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Are Indian blog readers comment shy ?
2008-05-09 13:56:00
I came across an interesting comparison done by Saad Mohammad on his blog oodami. Saad rightly points out that very few Indian blog readers actually leave quality comments. He makes his point by mining the comment statistics from 5 different Indian blogs and compares it with RSS subscribers and post count. Here are the comparison charts. A great job done by Saad to make his point !
More About: Readers , Blogging , Blog , Comment

desiwiki:The wiki for Indian Startups
2008-05-09 13:02:00
Do you know what are the biggest pain points faced by entrepreneurs while starting their new venture? It is the lack of knowledge in legal, financial and company incorporation areas, especially if you are an online startup. I am saying this from my personal example. The amount of frustration that I have been through over last couple of months cannot be described in words. Just getting the company incorporated was a big project in itself. And if by any chance the startup is getting invested from outside, the formalities and paperwork involved turns into a nightmare (I can vouch for it). However, like I mentioned, problems are more due to lack of knowledge than anything else. Yes, there are plenty of resources online, but they are scattered all across the web. If you are a US/ UK based startup, you will find plenty of resources online that will really help you out in understanding the whole process in a streamlined fashion. In India though, the ball game is all together different....
More About: Indian , Wiki , Startups

Surprise, Surprise, Indian citizens are most environment friendly!
2008-05-08 13:39:00
We hear so very often our western counterparts blaming India and China for global warming and being one of the most polluted countries in the world. While that may or may not be a fact, a survey conducted by National Geographic says that Indian s and Brazilians have the most environmentally friendly lifestyles based impact of individual consumer behavior. The National Geographic Society today unveiled "Greendex 2008: Consumer Choice and the Environment —A Worldwide Tracking Survey" which brings this fact to the light. What this survey did was rather than measuring each nation's environmental impact, it compares the behaviors of individuals in four key areas: housing, transportation, food, and consumer goods.
More About: Friendly

Advertisement India: Online classifieds for offline world
2008-05-08 13:06:00
In this web2.0 age we are increasingly getting used to online classified sites, however, even in today's world, offline newspaper classifieds have more than 90% of the market share. Online ads do not generate even fraction of a response comparatively. Here is an example, I was looking for a office for my startup here in Pune. I did post online classified ad in no less than 5 different portals. The only site that gave me couple of responses was Kijiji. Other than that, I did not receive a single response. For lack of options, I decided to give a newspaper classified ad for my rental office requirement. Although finding the nearest place that accepts newspaper classified was a big pain, I did finally manage to get my ad published in a well circulated daily in Pune. It sure was worth it. On the day ad appeared, I had no less than 25 responses and more options to choose from, than I needed. Essentially, three hundred rupees spent on newspaper classified was well worth it. Today, I...
More About: India , World , Advertisement , Offline , Classifieds

The new rules of Business Blogs
2008-05-06 16:17:00
Just came across this wonderful free E-book by Linas Simonis called "The new rules of Business Blogs ". This short and concise e-book explains how business owners and managers should act in blogosphere if they want to make maximum utilization of this new communication channel. This e-book explains how the today's business blogging rules have changed compared to the ones that have been traditionally followed since early blogging years.
More About: Blogging , Rules

Google now allows English to Hindi Translation
2008-05-05 16:27:00
No..No..I have not changed the default language for this blog. I am in no way conversant in written Hindi ! The heading you see is thanks to the automated translation service provided by Google . The heading you see above has been automatically translated by Google engine. The original heading I had given was "Google now allows English to Hindi Translation ". Pretty darn accurate I must say ! Hold on...Don't get too happy. The translation is good only for small and simple sentences. Read the whole paragraph written above in translated Hindi. Not sure if it makes sense. ?? . ?? . ???? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? ?? ??? ???????? ???? ?? ??? ??? ?? . ???? ?? ??? ??? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ?? ! ?? ?? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ??????? ?? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ?????? ?????? ?? ?? ?? . ?? ?? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ???? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ???? : ???????? ?? . ??? ?????? ???? ??? ?? ??? " ???? ?? ???????? ?? ????? ?????? ?? ?????? ???? ?? " . ????? darn ????? ?? ??...
More About: Google Translator

Tales of Indian real estate and the common man
2008-05-05 08:04:00
I have been having some very interesting comments to my articles I have previously written on India n real estate specifically targeting the Pune market. However, the situation seems to be common across most upcoming cities and Metros in India. The comments left actually reflect the reality of present Indian real estate situation. Majority of people have been waiting in the wings in anticipation that the prices will come down since last 2-3 years. In the meantime, prices have more than doubled and it is out of reach of even people earning a fat salary. Here are few selected comments from the article I had written late last year on how I made a fool of myself about prediction of real estate prices:
More About: Estate , Money , Real Estate

Want to know where your competitors are advertising? Try (!)Yureekah
2008-05-02 13:56:00
mb.gif" style="border: 0px none " alt="yureekah-logo" border="0" height="37" width="209" /> Yureekah can be a real boon to online media and advertising professionals as well as publishers. Lets take an example: Lets say Cleartrip an Indian OTA wants to know where its competitors are advertising. They just go to Yureekah, carry out a brand search for their competitors. They are presented with list of ads along with the URLs where the competitors' ad appears. This makes it very easy for Cleartrip to plan their ad campaign and decide on which web properties should they target.
More About: Advertising , Competitors

Trak.in Blog celebrates its First Anniversary
2008-05-01 12:25:00
WOW ! Today Trak.in blog is One year old. It was officially launched on 1st May, 2007 (although a few posts were published in April end). Looking back, it has been one of the best years of my life and lot of the decisions I have made were influenced by this blog. Two most important things have happened - I moved back to India and have taken a plunge into entrepreneurship. One of the biggest accomplishment for me is that this blog has enabled me to network with hundreds of new people over last one year. Something that would have been nearly impossible for me otherwise. Having said that, I have also had my share of ups and downs. Blog ging is tough, especially when you have regular readers coming to your blog with expectations of finding something useful. There have been numerous occasions when I just could not write for days together and ended up writing some really poor quality posts. But positive comments and mails from my regular readers have kept me going through all these to...
More About: Anniversary , Funding

Youtube India! What should you expect from it?
2008-04-30 15:30:00
ContentSutra has just reported that YouTube is planning to launch an India site on the 7th of May. Although, the news does not seem to be formally confirmed, there are strong chances that it might be true. Youtube had bought out (through dispute resolution) youtube.in domain from one Mr. Rohit Kohli who had registered the domain. Currently, youtube.in has a blank page, but what makes me believe this news is that even a blank page is showing youtube favicon. Last year, youtube launched 9 country specific sites - Brazil, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Ireland and they currently have around 18 country specific sites.
More About: Expect

How cheap can your mobile tariffs get?
2008-04-28 16:43:00
Way back in late nineties when I procured my first mobile phone (a.k.a brick), I used to think more than 10 times before making a phone call from my cellular. Do you know why? Each minute of a outgoing call used to cost me a whooping 16 rupees a minute. It was huge ! The phone was used only for ultra urgent and important calls. Fast forward ten years and an outgoing call now costs around 50 paise for a local outgoing call - nearly 30 times lesser. Now-a-days, even if I am at home, I prefer using a cell phone to make a call rather than my landline. It turns out cheaper. No wonder India has become the second largest Wireless network in the world. The only time I am careful while making calls is when I am traveling out of station. The STD and roaming charges can really make a dent in your pocket. According to research, close to 70% of STD users in India do not use this facility for more than 5 minutes a month. Also close to 80% of users switch off their mobiles while roaming. Howe...
More About: Mobile , Money , United Kingdom , Telecommunications

South Indians are the leading Beer guzzlers!
2008-04-28 14:12:00
During my visit to Chennai this January for Proto.in, I was really surprised to know that Chennai does not have restaurants that serve Beer or alcoholic drinks. Not only that, it does not have any pubs or Disco's. If you want to go out and enjoy a couple of drinks, the only place would be 4 or 5 start hotels. Now thats a real dampener for person like me who really enjoys going out and having evening drinks with friends. However, it seems that outside of Chennai, South India ns seems to have a huge appetite for Beer. According to the latest figures released the growth was mainly led by the key guzzlers down south, with the largest market Andhra Pradesh vaulting 15.4%, Tamil Nadu 11.6% and Karnataka 24%. Another big market, Maharashtra, however, witnessed sedate growth of 5-6%, with Mumbai city recording a minor dip.
More About: Indians , Asia , Haryana

India overtakes U.S to become 2nd Largest Wireless Network in the world
2008-04-26 14:31:00
This was on cards - India has become the second largest wireless network given the exceptional growth in Mobile subscribers in India. According to latest release by TRAI (Telecom Regulatory authority of India), the total wireless subscribers base stood at 261.09 million at the end of March 2008, compared to 255 million subscribers in U.S. A total of 10.16 million wireless subscribers have been added in the month of March 2008 as against 8.53 million wireless subscribers added in the month of February 2008. Another landmark that march saw was reaching a total telephone connections to 300 million (wireline+wireless). The overall tele-density is pegged at 26.22% at the end of March 2008 as against 25.31% in February 2008.
More About: Business , United States , Wireless , World

Mumbai gets smartcards for local trains and BEST buses
2008-04-25 16:40:00
During my train travels from New Jersey to New York via Subway, I used to always think of how it would be to have a similar ticketing system for journey in crowded Mumbai local trains. The first thing that came to my mind - it was just not possible given the logistics and tracking involved. For those who are not aware, in US and UK (specifically for Subway trains and Tubes), the traveler has to just go to nearest vending machine before entering the platform, get a pass of standard denominations and swipe it before entering the train platform. Every time one swipes the card, certain amount is deducted toward your journey. No waiting in lines ! Now, to my surprise, even Mumbai seems to be moving towards similar system. The Central Railways (CR) launched "Go Mumbai" smart card - a first-of-a-kind travel card which works like a pre-paid telephone card, and can be used for travel on the local Mumbai trains and BEST buses. Source
More About: Hardware , India , Buses

Invest in Indian stock Markets the Happionaire way !
2008-04-24 08:36:00
2008 has not been too kind for stock market investors and traders. The Indian stock market has shed as much as 25% since the beginning of this year. Investors have lost money in tune of thousands of crores. I have been an investor in Indian markets since last couple of years and have seen the crash of May last year. However, the current situation seems to be far more worse as it is coupled with global downtrend in Economy. So what should investors do in such circumstances? Should they stay away from the markets or do they still have a chance of making money? I suggest you pick up a copy of "Invest the Happionaire way" book by Yogesh Chabria. I must admit that I have just skimmed through the pages, but what ever little I have read, it comes across as a fun and interesting way of creating wealth through the Indian stock markets.
More About: Business , Investment , Book Review , Markets

Iphone officially coming to India with Vodafone, but at a steep price tag
2008-04-23 15:05:00
Iphones are such a craze that more than 200,000 units are estimated to be operational in India , all of which are unofficially unlocked versions. At 25k + price tag they don't come cheap, however it has not stopped hoardes of people going after this much sought after mobile gadget. Having a Iphone is a status symbol, be it US or India ! So finally after several months of speculation, reports are in that Vodafone is going to launch Apple Iphone mobile handsets in India by September 2008.
More About: Smartphones , Iphone

The Dirty world of Corruption
2008-04-22 16:02:00
One of the biggest change that I have seen in Indian media (especially TV news media) is the amount of trash a.k.a- masala news they telecast throughout the day. With 100s of new channels getting launched, every news channel seems to have such lack of exclusive news that they go to any lengths to make a news - A Breaking News. I see most of the news channels beaming only Bollywood and Entertainment news, most of the time. I digress- coming back to the subject, while switching between channels during the IPL match yesterday evening, I happened to see something interesting on a news channel. A sting operation carried out by Channel Aaj Tak. It was such a news that I did not switch back to IPL !
More About: World , Dirty , Corruption

Poll Results: Not many give Force India a chance at Formula One Championshi
2008-04-20 08:50:00
I had put up a poll a month back asking readers on what they think are the chances of Vijay Mallya backed Force India Formula One team at this years championship and what will be their standings. Here is what the Poll results show: More than 46% readers expect Force India will be in the bottom 4. The first 3 races of this season seem to be pointing at that as well. Good number (27%) of readers feel that they will be in the middle of the pack. I'd be surprised if Force India ranks above number 7. It will be very difficult but not impossible.
More About: Results , Chance , Auto

Its confirmed ! US no longer a preferred job destination, even for IIT grad
2008-04-20 08:21:00
Not very long ago, very few gave a second thought when given an opportunity to go to U.S for employment or further studies. Not anymore ! Things have changed drastically over last 3-4 years. Infact, due to India 's booming economy and opportunities galore, it is now becoming a preferred job destination among many graduates. Even IITians, who were known to move to US and other developed countries for job and higher studies are reversing the trend. Evalueserve, a leading global research and analytics firm recently released a survey that has some interesting numbers:
More About: Indians , Destination

Interview with CEO of Zamanzar, an Indian Real Estate Startup
2008-04-17 11:35:00
The Indian real estate sector has witnessed meteoric rise in last 3-4 years. There are number of real estate startups currently catering to this growth, predominantly in online property listing space. However, young real estate startup - Zamanzar - is going beyond than being just a classified property site. They offer end to end real estate buying and selling solutions. Here is a detailed interview with Nisheeth Ranjan, CEO of Zamanzar. Nisheeth is a BS from Cornell University and an MS from Stanford University and has more than 10 years of technical, managerial, and business development experience in Silicon Valley companies like Netscape/AOL, Liveops, and Trulia.
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Interview , Startup

Reliance Entertainment buys 200 movie theaters in U.S. - Are they spreading
2008-04-16 14:07:00
I just came across this news in Business Week that mentions Reliance Entertainment has bought around 200 movie theaters in U.S. within last 3 months alone. I have been quite surprised at how aggressively Anil Ambani owned, Reliance entertainment, arm of Reliance ADAG has spread the wings in such a short span. Within last 2-3 years it has entered into nearly every business in entertainment space.  A look at different ventures of Reliance Entertainment: Venture Entertainment Space Zapak online gaming and downloads Bigflicks offering online/offline movie rentals BigAdda India n social networking site BigTV offering direct to home (DTH) services BIG92.7FM India’s largest private FM radio network ADLAB Films producer, distributor, processor and movie theater owner of Indian cinemas BIGwhat? ...
More About: Movie , Growth

Get ready to change your mobile number !
2008-04-15 16:49:00
In 2003 Indian Telecom department had planned for 10 digit mobile numbering that would last for 30 years, but given the meteoric rise in the number of mobile subscribers, the quota seems to be over within 5 years. The growth in mobile subscribers has been nearly 100% year on year reaching 250 million by the end of last month. The tele-density in the country is more than 25 per cent now, with the average monthly mobile growth at over 8 million. The government has set a target of 500 million phone subscribers by the year 2010. To accommodate this growth, the DoT plans to introduce an additional prefix of 9 to every mobile number taking it to 11 digits. So, `99? will be the first two digits in every mobile number, in the 11-digit regime.
More About: Mobile , Change , Ready , Get Ready , Number

12 million Indian Mobile TV users to subscribe in first year of launch
2008-04-15 12:27:00
Thats what the report suggests in its recently released report - mobile TV in India - by Springboard research. I am not surprised given that India boasts currently boasts around 250 million mobile subscribers and expected to reach 500 million by end of this decade. Mobile TV is a technology that allows people to view regular live television content on their mobile phones or other mobile devices that they get through traditional cable or pay TV subscriptions at home. Here are some of the highlights of the research:
More About: Television , Business , Indian , Telecommunications

Global Information Technology report ranks India at 50th rank- 7 places ahe
2008-04-14 16:00:00
Even though India is regarded as the Information Technology hub, Indian has been ranked lowly at 50th place in the recent report - The Global Information Technology Report 2007-2008 - produced by the World Economic Forum in cooperation with INSEAD, the leading international business school. In this year rankings, Denmark got the coveted position of being the most networked economy in the world, followed by Sweden and Switzerland. Among the top ten, the Republic of Korea (9) and, to a lesser extent, the United States (4) post the most notable improvements. China fared even worst in the ranking and came in at 57th place, 7 ranks below India. It is quite surprising given the infrastructure development taking place in China in last 2 decades. The comprehensive report ranked total of 127 economies on more than 80 different parameters covering the environment, readiness and usage of Information Technology. The pdf of full ranking can be found here Given that India and China are reg...
More About: Business , Rank

The good side of US recession
2008-04-14 10:22:00
I had earlier voiced my opinion that US recession may be a boon for Indian offshore software companies. Infact, even as America is moving into recession, Indian offshore companies are getting more business than ever before. The impact of recession is undoubtedly higher to small and medium sized enterprises whose bottom lines get squeezed due to lack of spending by consumers. These thousands of small and medium enterprises are increasingly waking up to cash in on the outsourcing wave, a market opportunity explored by their big daddies for a couple of decades now.
More About: Good , Side , Recession , The Good

Nice to see local government offices adopting technology
2008-04-12 14:05:00
I was pleasantly surprised to see our local Pune Municipal corporation site getting a nice revamp and adding tons of new features making life of average citizens dealing with local authorities much easier. Very recently they launched a "better roads" initiative. The unique thing about this project is that it is a wonderful blend of NGO, technology and PMC coming together to work for a social cause. Any web user can go and register complaints using Google maps. If you have a road dug up, potholes or any other road related complaints just find your area on the map and register the complaint. Nice !
More About: Technology , Government , Local , Offices

Future of Rupee against Dollar?
2008-04-10 09:26:00
Last year around June I had written about the dollar plunge against the Rupee . For all the Indian s living in U.S, it was one of the most concerning aspect as any remittances to India were nearly 15% lower. Most of them were expecting Rupee to keep on appreciating and break even the 35 Rupee mark against the dollar. Till December of last year that trend remained intact, however 2008 seems to have taken a sudden U turn. After a gap of more than a year Rupee has depreciated to over 40 against the dollar, much to everyone's surprise. Although it has been range-bound for last month or so, no one seems to be talking about 35 Rupee mark that was expected to hit as per most of the analysts.
More About: Future , Dollar , Acquisition

IXIGO?s launches hotel search Engine
2008-04-09 11:09:00
iXiGO, an Indian travel aggregator has announced the launch of its hotel search engine, a natural progression for their travel search. As per the press release, ixigo hotel search engine can search and book accommodation in real time across 4500 hotels in 320 Indian cities. XiGO’s hotel search accesses more than 30 leading national and international hotel booking websites, enabling comparisons of room tariffs of the same hotel across multiple sites within a few seconds. The hotel search engine sorts accommodation by price, star ratings, amenities and allows detailed views for maps and photos; all in a single webpage. An instant keyword search on names, addresses and filters on best value within hotels narrows down the search – features so far restricted to only select international travel portals. I tried doing couple of searches for hotels in Bangalore and results were decent enough. Being purely a search engine, the visitors will have to visit the parent hotel ...
More About: Hotel , Search , Search Engine , Engine

The big difference between expectation and reality!
2008-04-08 11:37:00
The real estate prices in India have soared to gigantic proportions in last few years. The prices have soared as high as 300% in last 3 years. Although, consumer earnings too have grown, it is no match for the steep rise in real estate prices. I saw an interesting online survey conducted by MagicBricks recently on the aspirations of India online & the great Indian dream of owning a home. Results of this survey highlighted the huge gap between the expectations of a common average Indian and the reality of Real Estate Pricing. The survey also showed that nearly 60% of Internet surfers in India look for property-related information on websites.
More About: Reality , Money , Difference

A quick wrap-up for March
2008-04-07 07:28:00
March was another good month for trak.in. The traffic and subscribers grew moderately. I have to admit that for last couple of months, I have not been able to post as regularly as I would have liked, but that's for a reason. My startup- hover.in - has been in talks with couple of investors for angel/seed funding. You should hear something from us in a month or so. Also, we have been in the process of company formation, which in itself is a very daunting task. With these activities taking majority of my time last month, I have not been able to give much time to trak.in blog lately.
More About: Blogging , Quick , March , Wrap