M4mum hopes to change that by launching a Java based mobile app for bus information in Mumbai. Enter the ‘From’ and the ‘To’ fields and the app will help you navigate through the myriad bus routes frenzy. No longer do you need to ask around for information or carry a route booklet in your pocket. Since no GPRS - SMS is involved, end users do not incurr any expenses for using the service.

The idea is awesome - it solves a common painpoint for regular commuters and considering that about 4.2 million commute via bus in Mumbai, the potential market size is pretty large too. Now that they’re in beta, I’d suggest getting the word out to fellow Mumbaikars and increase the user adoption.

Check them out here.

• Yulop, Vakow, CommonFloor - A few startups that I wanted to write about
• Httpfuse provides a cool bookmarking service
• Kindo - Genealogy aka family tree in Hindi

Isnt it time that companies stop charging for ringtones ? Why even pay the Rs. 7-15 for a ringtone ?

If you want to stop paying for ringtone downloads and want to create your own ringtones from your MP3 files, here’s a step by step guide for doing so (this is an old story - I recently came across it while doing housekeeping on my delicious links). The process involves installing a couple of open source softwares, so the inintial setup might take a bit longer. But once you have that in place and get a hang of the steps, creating subsequent ringtones should be darn easy.

So go ahead - create ringtones from your favorite Bollywood flicks - be it Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na or Kismat Konnection and share them with your friends.

• Google Adsense for mobile advertising in India
• Mobile is 20 years old. What lies ahead ?
• Rocketalk launches their mobile app in India

Comments

• July 23, 2008, Gaurav commented: Pranav, Do you really want Tseries to come after you? ;)
• July 26, 2008, Raru commented: I also do this. I could never justify paying for ringtones, especially when I can edit/make my own ring tones, at http://mp3mer.com for example.
• July 28, 2008, pranav commented: Gaurav, Yeah, I'd better watch out :-D On a serious note, ringtones as a mobile VAS revenue source should die. Look at the numbers from Airtel's latest quarter (excerpt from Medianama.com): Growth in Non-SMS VAS (Ringtones, CRBTs, GPRS, Voice Portal Services etc) has been as high as 20.7 percent in the last quarter, increasing to Rs. 133.56 crores Even if ringtones make up for 10% of these VAS revnues (highly low estimate), you are talking about about ~ 13 crores.
• September 25, 2008, Imran commented: Hi i have created many bollywood ringtones. can i placed it on my website which i m going to lauch later. Is this Legal?

* Social networking

* MMS

* Communities

* IM & Chat

* Music & video downloads

* Content & premium services

Rocketalk has raised $7.1 million from iSherpa Ventures, EDF Ventures and Mission ventures.

MobMe, the Trivandrum incubated startup, already has a good headstart & so Rocketalk will definitely need to step it up a notch to compete.

• Mobile India - Future of the mobile industry in India
• Mauj brings mobile ESPN to Indian mobile phones
• JustDial takes home the local search trophy; New poll for Indian microblogging services

Comments

• July 22, 2008, Nikhil Mathew commented: what is the mobme product. where can i download it? its not on their website. i downloaded the rocktalk application on my n72. its really good - lots of ppl chatting also
• July 23, 2008, pranav commented: nikhil, check the mobshare website for additional details on how to access the content.
• August 14, 2008, lowtechgal commented: Try m.rocketalk.com from your phone's browser to start download. Or if you'd like to email the app to yourself, you can get it from there or from www.rocketalk.com
• August 27, 2008, Pooja commented: I just downloaded latest version. Its so much of fun. !
• September 15, 2008, mukesh commented: rt is very good eficiant applicatn for making frnds , im using ths appli. since 24th march 2007. its helpful to send pics to email instaintly . weak point of ths appli. is some rt employs play lv game with innocent ppl. well i would like to say good luck for all rt family.

With Tagg.in, you can

• • create a TAGGivity (group)
  • update your TAGGivity
  • invite members to the TAGGivity

Just follow the command format and send updates to 99801 99801 and your TAGGivity will be updated.

Tagg.in also runs several groups by themselves. Join these groups and you’ll get the latest business news, stock updates, cricket scores etc directly on your mobile. You can also set a particular group public or private so that the updates are visible only to those who are part of the group.

Tagg.in will face an uphill battle competing against the increasingly popular SMS GupShup, which recently was close to securing their 2nd round of funding.

• Webaroo’s SMS Gupshup goes under the knife
• LifeinLines and LifeBlob - timeline for your lifestreaming
• Chittr: Microblogging site for India

Comments

• July 13, 2008, vBharat.com » Tagg.in - another group microblogging service commented: From vBharat.com » Tagg.in - another group microblogging service... Tagg.in also runs several groups by themselves. Join these groups and you’ll get the latest business news, stock updates, cricket scores etc directly on your mobile. You can also set a particular group public or private so that the updates are visibl...
• July 27, 2008, Prakash commented: Ugaldo.com is another Free Form Micro-blogging Service in India.
• August 29, 2008, Nimshid commented: Very good site

To make up for my lack of knowledge about LBS, I set out on a mini-quest.  To find out what LBS is all about. For those of who are interested, here’s a brief primer on location based services based on the research that I did.

Note: If you find any errors below, please feel free to correct me. I am not a domain expert in LBS

It goes without saying that LBS are based around a single context - location. Where are you located ? The premise being that if the location is known, app providers can easily pass on useful data to you. Useful because the data would be location relevant. What’s the closest Hookah bar or where’s the closest Mexican restaurant ? The potential and possibilities of such location aware services are endless.

But before we go into any of it, lets first look at the various ways using which, you can broadcast your location details.  A location in LBS technology implies a latitude & longitude, so that you can accurately ‘located’ on a map.

1) Self Reported:

The most basic approach for determining the location of an end user is to have them report the location themselves. If users know their latitude and longitude, they can report it. Else, users can report a street address or an intersection and the onus falls on the service provider to decode that street address / intersection in to a valid location. One of the big drawbacks of this approach is that it depends on the level of user participation and the end user does a lot of the grunt work.  Plazes is a location based service that depends on users self reporting their location



2) Network Triangulation:

Network based triangulation uses signal data from the three closest cell phone towers to identify the location of a user. The ‘triangulation’ concept is similar to the technology behind GPS. The only difference being that instead of satellites, data from cell towers is used for the triangulation. The drawback of this approach is the added algorithmic complexity needed to triangulate cell tower data. Not to mention that you’d also need a database of cell tower locations for some of these algorithms to work.

3) Cell Tower ID:

This is one of the simplest, but often imprecise, way of automatically determining the end user location. The data about the cell tower with which the mobile device is communicating is used to determine the location of the user.  To use this method, you need to have a database about the physical location of all cell towers so that you can do a lookup for the cell tower id received from the mobile device. For all you geeks out there, here’s how you can retrieve the cell tower ID on S60 3rd edition platforms.

The drawback of this approach is that it provides an approximate location of the user. Secondly, locations of cell towers is network proprietary information and 3rd party databases of cell tower locations are not quite exhaustive.

4) GPS:

GPS is one of newest and one of the most precise methods to determine a user location. Triangulation data used from satellites is used to locate a user. Use of this method requires that the mobile device have a GPS chip in it, that can receive GPS broadcast signla.s  The problem is that only few of the most recent cell phones in the market have GPS capability in them. And GPS is reported to drain the cell phone battery like crazy.

Location Based Services in India:

India is the world’s second largest mobile market. So, where exactly are the location based services in India ?

The only Indian deployment of location based services that I’ve heard is the recent announcement from Bangalore based Yulop.  Yulop seems to be using the Cell Tower Id method to determine the user location. It’d be interesting to find out how they determine the physical location of the cell towers. I’m not aware of any publicly available database for India, which has physical locations of cell phone towers. If such a database exists, please let me know.

Besides Yulop, I’ve also heard of reports that users have successfully used Google’s MyLocation feature in Mumbai.

GPS is yet to take off in India and GPS enabled phones are still not very common, which rules out GPS has an effective method to capture location of an end user.

It’d be interesting to see some innovation and Indian startups emerge in this area. After all, with the world’s second largest mobile population, it would not only serve as an awesome sandbox, but a potentially huge market as well.

PS: A few weeks back, TechCrunch had an awesome article on the various technologies in Location Based Services. The article is not only much more detailed and technical, but it also comes from a domain expert (Eric Carr from Loopt).

• Mobile is 20 years old. What lies ahead ?
• TringMe introduces VoIP feature on low end mobile phones
• Mobile India - Future of the mobile industry in India

Comments

• June 25, 2008, neeraj commented: I have been using Google Maps' MyLocation feature for quite some time in India in various cities. I have yet to come across any other LBS application in India. If some one knows and has used one, let us know.
• June 25, 2008, Sridhar commented: Pranav, I have been a silent reader of your Feeds,its very impressive with the way its been carried on...thanks for all the updates you have been providing with Indian Startup community. Coming back, anytime LBS is spoken about i am always excited, we @ Yulop figured out a way to bring about LBS to India 12 months back, its been a herculean task till date, but yes we ave publicly gone ahead in saying we have the LBS ready and working for city based needs......probably people in Bangalore who are interested could also contact me for a private Demo.... its only a strategic decision not to have it in public beta yet. My 2 cents about LBS in India > The first thing to be sorted is to geotag every entity and identify them with respect to Lat. and lon.... the key in here is to identify what should be geo tagged and how could this be deployed. > Looking froward ,the crux being how to locate the user [i am only mentioning about Mobile access], yes the option being the GPS or the most common Cell ID, there isn't been any publicly available Cell ID, but we have mapped every Cell ID for 6 cities irrespective of the operator [i can explain you this offline :)] along with 6 city Geo tagged data. > But what i personally feel is waiting for another 12-18 months, when every high end user would have a GPS enabled phones and Operator shouldn't be a bottleneck. > Anyways to access this service we know, we got to have GPRS enabled service from the operator, which in itself is a biggest bottleneck with penetration, all these are expected to change in few months when GPRS is available for every college student and Housewife [ I have heard about GPRS tipping point : early 2009] > But until GPRS or for that matter GPS is to be available with everyone we really can't be holding our business, hence the approach of SMS is also been made available where we identify user based on the SMS. I am happy to take the note " LBS is a hot cake" at least for next decade, I feel every entity on this earth would have a location and building killer apps should be need of the hour. We at Yulop are in the middle of launching something very unique yet very significant related to LBS for India in coming days, probably before it is been released i would be happy to get your feedback Look forward for Geo India :)
• June 25, 2008, Jason commented: I've heard of a lot of LBS companies working on applications for the Indian population. I think the launch of the app store for the iPhone will spark a lot more talk, and hopefully action, about LBS in India. There will be hundreds of apps available in the app store. One can only speculate about the exact apps that will be featured. I've heard rumors about WHERE being a featured app in the app store. Hopefully those guys at WHERE are working on an India-based application. It's be cool to get Buddy Beacon to my friends in India to see what they're up to.
• June 25, 2008, pranav commented: @sridhar, thanks for stopping by and provide your perspective. The one thing I'm wondering about -- what if a self reported approach is taken in India till GPS - GPRS becomes pervasive ? It would be interesting to see how well its embraced by the mobile savvy indian population. Of course, this is till the GPS-GPRS void gets filled in. Meanwhile, I'd definitely like to connect offline to see how you collected the cell tower data :-) good luck to you guys man. @jason can you point me to some these companies that are working on LBS apps for India ?
• June 30, 2008, Nav commented: Hello there ... excellent article. I'd also add Reliance's investment in Pelago (considering its relevance to India) Based on initial impressions, seems like Whirrl (Pelago) is one of the more promising iPhone based (LBS) social networks along with Loopt’s new product for the iPhone. As for Indian LBS, it’s something which is an obvious need … I feel MapmyIndia has done a good job. Yahoo and Google are getting there … , it will still be pretty difficult. I’d love to see a communal effort .. almost a social geotagging service with some sort of incentive. Door to door geotagging is possible but would be a massive undertaking. Yulop…claims to geocode locations? I wish them all the best, but am wary on how accurate they will be .. especially when using triangulation.
• July 1, 2008, pranav commented: @Nav - yes, the pelago investment did come to mind when writing this post. However, I wanted to keep things specific just to the indian context. thats why i neither mentioned about loopt or sense networks etc. While the social effort does sound interesting, I dont think it would entice a lot of folks. After all, everyone wants to keep their commercial interests first. So, if Yulop has geocoded locations, they've spent quite some time and effort to get the first mover advantage. For strategic reasons, I dont think they'd want to share this info with others.
• July 5, 2008, Jaikishan Jalan commented: I believe we all must are aware of Android - Google OS for Mobiles. There are lot of LBS - including one developing myself. Some of the applications are fascinating. It does not require any work from user. There is background process which can do all these work, track user interest and display places that he is interested in. It uses build it GPS. I believe India has to wait for a year or two to mature to GPS. Between what is the amount of power that GPS chips drain ?
• August 26, 2008, Shaheer commented: Pranav, Nice article on LBS and its state in India. We at LocationGuru, certainly believe LBS is closer to reality than ever...my take - you'll start hearing/using services as early as middle of next year. While you are following companies focussing on LBS in India, you may want to check us out at www.locationguru.com.
• August 27, 2008, Ram commented: Hi all, I think there is a very good name in the LBS framework which is Gypsii. This is a pretty decent mobile social networking site operating on the LBS framework. You can visit gypsii.com for further details. The future of LBS is clearly dependent on the kind of applns that could be designed around it. Possibly in the month of September you could see some action with a company launching this service on a grand scale.....

It’ll be interesting to see if these unlocked phones will get blocked now that Vodafone is officially bringing the iPhone to India.

• VodaFone, Microsoft India to launch SMS search service
• A mini primer on Location Based Services and its state in India
• India online advertising market worth Rs. 250 crores, India mobile advertising is Rs 40 crores

Late 2006, Bharti Airtel had announced a deal with Google, where Google search will power the mobile WAP portal for Airtel.

Yahoo has been equally aggressive in the Indian mobile market.

After all, a market size of 250 million users is too big an opportunity to miss.

• Google SMS beta launched in India
• Google Adsense for mobile advertising in India
• Vodafone to launch iPhone in India this year

Comments

• April 29, 2008, naman commented: SMS Search for local search is a good business and has been tried by Onyomo.com and Justdial in India but I doubt any other kind of search being successful over the SMS.We must look at the fact that of 250 million users there is a respectable percent of those who cant even type an SMS or are almost illiterate. They majority of the Indians know only how to use their mobile to make and receive calls.
• April 29, 2008, naman commented: Please excuse the typing error in the above comment. "They majority of.." should be read as "The majority of.."
• May 5, 2008, pranav commented: naman, its just a matter of time. if i'd told you 10 years back that your local panwala will carry a mobile, you'd have laughed at it. similarly, as content and UI goes Indic, the usage will increase.
• May 30, 2008, shailesh srivastava commented: Hi how do I get email to SMS form Vodafone. I need to send some message through my email and like to see on my mobile as SMS I live in New Delhi for your information reply appreciated shailesh srivastava

1) Business Today has a good story covering the full spectrum of digital advertising companies in India - from full fledge interactive agencies to online Indian ad networks.

Most interesting tidbit from the story:

* As per a Lintas media report, Internet advertising in India is Rs 215 crores ( a 43% Y-o-Y growth)
* Possibility of the market growing to Rs 2500 crores by 2011
* Current mobile advertising in India is Rs 40 crores, expected to grow to Rs 500 crores by 2011

You can read the entire story here.

2) ContentSutra has another story on figures released by FICCI, which puts the Indian online advertising market at Rs 270 crores, a 69% Y-o-Y growth. Online advertising was just 1.3 % of total Entertainment & Media advertising in 2007.

If you take the average of both figures, it puts the Indian online advertising market at Rs 242.5 crores.

Compare this to an estimate released by Starcom MediaVest Group in April 2007 which put the Indian online advertising market at Rs 225 crores.

• Microsoft launches digital advertising platform in India
• India Social Media marketing - Using Orkut
• When Indian websites have to rely on TV to market themselves

Comments

• August 30, 2008, lalit bhamare commented: do you think that the domestic rular area product is survive in the market as their is having a good quality? how they are advertisement effectively with the less mony please give the soluton which are satisfactory with all angels in like country india beacuse it is very difficuct to launch new product.
• August 30, 2008, Anish commented: Guys, Just curious. Google came out of nowhere and ran away with almost 81% of search share to yahoo's 9%. I have been an admirer of yahoo for long, but if u look at India's online universe and user behaviour, how do u perceive yahoo as a product for now and for times ahead? I feel an eerie sense of stagnation in yahoo's approach, considering most users still look at it as just email and messsenger. So no matter wat yahoo does to strengthen its arsenal, the recall or perception seems to have stagnated. Indiatimes, Rediff and Sify have ceased to report any more inorganic growth spurts, but can yahoo pull off a coup in india's growing internet community? My personal view is...yahoo is under-marketed among the youth....I mean its visibility..when it comes to new products or services is too dim, so it ends up remaining a mail and messnger brand....a strong one at that. Any views?

With this offering, TringMe has developed a well rounded portfolio - they provide click to call widgets, web based SIP phone, enterprise and consumer focused web based toll free service, mobile VoIP and integration with IM clients as well.

With some kick ass innovation, they definitely are catching my attention.

• Rocketalk launches their mobile app in India
• A mini primer on Location Based Services and its state in India
• Mobile is 20 years old. What lies ahead ?

Now, why does this sound so familiar ?

So, its again a wait and watch game.

via BS

• Mobile India - Future of the mobile industry in India
• Reliance Communications plans largest wireless network in the world
• Mobile is 20 years old. What lies ahead ?

Its time to close the poll for local search startups and move on to the next one.

First, the results -

With 27% of the votes, JustDial seems to be the most popular startup for local search. AskLaila, OnyoMo and Guruji, each received 16% of the votes and seem to be tied at the 2nd position.

Here’s the next poll for Indian microblogging (or Indian mobile social networking, whatever you choose to call them) services -

The poll will remain active in the sidebar of this blog.

• VodaFone, Microsoft India to launch SMS search service
• Rocketalk launches their mobile app in India
• Chittr: Microblogging site for India

Comments

• February 14, 2008, Kranti Veer commented: I can't believe you folks are comparing Just Dial with sites like AskLaila, Dwaar. Just Dial was built over 8-10 years and just look at their accuracy and service. They beat other portals even on valuation ;-) All sites in India are wasting their time, they can never beat JustDial.com
• February 15, 2008, Sandy commented: My friend is doing coding on justdial @ geodesic & I am working with one of JustDial very powerful competitor & I know how to beat just dial.
• February 15, 2008, amit gupta commented: I have used justdial over 100 times they have never failed me. The guys running this company seem to know the space well. They way ahead of the other names mentioned here.
• February 15, 2008, Alok Maheshwari commented: Dear Sandy, I hope you guys also have an offline strategy apart from having one for online stuff. Justdial doesn't only exist as a website but it have offline presence as well in all the 46 cities and that too with a single number 39999999. It will be very tough for other players to match the Justdial presence. I have told earlier and I say it again that Justdial is already a winner. But competition is always good. Let us see what you guys have in store. Regards.
• February 15, 2008, nitinpai commented: Hi Pranav, Thanks a ton for this poll. It was enlightening for me. I never had used any other search engine besides Google. And I used to spend most of my time to optimize my queries on Google to find local things. But when I came across this poll I decided to try the top 3. JustDial, AskLaila and Burrp. Burrp was disappointing. AskLaila only provided results which were popular ones but failed for very minute searches. JustDial was amazingly impressive and within a few minutes I got hooked and also got phone numbers I had been searching for weeks of some institutions around my neighbourhood! I simply cannot believe my eyes when I see the results in JustDial. It wins my vote a million times! Once again, thanks for this poll and keep creating such polls so that the readers like me are educated of things they did not knew existed.
• February 16, 2008, Roney commented: hehe... seems like just dial employees have lots of free time for voting... i dont think justdial is better then Google local or Guruji local... both of them have entire justdial crawled site...
• February 16, 2008, Pranav commented: alok,i agree that justdial wouldnt exactly be a startup -- but one of the goal of this poll is to see which service is popular with people.
• February 17, 2008, john commented: Hi! Pranav, Man U r doin a great job here! How do u get time to blog. Anyways, i read few of ur articles, and they are (in on word) true. E.g. Herd mentatlity. People just critised u there. I do too alot, but ONLY when therez something worng. Common, guys u can find time to find out the fact and criticize the writer, but not write an article and have a blog of ur own. This is his blog, he likes to write, so he just wrote it. He might not be right in some of his facts, but wot the heck, hez just deliverin a message. All you critisizer, what the hell do u know, if the dates u found out abt the startups are accurate? They all lie. This poll on LOCAL serach engine, was just to have an idea which one's most popular. Do U a****les, get the BASIC IDEA????????? IT's a DAMN POLL! BTW! All those copycats startups, dont actually want to create anything new and give it to people. They just invest a tiny amount of money, copy codes and ideas of popular sites, launch sites, cheat customers with buggy codes in their "startup" websites and cheat sponsors and then they think it will, itslef become most popular site and then they'll SELL it for BIG BUCKS!!! or SHUTdown their STARTup as soon as they make profit. Profits comes when you put ur time, money and heart in your project. I have been using JD even before they launched their site. Their phone service is 10/10 and better everytime! Pranav, dont pay attention to these suckers, but do take an idea of overall, thinking of your reader through their comments and feedback. It'll help you improve.
• August 10, 2008, Bhadresh commented: Just Dial…… Beware of it…. They call themselves This is in the interest of all the travel business executives….. You all may be aware of just dial services and many of you may have even registered with it. I am registered with just dial since last 1 year for my business promotion, they proved really good in my first three contract with them in bangalore. Recently I got into a contract with them for my Mumbai office and their services are really bad. I recently caught one of the executive of Justdial making dummy calls. The story went like this. From the time I came into a contract in Mumbai with just dial I was unable to understand that why after giving even the cheapest rates of the hotel (some times I had tried selling it below the net rate) also I was not getting that much bookings. Also I was not able to understand the behavior of the people calling as normally if a client does not like the quotation they use to tell me by picking up the phone. But it was not the same here they never use to pick up the phone after I have send the quotation, which was really unusual. It was like they were scared to answer my calls. The same thing was going on with many of the leads. When I tried calling one of my leads by an another cell no (her name was Jyoti naidu) still she did not pick up the phone as she might be busy but called me from a landline no. I spoke to her and she said that her name was jyoti. I told her that I was calling from K2K Holidays and this was about the goa package I had quoted to her and she just put down the phone. I was really going mad as never something like this happened to me. So I just called her back on the land line number and guess what to my surprise it was the board line of “Justdial” I still got connected to her and she started making stories that she was really getting married and was looking for a honeymoon package but somebody was ill in her family and so she did not want to go with the package. I asked her about the reason why she had to give a call to justdial when she has a full database in front of her eyes. To that she said that she wanted to make her work simple. I told her that I wanted to visit her and that I was really serious on this issue to which she told me that she was holding some post called “Hotel sector” and that they make dummy calls sometimes for their clients or for the quality cost. I told her why on my cost than she said that none of the calls done by the executives of justdial are deducted from my account . I then told her that it better be and waited for the statement in which all the calls were deducted. After that I have mailed nearly 5 times to the company’s customer care to give me a clarification on the issue and till now I have not got any reply to the mails. Still my contract is on with just dial and I am still getting suspicious calls who are clearly not genuine clients or even travel agents . I feel either justdial is collecting a lot of information on travel industry at our cost as if they are into plans to start a travel agency or they are just making dummy calls. But end of the day they should know that we are into the business and that we can make out a difference between the genuine client and a non genuine client just by speaking to them. There are clients using the words like “property” in the place of “Hotel”, which are the business terms of the industry….. and they would otherwise not know it. I suggest my fellow travel trade friends not to register with it….. Regards, Bhadresh Shah

via ET

Granted that mobile is a more widely present platform in India. Granted that Indians are heavy SMS users. But job search using SMS ? I mean come on — who in the right minds will be doing a job search via SMS ? Forgive me if I fail to see the big picture here, but does this feature make sense ? I personally find this idea somewhat dumb.

What do you think ? If you were to hire someone, would you do a job search via SMS ?

• VodaFone, Microsoft India to launch SMS search service
• A mini primer on Location Based Services and its state in India
• JustDial takes home the local search trophy; New poll for Indian microblogging services

Comments

• January 7, 2008, Kamal Thakur commented: Its going to be fun. Thats it. I don't see any value. Imagine the scenario : 1 SMS to 53030. : "Linux Admin" 2. I ll get top two results. 3. They don't have my resume. (i don't know if i can avail that facility by registering at their website first .. nyways Its better to post a comment here instead of doing that) 4. So I'm not at all a potential candidate for the job.(Coz they will ask me to upload my resume then or probably employer will call me ... second thing is not going to happen.) 5. So all they want is to make me upload my resume over their website. 6. If I'm an unemployed, student , velha person these days I would have already done that. They are targeting the mobile density. Now someone who is having a mobile and does not have access to internet or possibly don't know about monster india site wont even get a job from the kind of employers they have in present Indian scenario. 7. They guy gets no results out of this and thats a bad sign~!!!

You can select the friends whose updates you want to follow and can also invite other friends to follow your updates. The ‘chittRbox‘ keeps track of all the friends you are following, the friends who are following your updates, the updates you have sent to the site, and updates that your friends have sent. The support for group based microblogging is in the works and the feature should be released later next week.

The site has been developed in Flex and so has very good AJAX like interactivity. While the Flex gives a great desktop like feel to the app, it also increases the initial loading time for the site. The site UI can definitely use some cosmetic surgery. However, considering that they’re still in alpha, I’m willing to ignore that for the time being. The one feature I found missing from the site is the ability to control where my messages appear. So, for instance, I may not want my updates to appear on the main page, where every user can view the update.

Uncovering info on the founders wasnt difficult, but the tipster did not want the founder details to be divulged at this time.

• Tagg.in - another group microblogging service
• FunPiper asks - ‘How was your weekend ?’
• TringMe: Free click to call minus the middleman

Comments

• October 22, 2007, yellowsaffire commented: Cool, so chittr is here also:). Nice review, thanks for bringing this to us. I visited the site and it's cool, ability to send message cross-platform is what impressed me. Working from mobile, IM and web is simple and straight. Adding group support will enhance service usability, given the site is in alpha, service founders have done good job.
• October 24, 2007, duckman commented: Indians should get a hang of microblogging, if they do.. this will rock
• March 29, 2008, kodiak commented: What happen to this site?? look like this is closed. Anybody have any update on this?
• March 29, 2008, jameslewis commented: A good attempt!! - Like the way
• April 15, 2008, anand gupta commented: Keep it up !!!! The way things are going, it will surely be popular site
• May 4, 2008, Aditya commented: WHAT HAPPEN to "CHITTR.COM"...!! a site --comics.com open up whenever we try to open it....agree with Kodiak comment...but still after his comment people are still commenting like - good..keep it up...!!?? Blindly commenting guys...!! whatta pitty...?!!!
• May 11, 2008, polar bear commented: It goes to bravenet.com for me. Might be turning around new features. With the coverage startupdunia has done, it appears new updates might be in the reckoning. Dont get so excited , Aditya.
• September 6, 2008, Vijay commented: So is it finally dead? Cant seem to get to the site - and dont wanna read comics! :P

Users will be charged anywhere between 80 paise - 3 Rs. per SMS, depending on the operator.

via ET

• VodaFone, Microsoft India to launch SMS search service
• Yahoo India launches Local Beta, OrderMonger plans expansion
• Walt Disney comics on Indian mobiles

If you look at the acquisitions Google has made, you’ll notice that the acquisition strategy has been motivated by two sole reasons:

1) acquire new technology/innovation

OR

2) to establish a new channel to integrate into their advertising platform

Not content with its hugely popular contextual text link advertising platform, Google added two new avenues (online video and RSS syndication) to their advertising platform by acquiring YouTube and FeedBurner. Google set on a frenzy in the online advertising world (Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL all made subsequent acquisitions) by buying banner advertising network, DoubleClick.

So, it comes as no surprise that Google has announced foray into mobile advertising.  Now, advertisers can place ads on mobile phones using AdWords, while mobile content providers can use Adsense to monetize content. With one of the fastest growing mobile market in the world, India is one of the 13 countries where mobile advertising will be made available by Google.

While the low GPRS usage in India is definitely a huge hurdle, an equally big obstacle is the limited number of good quality, WAP enabled content publishers in India. SMS, ringtones and such still rule in India.

What do you think ? Do you think Google’s mobile advertising plans in India will be a success ?

• India online advertising market worth Rs. 250 crores, India mobile advertising is Rs 40 crores
• Mobile is 20 years old. What lies ahead ?
• VodaFone, Microsoft India to launch SMS search service

Comments

• September 20, 2007, anup commented: They should look at the SMS channel and try to do something on the lines of 160by2 (may be acquire them ;))
• September 20, 2007, rabi commented: well not in the short term, but google is always intelligent(or Lucky!!) in foresighting the opportunities....[:-)]
• January 10, 2008, sri vikas commented: well, glad to see google entering in this field. but we are already doing that. ZestADZ , India's leading mobile advertising platform is already severing millions of ads (and quiet successful at that ) across india and thus paving the way for mobile content developers to monetize their content and advertisers to generate leads and create brand awarness. and we have been doing this for quiet sometime now. ZestADZ is also the only product from the stables of mobile-worx to have the technology to embed ads into all forms of mobile medium- SMS/WAP and rich media content. no other company india has such a technology. and recently ZestADZ has also launched its services in facebook mobile platform. this means, all the mobile vas service providers can tap into indian mobile market and monetize their application. the best thing about our product? we share ad revenues only with mobile content publishers. which means better revenues and hence more value to the advertisers. we are very happy to see google entering this industry and wish them all the very best Sri Vikas Product Manager Mobile-worx

Fast forward 20 years and India is now the hottest and fastest growing mobile market in the world. With a subscriber base of 165.1 million and 15.5 million subscribers added in the first quarter this year, Gartner estimates that revenue from mobile services will increase by more than 18% each year for the next five years.

However, point to note is that this revenue growth is going to come from an expanded subscriber base. Average Revenue per User (ARPU) in the Indian mobile market is amongst the lowest in the world. With the ARPUs projected to dip even further, this revenue growth is projected from targeting the rural areas, where the mobile penetration is still about 2%.

While increasing the subscriber base will definitely be the higher priority, I feel that there needs to be some serious innovation in the mobile market.  SMS, ringtones and wallpapers are now old school. Even callback ring tones are now passe. There is need to come up with the next killer app for the mobile industry. Data is touted as the bigger revenue generator - but where are the breakthrough apps to go with it ?  What about GPRS statistics ? I’m yet to see any official reports / figures related to the number of GPRS users in India. A lot is expected to happen when 3G goes live. What about the innovation till 3G goes mainstream ?

Your thoughts ?

• Mobile India - Future of the mobile industry in India
• Google Adsense for mobile advertising in India
• TringMe introduces VoIP feature on low end mobile phones

via release

• Chittr: Microblogging site for India
• Mobile India - Future of the mobile industry in India
• Google Adsense for mobile advertising in India

• Send SMS’s from the Internet to your groups
• Create and share your own SMS blog with your friends
• Social networking features like inviting friends, group management etc. can now be done via the web also

The new design is definitely quite refreshing and a stark contrast to their earlier design.

The couple of features that I’d be interested in seeing from SMS Gupshup:

1) Webaroo SMS Gupshup labels itself as a group SMS service - however, as of now, only the group creator can post messages to the group. Other members of the group can only receive messages. So, in its current form, the term ‘Group SMS’ may feel like a misnomer depending on how look at it. The ability for other users to be able to post to the group seems to be a very important feature. As an example, say I have a gang of 10 friends who I’d like to stay connected with, using SMS Gupshup. In the current scenario, I’d have to be subscribed to 9 different groups to stay abreast of what each of them is upto. On the contrary, if we could have created a single group (say Mygang) and all the members could post to the group, I’d have to subscribe to just one group.

2) Ability to import contacts - friends from existing social networks

As per company sources, they have about half a million users of the service and on an average send close to a million messages per day. There is no revenue share agreement with the operators, so Webaroo does not get any percentage cut from the operators for each SMS sent using their service. They are beefing up their advertiser relationships and hope to rope in several new advertisers.

The new version of the site goes live over the weekend.

• Tagg.in - another group microblogging service
• Desiji - Yet Another Social network for Indians
• Orkut Apps - Indian apps dominate

Comments

• April 3, 2008, kantilal commented: 9924229072
• June 13, 2008, binit commented: hiii
• September 18, 2008, GOPAL BIRUA commented: it is so good and better .

GPRS users can download content from their WAP Portal.

via BS 

• TringMe introduces VoIP feature on low end mobile phones
• Google SMS beta launched in India
• Mobile is 20 years old. What lies ahead ?