’ mechanism. It is also the only medium which has the maximum access points via the mobile phone, desktop or laptop, at home, office or on the go. India is yet to maximise the full potential of this medium and we are glad to be the pioneers in this regard.”

One of the most democratically popular internet diva characters was Savita Bhabhi, until the explicit portal where she gained her stimulating fame was banned. Jay Hind! TV keeps her alive in their show drawing her fans attention in a way telling them that she’s not gone. The Savita Bhabhi scoop in Jay Hind! is called ‘Savita Bhabhi ke Sexy Solutions’, where she continues to circulate her erotic content involving a dame this time imitating her previous titillating cartoon image.

Another interesting part in this show are the unique but pungent disclaimers before they start amusing their audience. Some these disclaimers, in a funny way mentions that the CEO of their company cannot ban this show since Jay Hind has kidnapped his mother. I mean, it’s never easy being cheesy while this one becomes a blockbuster hit among meaningless comedy starving netizens. Some of the other disclaimers are -

The contents of this show are not intended to be factually correct, not meant to arouse suspicion, are not against humanity. country, race, religion, caste, Hitler or any other politicians, we are not in the payroll of alliens or any other socially irresponsible group. Though this show can cause pandemics of the mental kind – we have been certified to be Swine Flu resistant.

This show is not intended to be banned. If you are one of those people who like to ban things, we suggest you entertain yourself with satanic verses, SavitaBhabhi.com or Jaswant Singh’s new book. By watching beyond this point… you give up all claims to ban us.

If this show has been successful in attracting traction, there could be more such attempts of violating internet content for pure purpose of ‘amusement’. But, guess what? This is what the advertisers have been looking for. More views and clicks to their ads no matter what you publish, if someone loves watching frivolous comedy then bring it on! A stand-up comedy show for that, as advertisers need to look at this show from the perspective that it is an alternative to normal TV advertising, but also a little more than a normal internet publicity. BuzzinTown’s Managind Director, Dr Amitabh Saran said in an exclusive interview with WATBlog, “What can be more lucrative than Entertainment? It’s the LARGEST growing sector, in India and globally! It’s growing faster than our GDP, its being consumed faster than new stuff can be created!”

Exclusive Interview With Dr. Amitabh Saran – Co-founder & MD, BuzzinTown.com

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

Google V/s Bing… The Heat Is On!

Prateek Waghre — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:34:14 +0000

On 3rd June 2009, the world watched with peered eyes, whether the latest product from Microsoft’s stable could challenge Google’s search supremacy. While Bing did generate a substantial amount if interest and arouse curiosity, the sheen seems to be wearing off. Bing slipped in October for the first time since its launch. See here

Over the last few months, the two have traded blows in terms in search features. From map integration, translation tools, computational search to social media searches and real time search results! But last week, we saw what could be the beginning of a new Chapter in this battle for search supremacy.

In an interview to Sky News, Rupert Murdoch stated that he wanted to block traffic from sites like Google. He said, “We’d rather have fewer people coming to our Websites, but paying.” This presents a unique opportunity to Bing, which has thus far had limited success in capturing the imagination of content searchers. To stir up the content providers, essentially approaching this war from the other end.

Another significant move from Microsoft came quickly after Bing shed its Beta tag. Pitches were made to top publications across Europe with the intention of weaning them away from the Google camp. It is probably no secret that many are not happy with Google’s “you are either in our index or not in it” policy. Which means that all data/content will be indexed by Google. With this in mind Microsoft is likely to provide financial backing to the development of Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP).

The result would be that search engines will have a restricted or controlled access to content. Thus shifting the balance of power towards the content provider. Publications and Media Houses that house paid content are likely to adopt this. Giving Google two options, drop their policy or drop the sites. If they choose the latter, and Bing picks them up. How many people will tempted to switch to Bing knowing that major content providers would no longer show up with Google?

Any immediate development on this is unlikely. But we know that the battlelines are constantly being drawn and redrawn. It will be very interesting to see how things pan out in the future.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

WATFive: Twitter-Facebook Traffic Stats, Yahoo’s New IM, Google Lighter Factor, Transmute, MobileFacebook

Raghav Soni — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:53:57 +0000

Facebook U.S Traffic Up,Twitter & Myspace sees decline

Facebook’s viral nature is doing wonders for it as it is growing steadily in U.S market at a time when Myspace and Twitter are facing jolt in their growth rates. The latest ComScore and other analytical data points at decline in Twitter’s monthly traffic for October.

Twitter’s total U.S visitors on site was down by 8 per cent at 19.2 million in October compared to 20.9 million in September.The traffic on an annual basis is up whopping 1271 Per cent.Facebook’s total unique was up by 4 per cent at 97.4 million while for Myspace it was slightly down at 64 million.

The Twitter’s stagnating phase in U.S Market does not mean overall dip in traffic as the service is finding mainstream usage in many other countries.Facebook certainly is dominating U.S social charts and it needs to be seen – How long Myspace takes to end its loosing spree?

(Via InsideFacebook – Img courtesy)

Google hints at Penalizing Site Publishers for heavy Web pages

It seems webmasters will have one more weighted ranking factor to consider while optimizing the site for Google. Google has hinted that it would make site’s page size a major ranking factor somewhere in 2010.

Google currently has more than 200+ factors at play to judge ratings of Site & Links. This addition if implemented in future will see site owners pushing for lighter pages in order to avoid any ranking penalty. Although lowering of size page increases Ad revenues and page views.

Google has always been trying to make its search page lighter & faster now it seems Google is looking at other ways to improve users experience. Google at the same time could expect to see a little jump in revenues from Adsense as majority of publishers use its Ad network and lowering page will increase the CTR’s of Ads.

(Via Search Engine Land)

Yahoo launches New messenger with various Social Media Features

Yahoo’s renewed interest is widely know through their recent revamp but now it seems those features are getting seen on its desktop messenger.Yahoo has announced that its new Messenger is now publicly available with addition of many social features.

The big features include support for social streaming allowing users to see what their contacts are doing on Twitter,last.fm and Yahoo buzz.The service also allows users to reply to contacts updates inline with status message thus saving time.

The other features includes addition of high quality along with better synchronized sound quality.Yahoo is definitely trying hard to make its users more stickier to its services by allowing access to plethora of social services. Perhaps this strategy of providing Open access to other social services can work better rather than competing with one.

Get it here.

(Via DownloadSquad)

Transmute – Transfer Bookmarks Between Any Browser

Transferring bookmarks is a pain as many new browsers like Chrome do not support inter-synching of bookmarks with another browsers. Despite availability of tools like delicious extensions, X-marks bookmarks are not easily transferable. Transmute can transfer bookmarks from one browser to another with a lot of ease.

Transmute is a pretty nifty tool to transfer bookmarks by choosing the source and destination browsers and does not require any manual exporting of bookmarks. It does so by transferring & overwriting bookmark file in applicable format.

(Via makeuseof )

MobileFacebook: Use Facebook Mobile version on Desktop

Twitter & Facebook are seeing surge in usage from all sorts of desktop and email apps. MobileFacebook, an AIR app allows us to use Facebook’s simplified mobile version from Desktop. It basically emulates iPhone interface to easily send updates and check News Feeds.

The app despite its mobile interface provides enough function than just News feed and Status update.To use this App make sure you have Adobe AIR installed.Other notable desktop clients for Facebook includes Digsby, Seesmic .

(Via Life Rocks 2.0)

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

Know-Hows In Marketing, To-Dos’ In Strategies – Indian IT Cos’

Tapan K Mukherjee — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:07:46 +0000

The most worrying thought which comes across any employee of an Indian IT company is the thought of his ‘performance’. And one’s performance criterion has got to be unique from others, because every IT Co. deals with a different set of clients, channel partners, promotions techniques, competitors, etc. And, this is exactly where one should understand the need of marketing strategies.

In one of the most fiercely competitive markets, in other words it is known as the Indian IT Companies, they focus on integrating customers, channel partners and a company’s needs. Balancing, has always been a difficult task and it gets more tougher when there are different needs of all the important elements above discussed. Adding on to the list, a company has have a keen watch on what their competitors are doing and then come up with innovative techniques every now and then to safeguard their own interests and customer base. So how can a company succeed and thrive in a competitive market?

The way companies are marketing online would just be one aspect to the holistic solution. The bigger solution over here lies in understanding the motive that a company is trying to achieve by implementing its marketing, strategy and both combined i.e. Marketing Strategy.

The To-Dos’ Strategic intents for Indian IT Companies have always been -

Increasing Revenue & Turnover.
Improving Brand Positioning & Creation of Loyalty.
Delivering Satisfaction to Channel Partners and Customers.
Exploration of New Markets by focusing on Product Development
Increasing Brand Value by focusing on Marketing Communications

Nothing wrong in the above To-Dos’. But, I just develop a feeling that expectations have run high for it to “change everything”. A McKinsey survey of marketing executives from around the world shows that in marketing, things are starting to change: companies are moving online across the spectrum of marketing activities, from building awareness to after-sales service, and they see online tools as an important and effective component of their marketing strategies.

Moving across to what should be the Marketing Implementations of IT Companies -

1. Select a narrow audience. This is how you can ‘focus and deliver’ to a need. Trying to target a broad base will not only make u spend more to reach them, but the chances of being successful with your service offering also reduces. The service offering being directed at the niche audience should be sharply directed and be in sync with the current market economics.

2. Influencing the potential buyer is half the job done. Media, Promotions & Developing relations with Analyst firms and Sourcing advisors help in influencing the client’s perception significantly. Building up a strategy to invest in these relationships in the downturn is a smart decision and often reaps higher dividends.

3. Act Virtual by investing into what most people say as the ‘Wild West’ of Marketing, Social Media. Agreed, that measurement of reach, revenue models etc. are still unclear, but to connect to the audience, it is the numero uno in today’s world. It also represents a message that a company is changing their approach and shows that ‘Continuous Development’ is not merely a jargon in the company’s vision statement.

4. Last but by no means the least, Building Trust among your clients / customers is the only way a business can keep on growing. Trust should be the No.1 priority for all IT Companies as the times are such when we hear and are witness to so many frauds and corruption practices, but Intelligent Marketers have to lead the way by devising a clear cut Strategy and thus look to determine the destiny of their organizations.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

Go! SPeeDY With Chrome: Google On A Roll!

Yash Gandhi — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:36:47 +0000

It seems Google’s going too bullish this week with some grand announcements coming from the Google Factory. Earlier we informed you about the not-so-far-away launch of Google Chrome operating system, In addition to that Google also announced the rolling out of their very own Programming Language – Go, with its cute mascot called the Go-gopher.

If that wasn’t enough, there was another announcement about a new protocol being developed as a project at google labs called SPDY (Read SPeeDY) which, if successful will make internet browsing twice, yes you heard it right, twice as fast as the current protocol(HTTP) offers. I’m not sure if I’m missing some other announcement coming from the Global Major.

Go!

Programmers at Google thought the current coding languages too complex for simple tasks(simple, by their standards, may be Herculean for us). So they did what Google has always been known for, create a new improvised product which is superior to anything which already exists(remember, Chrome the Browser). And according to Google, Go! is not just Superior and easy, its fun as well. Simply its the same reason why we speak in English, Hindi or Marathi rather than conversing in cave language.

If you are a coder yourself, go check their website for details and the free download. But for our other readers, This language is a happy improvement over other good programming languages, which were themselves developed more than a decade ago. Data today is huge in proportions, and requires huge coding to develop an efficient system.

If we can write the same codes in small and more coder friendly way, the whole ‘environment’ becomes healthy and efficient. I guess thats what Go aims to do, increase the current theoretical output by about 1.5 times. Now We need to wait for the approval of coders for Go! to have a go, if you know what I mean.

SPDY

Other major announcement that Google made via their Chromium Blog was an early stage Research Project called SPDY(read SPeeDY) which as they call is ‘an Application-layer protocol for transporting content over the web’. Simply, Google’s aim over here is to get an improvement over HTTP, which is a standard protocol used across the globe to access internet since 1996.

As it sounds from the blog’s tone, Google thinks HTTP has now grown old and has done its job to the best of its ability and now needs to retire as your old uncle will do when he reaches that age. After all 13 years is a long time in cyberspace for getting something as basic as a protocol to get replaced. Google claims to have had done test runs of the new protocol on Google Chrome clients with SPDY support in ‘Laboratory conditions’ and have achieved 55% faster speeds in downloading top 25 websites.

Their aim is to achieve 100% increment in speeds, which may be possible with some more tweeks in the current code. Also, to assess the performance in ‘real world’ situations. If google succeeds, it would virtually become the uncrowned king of innovation in technology.

Google is having many more projects in pipeline, which aim at changing the way the world uses their computers. Is Microsoft listening?

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

WWW: WAT Weekly WrapUp 9th – 15th November

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:35:55 +0000

Last week was a week of some big announcements both global and Indian. On the global front Google Acquired Admob For $750 Million also Blackberry launched App Store For India. Closer to home More comics were launched on mobile as Chacha Chaudhary Comics Went Mobile Via Rediff, Two new agencies were launched in Blazar and C2WDigital. We did some exclusive interviews as well with Pearl Uppal Ex-Yahoo & Current CEO Of Fashionandyou.com, and Manish Vij – Co-Founder SITG On Blazar . We also launched a new roundup series of WATFive which is Your Daily Guide To Web, Advertising & Technology News.

This and lots more in last weeks stories.. Do go through them below:

Posts via WATBlog.com

Press Releases via WATPR.com

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

Saturday Startup Review: BillsReminder.com – Now Remind Yourself To Collect Your Money

Rajiv Dingra — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 09:04:47 +0000

This is part of an ongoing startup review series supported by our sponsors Sun Startup Essentials.

Startup: Billsreminder.com

All entrepreneurs would agree that collections is a single largest problem they face. Given how many bills we deal with in our lifetime its surely quite a tough job to remember different due dates and constantly remind our customers to pay them up. This is exactly the pain point that our startup for today is looking to solve.

One sentence description: A easy to use bill reminder service

About Startup: BillsReminder is a product by the startup Flexiidea based out of mumbai. Billsreminder is a service which lets you import dates and details of your bills and set alerts as reminders for their due dates for collection.

About Founders: The company is founded Vivek Khurana, Gaurav Manik, Shachii Manik who come from having worked in some of the world’s major technology and service organizations

Funding Status: Not known

WAT’s HOT: This is a big pain point especially for SME’s in India and this service can surely help them become more streamlined with their bill collections. The features of the service are also very user friendly and one can easily add customers and bills and also check for how long each bill has been pending.

WAT’s NOT: Challenges include he fact that this product on its own cannot generate enough revenue. It needs to be bundled with a suite of products. Also in terms of real value it would be smart if there offered complete bills management i.e. both receivables and payments. From what I see from the trial version only receivables are being focused on as of now which is quite a narrow focus.

If you would like your startup reviewed email us at info(at)watblog(dot)com

—-

This Startup Review Series Is Supported By

About Sun StartUp Essentials Program:

Joining is free and there are no hidden agenda’s. What Startups get on joining the program

Free Technology Consultation from Sun Engineering team. Help on architectural level issues , porting , benchmarking , scaling issues etc.
Deeply discounted Sun Systems and Storage products
Discounted web hosting from our Web Hosting partners
Open Source Software

Know more here

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

IMI Mobile Raises $13 Million In Funding From Sequoia Capital

Raghav Soni — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:40:58 +0000

The funding is surely coming easy for mobile VAS providers, it seems as One97 just few days ago announced their plans to go public and now IMI mobile, another VAS provider announced their funding updates. IMI mobile has raised funds to the tune of $13 million from Sequoia Capital and existing investors First Mark Capital.

IMI mobile is looking at major global acquisitions through the latest infusion of funds and as such been focusing on overseas market for quite some time. The company recently tied up with MTN to provide its proprietary service delivery network to African telco.

According to Vishwanath Alluri, IMI mobile, “The VC funding will be used to make acquisitions in Europe and the US. We are targeting to close one buyout by calendar 2010. The new financing will enable us to develop our cloud infrastructure for Tier 1 telecom operators and allow us to expand our customer base .”

IMI mobile provides VAS products to cater general audiences through song downloads service and exam results ,it also facilitates Mobile advertising through Ad ring.The company serves telcos with its integrated Content Management System and delivery network services to minimize the time taken to take new services to the market.

Mobile VAS is a $1.5 billion industry in India at just 7 % of total telecom services market. Big VAS Companies like On Mobile Global, One 97 and IMI mobile has been catering global audiences through their International acquisitions for quite some time now.

The recent fund raising exercises undertaken by MVAS companies showcase their organic plans for growth and their quest to increase their product offerings to consumers. Mobile VAS industry in India at present is at very nascent stage and as such will continue to see growth and renewed interest from private equity players.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

Google Chrome OS Download Could Be Just A Week Away!

Prateek Waghre — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:12:43 +0000

If Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has his sources in place, it seems likely that the much talked about Google Chrome OS could be available for download in a week. Yes, that’s right a week!

Ever since the project was announced in July, experts have debated what Google’s ‘New Era’ OS would be like. There have been ‘alleged’ screenshots and even ‘fake’ torrents doing the rounds on the internet. The wait could be over, there is a catch however. Only those with supported devices will be able to use this version. The company had announced earlier that it is working with the likes of Acer, HP, Freescale, Adobe, Qualcomm, ASUS, Texas Instruments and Toshiba.

There is also concern over the availability of hardware drivers as it is believed that Google is leaving that task to the hardware manufacturers.

Chrome OS is expected to rely heavily on web apps for most of its functioning, a kind of ’switch-on OS’ instead of the ‘boot-up OS’ that we are all accustomed to. It will also be interesting to see how different this will be from the Android capable netbooks that are currently in the market. Experts have expressed some disappointment stating that they do not have enough control over the machine. Than again,these ‘Experts’ are unlikely to use netbooks.

Will Chrome OS be able to strike a balance between the power of the computer and the power of the internet?

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

GSM Subscriber Base Higher By 10.3 Million In October

Raghav Soni — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:26:03 +0000

The action witnessed in telecom tariffs in recent past seems to have provided a boost to net subscriber addition count for GSM telephony. The total subscriber base in October was seen higher by 10.32 million compared to 9.03 million recorded in September. The total GSM subscriber base stood at 355.2 million in October.

Vodafone Essar recorded the highest net additions of 2.98 million and seen subscriber count at 85.8 million subscribers. Bharti Airtel added 2.7 million subscribers and seems to be loosing race in acquiring new subscriber base despite being the largest telco in India with base of 113.2 million.

Idea seems to have performed exceptionally well with net additions of 1.9 million whereas BSNL could add just 0.6 million new subscribers. Aircel also added 2 million subscribe against 1.3 million added in September. The October figures for Reliance telecom, the newest entrant in the GSM space were not disclosed but it certainly looks that despite waging a price war with ‘50 Paisa scheme’ it couldn’t have outperform its peers.

The telecom growth rate will continue to soar but does signal a change in dynamics of ‘big’ Telecom operators’ growth rates. Biggies like Bharti are finding it tough to maintain their growth rate at a time when new entrants are cropping up with better tariff pricing.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

SMS Based IM, Social networking – The Next Killer App For Indian Mobile?

Pradeep Kumar — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:56:47 +0000

Couple of years ago I stumbled on an idea of SMS based IM and social networking, though the idea gave me goose bumps with the extent of potential market, I was eventually convinced that mobile internet will be the thing, partly because I was already working on a mobile internet based idea and left only repenting now.

Nokia Research and other’s (including a San Deigo based startup called ShorthandMobile) are reportedly working on text based IM and Social networking applications. This is a smart move on part of Nokia, because India which is the second largest market for the company has a great penetration of SMS services and SMS based IM/Social networking might just be the next killer application for this market.

“We Meet”, the first product of this kind to be rolled out by Nokia reportedly could be used by families, groups of friends or small businesses. Users can create chat groups from their contact lists and communicate by sending text messages. The software “threads” the messages in chronological order, making it easy to follow the conversation. The best part of the application will be it’s location awareness without the use of GPS,which will be a great value addition to the mid to low segment phones which form a greater segment of the mobile device market. “We want to bring Internet-type services to people and see how they adopt them,” says Nokia researcher Umesh Chandra as quoted by Forbes.

With no chasm to cross and with a market where there’s a great preference for SMS to Mobile Internet, text based IM/Social networking forms a strong contender for the next Killer Application on Mobile and what will make “We meet” more than interesting is it’s device presence.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

Now Google Expresses Interest In UID – How Will The Project Benefit From This?

Pranav Agarwal — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:56:51 +0000

Just yesterday, we saw Yahoo being interested in the Unique Identification Project. As quoted by Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz, “We met the Prime Minister today and discussed among other things, how Yahoo can help the Government in the project.” Looks like several more giants will be coming in soon.

As said in our last post, under such circumstances when everyone has expressed their interests, then how could Google just sit and stare. It started with Microsoft wishing to help the Government in the UID project followed by Intel, Yahoo and now its none other than Google.

Google has also made it clear that they are interested to play a major role in the forthcoming project. There are several reasons as to why such tech giants are interested in this project. Huge databases to organize the Unique ID’s, integration with different Governmental agencies and the online authentication makes it much more than just a project because of which such tech-giants are keen enough to be a part of of it.

Google India said that they were in talks with the Indian authorities. “We are good at software development, hosting data on massive scale, and have the capability to run systems and services without being concerned about latency issues. In fact, we run the largest computing platform, and that can be helpful,” Mr Rao said.

In addition to this, Mr. Rao also emphasized on the fact that they have built the Voice- Based Search technology that may help recognize Indian accents clearly indicating that Google has all the expertise that one may need in a project on such a large scale.

Although nothing has been confirmed by Mr. Nilekani as to which company or companies are going to be involved after so many tech giants have expressed their interests, he must be happy to see all of them ready to come along and as he said recently, “Yahoo and other Internet companies such as Amazon and Google have built massive Internet applications which support millions of users… When one looks at a project the scale of UID, it is good to share such experiences.”

With Google in the list, UID seems to be getting all the attention it needed. Needless to say, because of such big names being associated with the project, one can definitely say that whoever be involved, the project is going to be a success.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

Manish Vij – Co-Founder SITG On Blazar & Future Of Digital Advertising In India

Rajiv Dingra — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:42:15 +0000

Recently Quasar which is a digital agency which was acquired by the WPP group launched another agency by the name, Blazar. Now its not uncommon in the traditional agencies to launch new smaller agencies servicing a niche but its probably the first time such a move was made in the digital space. Hence we spoke to Manish Vij – Co-founder SITG on the need for Blazar and also the future of digital ad agencies in India.

1) Why Blazar?

We have launched Blazar for two reasons:

To garner more market share
To benefit from a smaller ecosystem

My belief is that smaller ecosystem benefits client servicing and creative innovation which is the need of digital today. Small ecosystems allows closer connection with clients as Larger ecosystems are more process driven. Innovation is digital is the key need of today.

2) What is the USP of Blazar vs Quasar?

Digital is still a peoples business and if you want to scale you would need great people across the board. Blazar will evolve with its own set of USP’s. Media buying for Quasar and Blazar will be consolidated at the group level but on the creative side smaller agencies will be as good as larger agencies and that’s what we want to leverage by launching a smaller ecosystem.

3) Who owns Blazar?

Blazar is owned by Quasar and is like a subsidiary of Quasar and the stake holding pattern is the same like it is for Quasar.

4) How big will Blazar be in the next 6 months?

Blazar to be a 20-25 people agency in the next 6 months.

5) What is the future of Digital advertising in India?

I certainly believe that Digital is not just about Display and it wont also not only be about Social Media. Now is the time is when we have to integrate all aspects of digital and give clients a consolidated approach to digital. The real problem is that all clients want to see how digital is affecting their business. They can see that with TV Print and Radio. That can only happen when all aspects of digital are served to clients in one platter.

6) Do you think an agency has the capability to deliver all aspects of digital?

The brand custodian on the digital end needs to be one agency. Now the brand agency may decide to outsource parts of the whole campaign to service providers.

7) Is there value for creative expertise and consulting in digital agencies?

Value to creative talent in digital is non existent Today but we do believe that it will exist tomorrow. We are investing in creative talent which is ofcourse expensive and hence thats where the small and big difference comes in. If digital needs to demand 10-15% of a clients budgets then there needs be a creative strategy and a single brand custodian executing the same.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

Full Access To Tenders For FREE – IndiaMART’s Latest Gimmick

seema — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:53:05 +0000

As I predicted in our previous post on TradeIndia that soon IndiaMART will be in news. Here comes news from IndiaMART platform. They are now starting focusing on its Tenders portal (which was not in limelight earlier). They have opened all the doors for getting tender notification. Now, members will have full access to government & private tenders from all across the India. No need to subscribe for getting the full access, its available for FREE.

After sourcing guide, IndiaMART is now offering FREE tender notification service. Currently, they have database of more than 50,000 live tenders. Earlier, member has to pay around 2000-3000 Rs. for giving 3 months access.

Mr. Dinesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, IndiaMART.com says that they are always serving its customers the best business services and by giving free full access to tenders they are helping SMEs who use tenders as instruments for their business growth.

IndiaMART is sacrificing the revenue generated through subscription for getting more traffic and this portal will also generate revenue through advertising only. These days IndiaMART is giving free service on its many portals like ClickIndia, Mega Sourcing Portal and now tender notification portal. However, its global tender notification portal is still working on subscription based model.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

India Lose ODI Series, But Vdopia Blessed With CricketNirvana

Abhishek Kapoor — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:27:01 +0000

Whatever the outcome of the India Vs Australia ODI series, fans got a run for their money as they got to watch some close encounters. Although disappointed at the end, what more can you ask from a thriller cricket game? Come to think of it, online video monetization during such huge events seems interesting to watch. ‘Huge’ because needless to say, cricket in India knows no limits which marks a bang on deal for video content be it online or via mobile. And, advertisers are all stirred up for more such tournaments lined up featuring India, which holds the key.

Nimbus Communications’ CricketNirvana.com has been one of the most bang-up destinations visited by a cricket fan online to know live scores and analysis. In the recent past, news breeds Vdopia partnering with CricketNirvana.com for providing free premium content to all the cricket buffs, besides also catering leading brands a platform to reach their target audience.

“Our partnership with Vdopia is a combination of the best cricket coverage with world class technology. Vdopia Ads are complimenting the TV Campaigns and are now a must buy for marketers. We provide brands a unique opportunity to leverage the biggest online video platform right now and take advantage of the ongoing cricket fever,” said Sumit Luthra, VP, New Media, Nimbus Communications Ltd. The online video market pumped up compared to other forms of content online, gives a massive opportunity for brands to reach and engross their target audience. Content owners will leverage the medium to complement and add to their existing revenue streams.

Vdopia is one such enterprise which is an online video advertising network company has made it big during the recent cricketing extravaganza as told by their co-founder Saurabh Bhatia in an exclusive interview with WATBlog. “Recently concluded Compaq Cup which India won in the finals, we did live streaming insertion and the results were truly amazing, both in terms of the advertiser’s response and in terms of audience response. We have received a huge encouragement from that,” said Saurabh. The discussion also included utilisation of the $4 Million Series-A Funding for Vdopia raised from Nexus Venture Partners. Thier key strategy being going across all the TV channels and make sure that entire content is available on TV, the CricketNirvana tie-up will be a great push keeping in mind the Neo Cricket contract by BCCI.

The BCCI gave TV rights to Nimbus for another four-year term starting April 2010. This means that the global media rights to Nimbus Communications for all international and domestic cricket owned or controlled by BCCI to be played in India over the next four years will be telecasted by Neo Cricket. This is a good sign for Vdopia as TV channels have an great potential of monetization for the Publishers. Ab Dekh Lega India (Now India Will Watch)!

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

Exclusive Interview With Pearl Uppal Ex-Yahoo & Current CEO Of Fashionandyou.com

Rajiv Dingra — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:45:28 +0000

Pearl Uppal is in the news lately for quitting Yahoo as Sales Director and then announcing her new venture in association with Harish Bahl of SITG. The new venture is in the online retail space and is called Fashionandyou.com. Fashionandyou.com is expected to launch on the 16th of November. We did an interview with Pearl to know why she turned entrepreneur and what is Fashionandyou all about. Here is our exclusive interview.

1) What made you decide that you wanted to start your own venture?

The thought of going entrepreneurial had crossed my mind several times in the last 2 years. I was sure I wanted to create value in the internet industry, but did not feel enthused about the idea of continuing in the digital advertising space. No particular opportunity caught my attention and interest till I came across the online private sale model. This business model serves a real gap that exits both for consumer and for the brands in luxury and high fashion space. I believe this model will be a big success in India like it has been in other parts of the world. Also, I found a great partner in Harish Bahl and strong co founder partners in Rahul Narvekar and Aakash Goel. Everything came together in a very nice way and I took the leap.

2) What is Fashionandyou.com? What Value it provides? Who does it cater to? What is the business model?

Fashion and You is a private shopping club which provides it members with access, to coveted fashion and luxury brands at insider prices. Membership is by invitation only and our members will get to access high fashion brands at upto70% off retail. Each sale event on our website will be a limited-time event and will last only 2 -3 days. Members will be notified by an email in advance of each upcoming sale event. We partner directly with designer brands across fashion apparel, accessories and stylish home ware. We hand select the merchandize to ensure the best product assortment for each sale event. We ship the orders from our warehouse to the customer to ensure the last mile is well taken care of. For consumers who love these brands, this is a great new way to buy. Who does not love high quality at a good price?

For our brand partners, our private sale model offers an effective way to sell without risking brand dilution as these special prices are offered only to a closed group of Fashion and You members. Fashion and You also ensures that our online retail experience and post sales support is best of class and reflective of the brand equity that our partner brands command.

3) Why did you choose to work with SITG – Harish Bahl? Benefits of working with them?

Harish Bahl is a founder and investor in Fashion and You in his private capacity and not as SITG. He holds the post of Chairman of Fashion and You and continues to be Founder & CEO of SITG. I have always admired his entrepreneurial vision and courage. It just so happened that we met and discussed this business idea and realized that there was an opportunity to join hands to give this shape and scale. He brings with him strong entrepreneurial experience and success. He has incubated several companies successfully. That experience is extremely valuable for Fashion and You. As individuals, Harish and I complement each other’s skill sets to make a formidable team.

4) What is the 3 year vision for Fashionandyou.com?

The learning and know-how that our global brand alliance brings, plus the diversified experience of our operating management team, positions us well to scale effectively with speed. Our plan is to be a significant sales channel for high fashion brands contributing to atleast 10% of their sales in India by 2011. Our vision is to be the undisputed leader in online fashion and luxury retail and a leading player in the India ecommerce space.

5) What is the current team size of Fashionandyou? Are you looking at hiring?

We are around 20 people right now and aggressively hiring key talent from fashion, retail, marketing and IT industries. We have positions open across our merchandizing, logistics, consumer marketing, editorial, production studio ( fashion photographers, stylists, studio manager) and IT functions.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

WATFive: Google-Worldbank, Facebook Ads API, Microsoft-ComScore, Mobile Checker & ForwardOn

Raghav Soni — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:05:43 +0000

As promised here is your daily dose of WATFive news stories:

Google - World Bank to counter Microsoft-Wolfram Aplha Partnership

It seems all the Google competitors unable to beat its prowess are finally turning into bargain hunters to remain afloat. Its only been a day since Microsoft tied-up with Wolfram Alpha data to enhance Bing’s results and Google is already turning tables by forging similar informal tie-up with World Bank. Try this : Internet Users in India

Google has started to display graphs from World Bank for queries related to population and other demographics stats. Google in the past has been busy adding many new data sets to its results with alliances ranging from U.S. Bureau’s to many regional NGO’s. The aspiration to archive and serve greater content do not ends here as Google has also said,”there are still many other data sets and sources out there, and we’re excited about the possibilities for the future.” and has asked data publisher to come forward with alliances.

So it seems the days of finding correct statistical data will just be a search away and Search engine giant is definitely learning few lessons from its fading competitors. So one question arises in my mind – why did wolfram alpha fail in the first place? Its only because people don’t just want data they want data with other useful links and sources.

(Via ReadWriteWeb )

Facebook to launch Ads API shortly, Will It Increase Ad revenues?

Its no doubt that opening up of API’s increase the user interactivity surrounding a portal but can it increase revenues too atleast Facebook thinks so. Facebook will soon be launching an API for its ads platform allowing large advertisers to automate the process of launching ads on Facebook.

Facebook has already launched a Wiki explaining the Ads API . The opening up of API on biggest social network may see big advertisers increasing their ads spends as they get more freedom in targeting and launching hundreds of campaigns at the same time. The advertisers can also maximum ROI by running multiple Ad campaigns with different targeting.

This opening up of Ads API would see increased activity from social app-advertising networks and media agencies. The New API is currently in beta and is already in testing. Facebook is definitely trying to earn bigger pie of Online ad spending as small advertisers are more than adequately served through existing Ad platform.

(Via Inside Facebook )

Microsoft Ties up with ComScore to exploit in-game advertising opportunities

Microsoft definitely has upper hand in gaming through its consoles and PC initiatives. Now it wants to leverage its massive division(gaming) to make a mark on in-game advertising space. They have tied-up with ComScore to measure the receptive nature of console owners and game players towards in–game advertising.

Microsoft wants to analyze the data with help of user consent and anonymous data tracking through the online surfing patterns of user with the help of gamertags. ComScore currently has 2 million volunteers to track enough data regarding the surfing patterns of the gaming users. Microsoft will thus measure the user response to in-game advertising with their surfing data thus measuring the effectiveness of the ads shown.

In-game advertising could be deemed as intrusive but it seems to have worked well for social gaming apps.As far as in-game advertising on consoles and PC games are concerned not enough data is known regarding the user reluctance to see ads.The in-game advertising may become the norm in future as traditional gaming is seen merging with social browsing.

(Via Venturebeat )

Mobile-Ok-Checker:Validate your Mobile site

Site validation tools are webmasters friend as they allow them to take out a simplest of HTML and other errors making the web page universally viewable.For mobile its a different game as most of the web sites do not have a dedicated mobile site. This might just change as Ad revenues starts to flow in mobile advertising attracting publishers to join the fray.

Mobile Ok checker is a W3C powered tool which helps publishers to test the mobile-friendliness of any mobile site.To check out if your mobile site is compatible to mobile W3C definitions visit Mobile Ok Checker, Input the site’s mobile address and Click ‘Check’ Button. The resulting page tells you if your site is really mobile-friendly.

(Via makeuseof )

ForwardOn: Share your mails via a web page

Most of the time we get some funny or meaningful mails which we want to show off to the world. We are limited by options as either to go with micro-blogging services like posterous or forward the mails to groups. ForwardOn seems to have a solution as it allows you to showcase your emails on a public page viewable by anyone with just forwarding it to : share [at] forwardon [dot] com.

User can share anything from Videos, Pictures, audio and document files. The service could be effectively used as a archive for certain newsletters or personal memories.The service also allows to notify friends in regards to new shares. ForwardOn could be an effective way to share suspicious or interesting mails with the world.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

One97 Going For An IPO – To Raise $100 million

Pradeep Kumar — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:34:29 +0000

One97 communications, the provider of India’s largest deployed telecom application platform is reportedly planning to go for an IPO in 2010, One97 will use these additional funds for its exapansion plans both in India and abroad. This is the second vas player after Onmobile which will look to be a listed entity in India.

One97 has earlier raised around $28 million in funding from SAIF partners, Intel capital and Silicon Valley Bank since 2007,”We plan to give our stakeholders the right amount of return on investment and liquidity at the right time. We may look at raising up to $100 million” said Vijay shekhar sharma, MD One97 communications as quoted on Vccircle.

One97 has been a leading VAS provider in India with a range of products and services catering to consumer and corporate clients, it’s corporate clientele includes Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Tata Indicom, among otherrs. Planning to expand its workforce from 750 to 1000 by the end of the fiscal year, the company is expecting revenues around $30 million this year and $100 million in next two years.

Online companies have been known to make big IPO announcements earlier and then backtrack due to tough market conditions. Lets hope for One97’s sake this one sees the light of the day.

Our Network: WATShow.com | WATJob.com | WATGame.com | WATPR.com

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

Will Microsoft’s Suicidal Attempt Change Search Engine Dynamics Forever?

Related Posts

Ex-MySpace Hari Krishnan Bags Top Job At LinkedIn India Operations

Related Posts

Internet Comedy – Jay Hind! Gets Advertisers Thinking, Shall We Or Shan’t We?

Related Posts

Google V/s Bing… The Heat Is On!

Related Posts

WATFive: Twitter-Facebook Traffic Stats, Yahoo’s New IM, Google Lighter Factor, Transmute, MobileFacebook

Facebook U.S Traffic Up,Twitter & Myspace sees decline

Google hints at Penalizing Site Publishers for heavy Web pages

Yahoo launches New messenger with various Social Media Features

Transmute – Transfer Bookmarks Between Any Browser

MobileFacebook: Use Facebook Mobile version on Desktop

Related Posts

Know-Hows In Marketing, To-Dos’ In Strategies – Indian IT Cos’

Related Posts

Go! SPeeDY With Chrome: Google On A Roll!

Related Posts

WWW: WAT Weekly WrapUp 9th – 15th November

Related Posts

Saturday Startup Review: BillsReminder.com – Now Remind Yourself To Collect Your Money

This is part of an ongoing startup review series supported by our sponsors Sun Startup Essentials.

Related Posts

IMI Mobile Raises $13 Million In Funding From Sequoia Capital

Related Posts

Google Chrome OS Download Could Be Just A Week Away!

Related Posts

GSM Subscriber Base Higher By 10.3 Million In October

Related Posts

SMS Based IM, Social networking – The Next Killer App For Indian Mobile?

Related Posts

Now Google Expresses Interest In UID – How Will The Project Benefit From This?

Related Posts

Manish Vij – Co-Founder SITG On Blazar & Future Of Digital Advertising In India

Related Posts

Full Access To Tenders For FREE – IndiaMART’s Latest Gimmick

Related Posts

India Lose ODI Series, But Vdopia Blessed With CricketNirvana

Related Posts

Exclusive Interview With Pearl Uppal Ex-Yahoo & Current CEO Of Fashionandyou.com

Related Posts

WATFive: Google-Worldbank, Facebook Ads API, Microsoft-ComScore, Mobile Checker & ForwardOn

As promised here is your daily dose of WATFive news stories:

Google - World Bank to counter Microsoft-Wolfram Aplha Partnership

Facebook to launch Ads API shortly, Will It Increase Ad revenues?

Microsoft Ties up with ComScore to exploit in-game advertising opportunities

Mobile-Ok-Checker:Validate your Mobile site

ForwardOn: Share your mails via a web page

Related Posts

One97 Going For An IPO – To Raise $100 million

Related Posts