See you in 2009
I will be gone for later part of this year and will return some time first week of 2009. Hope you guys have fun and wish you a very happy new year. Stay safe and stay healthy !!
Bollywood portal Chakpak gets funding from Canaan Partners
Chakpak, which I reviewed earlier, has secured VC funding from Canaan Partners. The size of the funding round has not been disclosed, however, ET puts it at around $5 million. Explaining the reason behind the funding, Alok Mittal, Canaan Partners writes:
- Entertainment is a high usage and engagement category. Including the NRI base, the target audience is about 20-30 million
- Entertainment is also a high spend category, with over $36B spends on media and entertainment as per PwC FICCI Frames report.
- Efficient execution - over 5 million users access chakpak services every month, and chakpak team has done a great job of generating such levels of usage without spending a dime on marketing. They “get” the internet.
I have been impressed with Chakpak from the get go, and they’ve indeed done a superb job at executing - especially with their Orkut apps.
Good luck to these guys !!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b0c5285a-3eee-46b7-98bb-0f92584a5f6c)
PehleIndia.com - social network for Indians to connect on national issues
PehleIndia is a new social networking site for Indian citizens to connect on national and social issues. Their goal is for Indians to connect with each other and make an impact on our democracy by sharing, debating and discussing ideas.
Pehle India is a non-profit initiative to connect India’s citizens with each other and mobilize public opinion. The organization itself does not propagate an ideology or promote a particular stand other than that of open communication and respect for every individual’s opinion – as long as it does not violate ethical or moral values and the Constitution of India.
The team working on Pehle India is a group of highly experienced IT professionals who have no political interests, alignments or aspirations. As modern day citizens we simply wish to ensure everyone has an opportunity to voice their opinion, communicate with other citizens to understand their opinions and even engage in healthy debates on what is best for our nation.
Nokia screwup shows Kashmir as Pak territory
Nokia recently made a goofup by showing Kashmir as a part of Pakistan in their mobile navigation systems. So Nokia apologies and issues a statement that all maps are sourced from Navteq yada yada..
Now wait a minute, doesnt Nokia own Navteq ?
I think that this goofup comes to light at a pretty unfortunate time — The Bombay attacks are still fresh on everyone’s minds and when anti Pakistan sentiments are running high, this screwup earns some bad publicity for the company.
Weblisty - A traffic and tag based search engine
WebListy is a nifty traffic and tag based search engine. Search for a keyword and WebListy will list the top sites by traffic for the chosen geography. It will also present a cloud of contextual tags related to the keyword.
Something along the lines of Tweetag and Cloudlet, albeit with a few differences.
I wouldnt call it a startup per se, but its an interesting hack project none the less.
PartyGaming founder Anurag Dikshit pleads guilty
PartyGaming founder Anurag Dikshit has plead guilty to a federal crime and agreed to forfeit $300 million. PartyGaming was one of the first online poker sites and is registered in the UK.
Dikshit’s worth last year according to Forbes was $1.6 billion.
via release
Yahoo acquires stake in voice based search company INMAC
Yahoo has acquired a 30% stake in Info Network Management Company (INMAC), a Chennai based company that specializes in phone directory search. The investment provides Yahoo a board seat on INMAC. The investment will mainly provide Yahoo with an opportunity to integrate INMAC’s voice search technology product, called Call Ezee, into its local / web search services. The size of the investment wasnt revealed.
The Call Ezee service is currently available across 14 Indian cities. Users can call the local Call Ezee number from any mobile - landline and request details about a local business.
Earlier, Google India had launched voice based search in Hyderabad and Delhi that will provide you local business info, movie showtimes and flight status information.
via ET
Indian entrepreneurs confidence index
As per a perception study done by KPMG and TiE, ‘”Entrepreneurial India”, the Indian entrepreneurial community is pretty optimistic about entrepreneurship in India. On a scale of 1 (lowest) - 5 (highest), entrepreneurs have rated India at a 3.31. At a state level, Andra Pradesh received the highest rating of 4.14.
The study comprised of a survey of about 1000 entrepreneurs to evaluate their perception of the ecosystem across various factors like finance, government issues, infrastructure, manpower issues etc. Finance, Infrastructure, followed by manpower emerged as the three most important factors for fostering entrepreneurship.
via here
Incidentally, there’s another document out there, but I’m guessing its an earlier version of the same study.
Click, scan and fax with your mobile using Indifax
Now here’s an innovative service called Indifax. Here’s how it works. You take a picture of a document, email it to your Indifax account. They process the picture and convert it into a ’scanned document like copy’ of the picture. You can then forward this ’scanned document’ to any email, mobile or a FAX machine directly.
Why not use the pictures directly you may ask ?
Pictures taken from the mobile phone are generally grainy and of poor quality. Indifax claims to enhance the quality of these photos and make them more ‘document like’. I havent used the service personally, but you can review a couple of samples on their website here.
The service costs $10 or Rs. 499 for an annual subscription, which includes 50 MB storage and 25 page faxes. They even provide an API in case you want to integrate their service in your app.
What do you think about Indifax ? Do you see a value in the service or do you think that current breed of high end mobile phone pictures are competent enough to get the job done ?
BPOSutra - a portal for the BPO community
BPOSutra is a new portal - professional networking site targeted towards the BPO community. Anyone who is interested in joining a BPO or those who are working for a BPO are their target audience. The site provides a broad variety of services that would be incredibly helpful to someone who is interested and / or employed in the BPO industry.
Some of the services they provide:
- They provide a knowledge base with articles related to the BPO industry and career in the BPO industry. Some of the topics covered include ‘What is BPO’, ‘What are the opportunties in BPO’ etc.
- A professional networking service, where you can connect to other folks in the BPO industry
- A job search, resume builder related section which includes interview preparation tips, compensation related help etc.
- A mentoring section, where you can search for mentors to guide you with your career
BPOSutra is definitely one of the well executed niche professional networking sites that I have come across. Based on the broad spectrum of services that they offer, they’d be an incredible resource for folks in BPO - they can make meaningful connections and seek help and guidance related to their career. If you are working in a BPO related industry, I’d definitely ask you to check out the site.