Tagg.in - another group microblogging service

July 9, 2008 – 10:37 am

tagg.gifTagg.in is a new SMS - web based microblogging service for India.

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.


pranav | India Web 2.0, Mobile India, reviews | Comments (1)

Geek Alert - a good primer on GPS technology

July 8, 2008 – 11:58 am

I did a mini primer on Location Based Services and its state in India a couple of weeks back.

While I barely touched the surface, if you are looking for some serious technical knowhow, I came across an interesting story related to GPS technology - what its all about, how it works etc.

Check it out here. I’d definitely recommended bookmarking the article.


pranav | Tech tidbit | Comments (0)

Madhouse founders starting Morpheus Venture Partners

July 8, 2008 – 11:52 am

WATBlog reported yesterday that Sameer Guglani and Nandini Hirianniah, founders of DVD rental company Madhouse.in (acquired by Seventymm), are starting a YCombinator like incubator called Morpheus Venture Partners, to assist other early stage startups.

Ashish has a good QnA with them about their latest venture.

At this point, it looks like the incubator will be more targeted towards mentoring, strategy and advise for startups as opposed to seed funding the startups.

Our primary value add to the startup teams is the advise, mentorship, guidance, access to the right network, creating opportunity to meeting relevant people, team strategy, product strategy, launch strategy, fund raising strategy (intros and more), getting the right advisers onboard with the right kind of terms, etc.

In the current scenario, there is definitely a lot of need for such an entity. Someone, who can closely work with other entrepreneurs and help them get off the ground and get the ball rolling.

At the same time, I cant help but reminisce about a similar effort called DreamzHunt, that was launched in early 2007 by a Chennai based business group called SGS. The idea was to launch a competition where the top 3 teams will be selected and receive a funding of $20k - $100k for 15% stake in the company. The effort fizzled out and it seems that only 2 teams were selected out of all the applicants. Thus far, I havent seen any update on how those two teams are doing. Or if SGS ever invested the quoted amounts in the ventures. If you have any updates about DreamzHunt, leave a comment below and let me know.

However, based on Sameer and Nandini’s entrepreneurial success, I’m more optimistic and wish them the best with this new venture.


pranav | Entrepreneurship, VC India | Comments (2)

MnemonicDictionary uses mnemonics to make learning simple

July 7, 2008 – 10:51 pm

MnemonicDictionary is a startup that hopes to use mnemonics to make the task of learning and remembering difficult words easier. Mnemonics normally can be in any format - a visual cue, a list, an audible or a special word. The goal is to associate the word with something you already know, which makes the learning and retention process easier.

As an example, consider the following two words and their mnemonics:

abase - to degrade

Mnemonic:  abase means without base and without base things fall down — so degrade (just imagine a house without a strong base

laconic - crisp, curt

Mnemonic: lac..lack, so lack of words in her speech, specify that she used very few words to say her ideas.

Keep Reading »


pranav | reviews | Comments (2)

Haggle away for everything with LootStreet

July 7, 2008 – 9:05 pm

Indian consumers are one of the biggest bargain hunters in the world. For all ye bargain hunters, there’s good news. LootStreet is a new startup that’ll hopefully satiate some of your appetite for haggling. Founded by two IIMA grads, LootStreet offers a marketplace for buyers and sellers to come together.

Unlike eBay, LootStreet is not an auction service. Instead, sellers list the product they’d like to sell and for what price. Buyers can then ‘haggle’ for a lower price with the seller. If both parties agree, a deal is struck. Else, the bargaining continues. Every quote that the buyer makes must be higher than their previous attempts. Currently, they dont charge for listing your products except for the 4% transaction fees charged by payment gateways. As traffic grows, they’ll take a percentage cut for listing the product.

While the biz model makes sense, the biggest challenge they’d face is from eBay. eBay is an established brand and most of the folks have gotten familiar with eBay’s auction model. Attracting seller inventory will be a challenge, but it seems that they have already signed up partners like GizmoBazaar, Gadgets.in, gadgetsguru.com etc.

Keep Reading »


pranav | India Web 2.0, reviews | Comments (1)

Back to some regular (hopefully) blogging

July 6, 2008 – 11:18 pm

I know posting has been pretty darn erratic lately.  Probably I was suffering from the blogger’s burnout, because even when I had the time and opportunity to post, I kept avoiding it. For whatever reason, I just didnt feel like writing.  Blogging is stressful and I realized that I need to de-stress and rejuvenate myself.  Its been almost 6 months since I took a decent, relaxing vacation.

Finally, this last weekend, I was able to get a somewhat relaxing vacation and time away from work, blogging, and everything related to it.

Hopefully I was able to revitalize myself and recharge my batteries. Should be getting back to regular blogging shortly.


pranav | Personal | Comments (3)

Expedia acquires TravelGuru stake - No Deal

June 30, 2008 – 2:37 pm

Nikhil has an update from TravelGuru CEO Ashwin Damera that ongoing rumors of Expedia acquiring majority stake in TravelGuru for $17 million are mere speculation and that no deal has been signed.

Just like everyone else reported, a $17 million for a majority stake would be just like a desperate deal. Something seemed very odd about the numbers.


pranav | India portals, M & A, VC India | Comments (1)

Will Twitter go the Friendster way ?

June 30, 2008 – 12:26 pm

Twitter, who recently secured their second round of funding, has fueled the microblogging phenomenon. As more people caught on to the “What are you doing” culture, folks at Twitter have hardly kept up with the increased load. The site has faced several prolonged downtimes, which have gotten only worse over time. Not a week goes by without someone whining about Twitter’s downtime.

It makes you wonder about why frustrated users havent already switched over to other competitors ?

Well, truth be told, there werent any worthy alternatives out there to which people could switch to. Jaiku seemed a formidable foe, but new signups were closed after the service was acquired by Google. Pownce emerged as a likely alternative, but wonder why it was never able to take advantage of Twitter’s problems and cannibalize on that.  Inspite of the problems, Twitter grew like crazy, while traffic to Pownce seems to have stagnated.

Lately though, it looks like Friendfeed has emerged as the most likely Twitter alternative. Several high profile users have already given up or are on the verge of giving up on Twitter and moving over to vs.JPGFriendfeed.  Friendfeed may not be excatly the same as Twitter, but offers the same value as Twitter - the value of conversations.  As soon as more conversations shift from Twitter over to Friendfeed, more people will make the jump.

Keep Reading »


pranav | Tech tidbit | Comments (3)

A mini primer on Location Based Services and its state in India

June 25, 2008 – 1:29 am

Location Location Location ! If you keep track of latest tech news, you’d know that these days Location Based Services (LBS) are as hot as Pamela Anderson was during her prime. If you still need convincing, consider the recent acquisition of Plazes by Nokia. Or Verizon’s investment in Loopt. Or that Steve Jobs demo’d the Loopt app for the iPhone during his keynote earlier this year. Or just the amount of sheer coverage that LBS is getting is press and blogosphere.

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
Keep Reading »


pranav | Mobile India | Comments (7)

Inventus Capital launches $125 million fund for early growth Indian companies

June 24, 2008 – 3:24 pm

Inventus Capital Partners are planning to invest $1 - 10 million in 15-20 early stage, technology focused companies in India. Investors include Kanwal Rekhi, John Dougery based in Bay Area while Samir Kumar and Parag Dhol will be based out of Bangalore.

via release


pranav | VC India | Comments (0)