Lipik.in - online document authoring in Hindi
Lipik is a new, awesome online document authoring tool for Hindi users. It is a complete end to end online authoring system in the sense that you can create an account, author a document (in Hindi or English), save the document to your account, download the document and resume editing previously saved documents.
The editor has an integrated predictive input system, which anticipates the next user input making it easier and faster to author the document in Hindi. A user can input using either the keyboard or the mouse (& online keyboard map). Another great feature of the tool is that it highlights the keyboard keys, it thinks you are most likely to use next.
Time for a coffee break - BrewHaHa
BrewHaHa is one of the hottest cafe’s in Bangalore currently. Started by two IIMA graduates - Sreeram and Mansur (Mansur is a fellow RECTian - hi Mansur !!), they seem to have found a great way of reaching out to the target audience. Instead of cafe, they prefer to called as the ‘community driven entertainment lounge’. Games, quizzes, workshops, live music - these guys seem to be going for it all.
Also, check out their blog, where they plan to share their startup experiences. One of the posts discusses how they thought they were well versed in the art of negotiation, thanks to the IIMA education. Real world negotiations made them realize otherwise.
Indian portals plan 3D Avatars
3D gaming and virtual worlds are the craze world over. At one time Second Life ruled over the 3D virtual world landscape. Now, several others like Habbo Hotel, Zwinky, Gaia Online, CyWorld have emerged, making the virtual world and 3D avatar ripe with buzz and activity. Just yesterday, Susan Wu, a Principal with Charles River Ventures, announced the launch of the Virtual Goods Summit.
And now it seems that Indian portals are hit by the 3D avatar and virtual world bug. In a story on FE, Rediff and Zapak admit that they are toying with the idea and hope to announce something in the next couple of months. Zapak.com plans to come out with a range of avatars in about two months after extensive testing in internet cafes and with about 50 games. “Avatars are the stickiest of applications and we estimate avatars will help us grow by 30-35%,†says Rohit Sharma, COO Zapak.com.
Mundu Radio wins CNET ‘Webware 100′ award
Geodesic’s Mundu Radio has been shortlisted as one of the winners of the CNET Webware 100 companies in the mobile category. The “Webware 100″ Awards recognizes the best Web 2.0 sites, services,and applications that are leading the next wave of innovation.
See the entire list here.
Sify signs deal to get access to Railways’ bandwidth
Sify has signed a deal with Indian Railways to lease their excess bandwidth capacity. The Railways has a robust fiber optic cable network - RailTel - and the deal will enable Railways to earn higher revenues by better utilization of the excess bandwidth. RailTel comprises of a 28,000 km optic fiber cable connecting 2200 towns and cities. Sify will use the RailTel infrastructure for its own operation as well as setting up cyber cafes.
via ET
Yahoo Go 2.0 launches in India, offers localization
Yahoo has announced the launch of their improved mobile app - Yahoo Go 2.0. The app has been available in beta in the US since January. Today, Yahoo announced that the app will be now available in regional languages in 13 countries, including India. Yahoo has also signed a deal with Idea Cellular, amongst 6 other Asian operators, to feature Yahoo OneSearch on their subscribers’ mobile phones.
via release
MIH’s acquisition strategy is to acquire technology
AgencyFaqs has an interview cum story on MIH owned portal Ibibo and the myriad services under the Ibibo umbrella. Amongst other things, they discuss about the 1.5 crore incentive by Ibibo to attract bloggers to their platform. Ashish Kashyap, MIH, defends the initiative and claims that they are attracting 1000 bloggers per month to the Ibibo platform. He also adds that they now verify the authenticity of the blogs to prevent abuse. The company is working on a ‘knowledge search’ initiative - whatever that means..
Talking about acquisitions, he mentions that their focus will be on online companies with the goal of acquiring ‘technology’.
On a side note, check out their job listing for Head, Merger and Acquisition at Alootechie.
One question I’d like to have seen answered is about the NSFW content on Pixrat. MIH was supposed to weed out the NSFW content at the time of the Pixrat acquisition. But thus far, looks like it hasnt happened.
Entire story here.
Some great resources for startups and entrepreneurs
* Marc Andreessen’s blog.
Marc’s blog offers some refreshing views on startups and entrepreneurship. Whenever you get a chance, definitely read his latest post, titled “The Pmarca Guide to Startup - part 1: Why not to do a startup”. His posts are frank, illustrative and very insightful.
* Om Malik’s Found-Read
The site is not a blog, but rather involves a lot of user participation as well. You can read experiences shared by other entrepreneurs related to VC funding, moonlighting, pricing your service/product etc. You can also sign up and post any questions you may have related to startups - VC - entrepreneurship
The site helps you navigate the big,bad world of venture funding, term sheets etc. It helps you understand how equity is determined, how VC process works, the technicalities of VC term sheets etc. They also hold a teleconference that you can attend and ask questions related to the funding process
IndyaRocks public launch on Thursday
IndyaRocks, the sleek social network for Indians (my initial review here), is publicly launching this Thursday. In lieu of the public beta, they’ve also introduced several new, additional features on the site.
MoviePlex - They now have a section focusing on User Generated Content for Bollywood. It includes reviews, news, wallpapers, videos and forum discussions revolving around Bollywood. See below for a screenshot. Additional commercial features based on this section are in the works.
Tribes - Users can now join tribes or communities. Each tribe has an associated ‘media center’, where members of that tribe can contribute content specific to that tribe
Rediff launches SMS Poll
Close on the heels of Ibibo’s launch of polls via SMS, Rediff has launched a SMS based mobile poll service. { If this service already existed, please feel free to correct me.} But from what I uncovered, it seems that this is a new feature.
However, it looks like they do not provide users the ability to create arbitrary polls. Instead, they create the polls and the voting options. Users can only SMS their vote for a particular poll.
How lame !!
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