Internet

10
Mar 09

Google India launches Noticeboard, an app for social interaction in communities

Google India has launched NoticeBoard, an app to improve social interaction within communities. The app is a Firefox extension and enables users to send messages to a public ‘noticeboard’. The message can be either text based, voice based or SMS.

Each noticeboard contains publicly accessible messages, the goal being to interact publicly with the community. A sample use case for the app would be like a noticeboard for residents of an apartment complex, where the noticeboard could be used for community wide postings and announcements.

Google Noticeboard

Google Noticeboard

Continue reading →



Internet — No comments

16
Feb 09

Map Wars – Rediff launches Maps, MapMyIndia raises additional VC funding

Competition to provide maps to Indian consumers continues:

Medianama reports that Rediff has launched Rediff Maps for India. The GIS data is provided by ML Infomap, a Delhi based company.

At the same time, MapMyIndia has announced that they’ve raised additional funding, led by Qualcomm Ventures. Earlier investors also participated in this round.

The competition in this market has become quite hot with several service providers – MapMyIndia, Google Maps, Navteq, Reliance BIG maps and SatNav and now Rediff Maps vying for a piece of the pie.

Is there any one service that you prefer over the other ?



India Funding / Internet — 3 comments

9
Feb 09

Nielsen Online and Wall Street Journal launch in India

Two new entrants into the Indian market.

Nielsen Online, a measurement and analytics provider for online audiences has launched its services in India. The first report should be available within the next 3-4 months.

via release

Wall Street Journal has launched its Indian edition starting today.  Mint, the business newspaper from HT, has a content syndication deal with WSJ. Will be interesting to see how that works out, now that WSJ has launched its Indian edition.



Internet — No comments

13
Jan 09

Yahoo India releases top searches

Yahoo India has released the year end top searches for the Indian market. Bollywood and cricket dominate the list, which wouldnt come as a surprise to anyone.

here’s Yahoo top 10 searches list for 2008.

yahoo-search

Compare this to Google’s 2008 top searches list for India:

Continue reading →



Internet / Technology — No comments

18
Dec 08

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



Acquisition / Internet — No comments

11
Dec 08

TinselVision shuts down

TinselVision, the South Asian video on demand site, has shut down as per ContentSutra.  The site had received $6 million in funding.  This doesnt come as a surprise to me at all.

I blogged about an year ago on why video streaming of Indian movies – content is not a sustainable model.  Rajshri has been able to survive perhaps because of its deep pockets, but I’m still skeptical of how much revenue it actually generates and whether this revenue is enough to sustain their expenses (bandwidth, infra. etc.)

BTW, Medianama has an interesting outline on the TinselVision story.



Internet — No comments

2
Dec 08

iDiva goes offline

I was contacted by a couple of folks associated with iDiva about the security flaw I blogged about earlier. Now, it seems that the site has gone offline – I’m assuming to correct the flaw. 

 



Internet — No comments

1
Dec 08

Microsoft ignoring Indian market at its own peril

Microsoft is on a mission. With efforts like Live Mesh, Live Cashback, Azure, Powerset acquisition etc., Microsoft is trying to fend off the competiton and the growing mind share and market share of Google. But while Microsoft still works out its US strategy, is it ignoring the non – US markets ? Especially India ?

I personally think so. Just look at the pace at which Google has been innovating in the Indian market. They launched the ability to search in Indic languages, Google SMS Channels, Indic Transliteration API (which I think is super awesome by the way), Voice and SMS based search and a tonne of new features in Orkut. Even Yahoo, inspite of its recent troubles, has made a few attempts at innovating in the Indian market with services like OurCity, Glue, SpotM.

On the other hand, there’re hardly any such efforts – services being launched by Microsoft India. A few business partnerships here and there, but nothing compared to the likes of Google India.  And that seems to be showing in the traffic to their Internet properties.

 

Continue reading →



Internet — 7 comments

28
Nov 08

Indiatimes womens portal iDiva has security flaw

Medianama mentioned about Indiatimes launching the womens portal iDiva last week. I checked out the site and as expected, I wasnt disappointed.  Similar to other efforts from the Indiatimes factory, the portal is another lame attempt by Indiatimes to attract the online women audience. The site is simply horrible in all respects – design, content and engagement.

Even worse, the site has a major security flaw, which can be easily discovered and abused by a malicious hacker. For obvious reasons, I wont say what or how, but if you’re technically competent, you can easily figure it out. 

In case you’re new to my blog, here’s another such finding I’d made for BigAdda.



Internet — 3 comments

26
Nov 08

Rediff launches “Web in Email” service

Rediff has launched a new service called Webinmail. And it literally does the same. The service is meant for people who have restricted Internet access and want to view web pages.

You send an email to ‘browse@webinmail.com’ with the web page URL that you want to view in the subject line. The service responds with an email reply with the target webpage in the response. Click on any link within this webpage and the process repeats itself. In other words, a new email for every interaction with the webpage.

I’m still trying to make sense of why such a service is really needed ? I mean, can you really be so desperate to access the web that you’re willing to receive a deluge of email responses with the web pages ?  As if our inboxes werent flooded enough, here’s another way to shoot yourself in the foot.

Also, I couldnt try this since I’m not using my personal laptop — but will the service also respond to porn and other sites as well ? If so, I can definitely see that the service will have a loyal fanbase. 

What do you think ?



Internet — 4 comments

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →