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Meteorological Department Goes Mobile For Farmers – Fresh Room For MV
2009-10-21 12:23:00
One of the major challenges rural VAS is facing today, making information easily accessible to farmers. Useful information puts a farmer in an exponential position and helps him get more profit from all the hard work that his profession requires. To make his job easier, there have been steps taken to resolve his ramifications. WATBlog has been extremely passionate about covering news around the digital space affecting the hinterland, and will continue to do so. Since there’s still a huge room for mobile and internet in the rural areas of India which can not only prove beneficial to service providers, but also help farmers and others oblivious about the recent developments. As of late, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) joined hands with one of the wireless solution providers of Mobile entertainment and Value Added Services, Handygo Ltd. This tie up will help farmers gather information about the climate affecting the growth of crops. Not just the regular forecast, but ...
More About: Room , Fresh

Yahoo Declares Q3 Result – Revenues Dip, Profits Soar
2009-10-21 08:04:00
Yahoo! has declared its third quarter results (pdf) this morning. Its profits have grown more than three times as compared to Q3 2008, whereas, its revenues have taken a 12% hit compared to the same period last year. Its marketing services revenues from both Owned and Operated sites as well as Affiliate sites declined as compared to Q3 2008. US still remains to be its highest revenue generating geography. This sudden surge in the net profits can be attributed to the cost cutting measures taken by Yahoo! in the recent past. Over 1000 layoffs in the recent past served as the major cost cutting measure for Yahoo! This result has come out as a positive sign for Yahoo!, who has been struggling in the recent past by changing three CEOs and fighting a hostile bid by Microsoft. Although Yahoo! and Bing deal is yet to be approved by the antitrust, but analysts predict that as a good chance for Yahoo! to fight back in the global search market share. With the signs of stabilization both insi...
More About: Yahoo , Profits

Bored In Office? Some Tips To Kill (err.. Pass) Time!
2009-10-21 06:45:00
Everyone has “wow! Boss is late to work today” moments to “if i work anymore, my head will burst” moments in their office life almost on a day to day basis. The only getaway in such moments is the internet. Lets face it, you can not watch YouTube videos or read e-newspapers whole day, sometimes you need some refreshing games/websites to freshen up your mind and start working again! So here is our list of such websites - Mystery Google In short, this website is “I am feeling lucky” button redesigned! The catch is that it will take you to the first result from the search results of the person who used the site just before you! Your search results will be shown to the person who uses it just after you. This site is best for the times when you do not precisely know what you want to look for to kill time and when you are feeling a bit adventurous. Go try it out! Stumble! Another one of my geeky favorites. You can just select the areas of your interes...
More About: Office , Tips , Time , Bored , Pass

The Anatomy Of The Indian Online User – WATView
2009-10-21 06:32:00
As per TRAI, India has 8 Crore (80 Million) Online users who uses internet once per month which may be statistically correct but has some serious flaws in it (I will not go much into that though). For example, 1. How many of the “atleast once per month” crowd are browsing from Internet cafes ? it is very hard to judge as it can be anywhere between 25% to 50% 2. I don’t consider mobile net users as online users, they don’t click on ads intentionally and they don’t make purchases from mobile. Most of the mobile browsing is limited to information search or checking email and that too for very short time. From my experience and whatever I have seen on the Indian web space, we can break the Indian online users into 3 segments - 1. Premium User s – the top 1% (around 10 lakh living mostly in metros) who make online purchases from ebay.in, buy online tickets from OTA sites and reserve movie tickets online. They are the real thing and most of the VC funded online startups ar...
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Teja Movies Casting Via Mobile – Vodafone’s Latest Innovation
2009-10-21 05:52:00
Telugu director and producer, Teja is in news for his tie-up with Vodafone for his upcoming movies. The casting will be majorly done via mobile. Aspirants can register for the contest using their Andhra Pradesh Vodafone number. To diversify the options, candidates can register through voice, SMS or on a WAP page. So call it a zealous fusion or an estimated thought, popular director, Teja has hosted this talent hunt contest for the selection of those who would be casting in his upcoming films. Jayam Movies , a leading production house of Telugu movies is led by Teja. He, said, “For this endeavour we were seeking a youth-centric partner and Vodafone turned out to be a natural choice! We are very pleased with this tie up and are confident that Vodafone’s innovative streak will make this initiative a success.” Here’s one of the stills from a Jayam Movie.. …and there’s more for your liking. So if you have enough guts to budge, and you’re an Andhra Pradesh ...
More About: Mobile , Innovation , Casting

Facebook Overtakes Orkut in India!
2009-10-20 14:35:00
Orkut and Facebook   has been a favourite topic for most of us here. Who’s winning? Who WILL win? What’s the future of social networking in India ? Recently, there was a huge furore over Facebook promoting itself in India by urging people to add their Orkut Friends. Then Orkut blocked their nifty little tool, so on and so forth. Look at any mention of Orkut news that we’ve covered, you’ll find subtle or obvious comparisons with facebook. With Facebook dominating almost EVERY other country, India and Brazil were Orkut’s last bastion. And that has now crumbled. As of today, Facebook is India’s fourth most popular site. Orkut.co.in lags at Number 5. What does that mean? Are more Indians now on Facebook? The last stats showed that Orkut had a huge majority when it came to volume? Now, to the extent that my knowledge of Alexa’s system goes, it records not the number of visitors registered on a site, but it checks the frequency of visits, numbe...
More About: Orkut

UID Mandatory, Online Authentication – Updated News
2009-10-20 12:30:00
We’ve covered a lot of UID-related news in the past. Check them out here. We’ve been touting UID as the next big thing, why? Because personally I feel that it’ll help a lot with the streamlining of the system that is currently cluttered up with bureaucracy. In the last few weeks, there’s been quite a lot of buzz about the UID, with Nilekani releasing more and more titbits of information at a time. We’ll go steps at a time. First, news on the UID Features. Then on UID Implementation and then on UID ramifications. Firstly, the UID will contain fingerprint and iris information. Though initially, it’s meant for the beneficiaries of NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), the 2011 census will see everyone being asked to submit iris and fingerprint scans. A few things were clarified. The UID, as repeatedly said is NOT a card. Merely a number. It is meant for identification alone, and does not guarantee benefits such as citizenship. “We hav...
More About: News , Online , Authentication

Track Your Mail Via SMS
2009-10-20 11:48:00
The Indian Government seems to be taking to technology pretty quickly. We’ve covered some of the initiatives to incorporate current easy-to-access technology like email and SMS to further their outreach to people before. Now, email’s predecessor, the humble post will undergo changes. General Manager Business Development and Marketing Directorate Department of Posts, Alok Sharma, speaking to the Hindustan Times said, “Since Oct.10 last year we started electronic transmission of money orders by communicating the information of the money received through computers thus doing away with physical transit of forms and making delivery much faster. We could track the delivery of the electronic money order on our website – www.indiapost.gov.in by providing a unique PNR number. The customer could also do so by accessing the website and providing the PNR number. Now we can track it by sending an SMS to 55352.” The service is being offered at over 7,000 post office across ...
More About: Mail , Track

Google Chrome Targets Indian Users Via Facebook
2009-10-20 10:35:00
I have always believed the Google Chrome browser to be the future of Google’s web services package. The future of computing is not in the OS; rather it’s in the browser. And Google has been doing whatever it can to find a strong foothold for Chrome in the internet users around the world. This would mean targeting two different sets of people. Foremost, loyal IE/Firefox users who wouldn’t want to change their browser because the current one offers everything they want. Secondly, new users on the internet who don’t even know what a browser is. Google has already dabbled in print and TV ads for Google chrome. It has also successfully used YouTube video ads and Google Adwords. And now it looks as if it’s going into Facebook advertising. A lot of blogs have recently picked up the story and screenshots of these Facebook ads running for Indian users. You can check out a screenshot below: The ad claims that it is the fastest growing web browser in India. Though there have been no...

Broadband Internet A Legal Right In Finland – When Will India Have On
2009-10-20 09:33:00
(With inputs by Abhishek Kapoor) In the era of stringent Tweeting bans compared to performance drug tests, this news will not come as a shock to many. An unshakable belief in something without need for a proof or evidence could be the importance of internet in each one’s life today. With India working up their internet penetration in the rural areas, it would achieve 20 million broadband users by 2010. Now we are at the end of 2009 and the TRAI latest numbers suggest that broadband penetration in India has just about managed to reach 6.8 million subscribers. Even countries of the European Union seem to be deeming high-speed internet as a vital human right. Recently in news, Finland legally mandated fast internet access to all it’s citizens and is the first to do so. Even the United Nations have okayed this particular move, where a universal service should be every citizen’s right. The minimum mandatory speed in Finland currently needs to be 1 megabit per second, b...
More About: Internet , Broadband , Legal

VC Investments Down By 70% Since Last Year – But Recovery In Sight
2009-10-20 08:11:00
Well if you are an entrepreneur who raised venture capital money last year then you are one lucky entrepreneur! This is because had to tried raising the same money this year in the Q2 of FY 2009-10 then most likely you would have failed. Don’t believe us? Well the numbers do tell a story.. As per this report VC investments are down over 70% from $298 million in Q2 2008-09 to $77 million in this last quarter. The number of deals have also fallen down from 55 deals last year to 17 deals this year. Though on the brighter side 77 M $ is higher than 64 M$ which was the total VC investment in Q1 2009-10 and hence a sign of improvement for the statup entrepreneurs in India. These statistics are as per study by Venture Intelligence in partnership with the Global-India Venture Capital Association. We have covered funding news from time to time and in just the month of October there have been 3 announcements of VC investments i.e. Matrix Partners India Investing Rs 20 Crore In Ver Se, ...
More About: Recovery , Investments

Now Get Dubai Bus Routes on Google – India Will Have To Wait..
2009-10-20 07:05:00
If you are planning to go to Dubai then visit Google Maps as Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has joined hands with google to offer an interactive dubai street map which will help pedestrian & motorist to reach their desired destination easily. This will also include bus routes, hotels and restaurants. Interesting I say! Click on the screenshot below: How it works: Open Google Maps Enter address / location or pinpoint on map. After providing intended destination a choice of directions for driving or walking is given. Sitemap also shows available bus routes and estimated time it takes to reach a destination. This will also allow users to choose a district and search for restaurants and attractions in that area. In starting of 2009, RTA has also launched its own journey planner – Wojhati, but it was not welcomed by the audience because of lack of real road mapping. As of now, Google Maps is not providing Metro routes but this feature will soon be added. Its nice ...
More About: India

Airtel Follows Tata Docomo – Launches Mobile Comics Service
2009-10-20 06:08:00
We reported on how Tata Docomo is bringing Manga comics to Indian mobiles. Now it seems Airtel plans to follow suit with the launch of its comics service on via Airtel live. Airtel  has announced the launch of an entire comics portal on Airtel Live. This service would be GPRS enabled and will provide access to more than 300 Indian and international comic characters — from Popeye to the local Nagaraj. The pricing is also very competitive as customers will be charged Rs.10 per week for 10 comic strips (when compared to Tata docomo’s 20 rupees for one comic), which is inclusive of data charges. This move comes right after Airtel’s alliance with twitter to provide Tweetsms. Seems like Saleem Mobhani’s exit from Hungama.com and his consequent entry into Airtel as the Head of Entertainment has got good backing for  entertainment VAS within Airtel. ‘More than a third of Airtel customers in India have GPRS-enabled handsets and with the mobile becoming the on...
More About: Mobile , Comics , Service

Q2 2009-10 – Web18 Cuts Losses; Targets Cash Positive Ops Next Quarte
2009-10-20 05:15:00
Web18 was in the news just 3 weeks ago for raising a fresh round of funding of 10 million $ from Nokia Growth Partners. This was the second time they raised a 10 million dollar round. The first time they had raised it from Tracer Capital over 3 years ago. Web18’s parent company Network18 was hit hard by the recessionary environment last year.  This had made them delay their IPO plans as well. Network18 announced its Q2 results for FY 2009-10 and the following are the key highlights on their Web18 division: Web18 has  cut operating losses from Rs 175-190 mn per quarter in Q2 2008-09 to Rs 51 mn In Q2 2009-10. Q-o-Q there has been an increase in total revenues of 14% i.e. from Rs.142 mn to Rs.160 mn. The operating expenses have also increased about 16% from Rs.179 mn to Rs.211. mn. The net loss has increased from Rs.85.89 million in Q1 2009-10 to Rs.100.33 million this quarter. As the results show above Web18 continues to bleed losses of close to 10 crores a quarter but its t...
More About: Cash

WWW: WAT Weekly WrapUp 12th – 18th October
2009-10-19 05:24:00
Last week was the week running up to Diwali the festival of lights in India. It surely was a cracker of a week with some game changing announcements. To story would definitely be the tie up between Airtel and Twitter to provide Tweetsms. Following closely here were a bunch on funding news in mobile space for Apalya and Ver Se Innovation and Acquisition Buzz in the online education space. There were research reports also that made their presence felt and suggested that Yahoo mail had lost the Top Spot To Gmail in India. We also brought you the coverage from the IAMAI event on Financial Inclusion Through Mobile Phones. All in all an eventful week. Posts Via WATBlog.com Online Gaming This Festive Season – A Way To Wish Happy Diwali? Broadband Internet: Where Does Karnataka Stand? – A Report Wish You All A Very Happy Diwali And A Prosperous New Year – WATBlog Squad Matrix Partners India Invest Rs 20 Crore In Ver Se Innovation – Mobile Classified Service Skoda Fabia Sold On...
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Skoda Fabia Sold Online By CarWale.com, MeriCAR.com Reaches Out For Car Hel
2009-10-15 12:04:00
The internet has seen many players participating to promote new launches and their products which apparently didn’t see as much success as they did online. Starting with Diwali e-greetings to spreading the word of getting better matches online to ring the wedding bells. One such internet portal that has been chosen for the sales of the latest automobile bonanza – Skoda Fabia, is CarWale.com. SkodaAuto India recently announced the launch of its ‘Fabia online sales project’ in association with CarWale.com. The online cars market has been pretty competitive since 2006. It is one of the most emerging spaces in the online classifieds segment with news reported by WATBlog about Angel funding for AutoIndia, despite the market being dominated by players of the likes of CarWale.com which raised an A series round of funding in 2008. Skoda’s Superhatch – Fabia is one of those pioneers among cars being promoted online with sales association with CarWale. &ld...
More About: Online

New Portal Launches – MJunction Goes B2C & Pressmart Launches E-P
2009-10-15 07:37:00
Mjunction Services, an e-commerce company which is a joint venture between Tata Steel and Steel Authority of India (SAIL), has forayed into a business-to-consumer (B2C) initiative. Named www.straightline.in, with technology support from information technology companies IBM and Cognizant, the e-commerce portal now comes in direct competition with established ones, such as eBay and Amazon.com, among others. Viresh Oberoi, managing director of Mjunction, said: “We are looking at a 30 per cent market share of e-retailing in India, to begin with. We have outsourced our logistics services to Drive India Enterprise Solution, another Tata Group company.” The portal would also start classifieds and B2C auctions this year. “We have been into the online space for some time now, selling industrial products and commodities such as steel, coal, iron ore, and stressed assets such as plants and machinery, automobiles and even land and building. Business volume in terms of transaction value of...
More About: Portal

Google’s Wave Is Here To Stay!
2009-10-15 07:21:00
First of all, brilliant Marketing again. Remembering the days when Gmail was launched and was of use to a select few through invites. Ditto is the case with Google Wave; but, the noise is much more. Truly speaking, I find Google Wave to be a significant communication evolution in the web arena. The buzz all around is so much just after a few days after its launch that you might in verity miss the plethora of articles going around the technology columns of so many well known sites. The newbies there – It is not just another application; it is something more than ‘just that’. Techie-Buzz actually has a nice read titled Hands on Review in which you probably get to know the minutest of details before you ask some of your friend for a Wave invite. And, not to mention it has a Tips and Tricks article as well. Sure, Google Wave is not just about sharing docs, sending emails, live conversations, etc; for some it might be a Utopian technological leap ahead. Ought to be cri...

Apalya Raises $3 Million In Funding From IDG & Qualcomm Ventures &ndash
2009-10-14 16:01:00
About a year ago Apalya Technologies was in the news for raising a seed investment of 2 crores from Mumbai Angels. A year later they are in the news again and this time its for raising 3 million $ in A series funding from IDG Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures. Apalya is into mobile TV services and is a technology player that aggregates premium entertainment content from many different content providers, and then optimize the same to be suitable for mobile viewing. This seems like a good deal for Apalya as its investors bring functional experties as well IDG from the media end and Qualcomm from the mobile technology end. Mobile Tv is a bandwidth heavy service and this investment comes at a time when 3G auction is soon to happen in India. It seems like Apalya has taken this funding to be geared for a full fledged roll out along with the 3G services in India. Apalya currently has a team of 50 in Hyderabad, and boasts of tieups with almost all telecom operators. Its mobile tv service is a...
More About: Funding

Updated: After Facebook Is Orkut Trying To Ape Twitter Too?
2009-10-14 14:45:00
Update: On contacting google we got the following reply - “Our constant endeavor is to provide an enhanced online experience for Orkut users and we will continue to work towards it. However, we have nothing new to announce at this point in time.” GOOGLE SPOKESPERSON Original Post: Twitter seems to have caught the imagination of one and all. Just a few hours ago we reported that twitter has tied up with airtel to provide sms updates for tweets in India. Now it seems the next flattery for twitter comes in the form of imitation by Orkut (which still is the largest social network in India). First reported by Googlesystem blog the screenshot below showcases a yet to be released new UI screenshot of Orkut. This screenshot appeared on the home page of the brazil based site for Google Chrome downloads. It does certainly look like a new orkut is in the works and soon to be launched. As the screenshot shows it does look like a status update services will be the way Orkut would go as we...
More About: Facebook

Updated: Airtel To Help Indians SMS Their Tweet On Twitter – Launches
2009-10-14 13:18:00
Updated: Both Twitter and Airtel have announced the deal on their respective sites (Check twitter and airtel). Airtel has a 4 weeks exclusive deal as per their website. Original post: There was a time way back in 2008 when sms updates for Twitter were available in India. But twitter discontinued the same citing costs as one of the main reasons. With the recent rise of twitter in the country and its audience base growing each day with celebs jumping onto the twitter bandwagon. It was only a matter of time till it relaunched sms updates for twitter back in India. News has it that the same has been done now via an exclusive tie up between Airtel and Twitter. Airtel subscribers can now start tweeting and recieving updates via twitter on sms by simple signing up to short code 53000 at a cost of Re 1. The service is being called TweetSms. Its ironic that a similar named service is available in UK providing exactly the same service. We have earlier questioned the relationship between sms ...
More About: Indians

E-Greetings Make Diwali Tastier This Season – IndiaVideo Contributes
2009-10-14 13:17:00
This Diwali the internet will play a major role in the upliftment of the zest, which is by far the most awaited festival among all Indians, at home or abroad. The most beautiful thing about this is that families come together and greetings come in unique packages. Some order a gift which gets delivered at the person’s doorstep you wish to send, while some some use their so called ‘mobile phone’ to send cheeky forwards. I am not saying that the traditional means of greeting are forgotten completely, but with newer, better and more eye-opening ways the Diwali becomes tastier, doesn’t it? Sort of like a tinge of lemon to your favourite Mughlai Dish! That’s where, E-greetings come in the glare. We recently cited the PayPal Survey Report showing a boom in the e-commerce market this Diwali season. Reasons being seemingly honest, some people would shop online to avoid the crowds in the stores, some would do so since they find a wider range of products availab...
More About: Season , Make

Google Introduces Universal Commenting System: Sidewiki
2009-09-23 20:25:00
Sidewiki Screenshot Help and learn from others a you browse is the mantra Google is propagating with its latest creation – a universal commenting system called Sidewiki. My initial thoughts were that it has introduced something like Intense Debate but that isn’t the case. Sidewiki instead is a feature on Google Toolbar that appears as a browser sidebar, where you can read and write entries along the side of the page. Sidewiki lets users comment about the content of any web page they visit; the comments are then visible to other toolbar owners when they visit that site . Group product manager Caesar Sengupta tells us the company wants to “help foster and create communities around different web pages” and provide a functionality that is currently missing from most websites. (Source: Paid Content) It was interesting to note that both Om Malik and John Battelle thought this is product that would have ideally come from Yahoo, considering its community angle which is Yahoo...
More About: System , Universal , Commenting

Times Internet Becomes an ICANN Accredited Domain Registrar
2009-09-23 19:35:00
Times Internet has announced that it has acquired ICANN accreditation as a domain registrar. With this Times Internet Ltd. can directly offer domain registration services to their customers without having to resell other accredited registrars’ systems. This essentially means Time Internet costs of registering a domain on behalf of a registrant would come down. The move doesn’t seem the best idea, and actually doesn’t have much impact anywhere because domains are a low margin business. Most registrars worldwide run on margins as small as a few cents and some even offer domains at a loss as a bait to sell other web services with better margins. And this is reflected in the prices Times Internet has listed on the website – domains.indiatimes.com. It is comparatively higher than Net4, Rediff, Directi, etc.What exactly is the value therefore that Times Internet adds with this accreditation is not entirely evident. Again, this accreditation is only for Generic TLDs...
More About: Domain , Times

Events Update – VAS Summit, Telecom Seminar, TiE-ISB Connect, NASSCOM
2009-09-23 12:48:00
Gear up as the coming month has a lot of exciting events coming up. The mobile VAS Summit has already kicked off today, but the rest are on! Asian Telecom Seminar – Pune is a platform to meet big names in the industry and even from Government bodies. Whereas TEDIndia has got it all charged up for you. September 23, 24 2009 - Mobile VAS Summit 2009 “Identifying & evaluating the successful growth strategies & the future directions for VAS” Venue: ITC Sheraton, New Delhi, India Some of the Key Themes of the event – Examining the innovative VAS services which are appealing to Indian consumers. Grabbing the 3G opportunity: regulation, network deployment, business models Business applications: Best practices, service offerings & deployment Global marketing strategies in order to incite the user to use advanced data services. Strategies on boosting the penetration of mobile VAS usage in smaller cities and rural areas, and so on.. Some of the Speakers &n...
More About: Events , Update

Cyber Crime Rising – Indian Companies Most Vulnerable
2009-09-23 11:28:00
It’s no news that Cyber Crime is on the rise in India. From privacy issues to identity theft, to insecure hack and phish attacks, the list is endless. Though cyber law is improving and steps are taken to stop it from proliferating, (check out our coverage of India’s first cyber court, and the awareness initiatives by the AP Government) the threat is quite huge. A recent newspaper article in the Hindu highlighted the seriousness of cyber crime. “Online crime is getting bigger by the day. Cyber criminals make more money than thieves and underworld dons,” says Websense Regional Director for India and SAARC, Mr Surendra Singh. He stated that 2009 alone saw in increase in the number of malicious Web sites by 233% (and that in the first half of the year). Overall, the increase in 671% over the last one year. Some theorize that the recession has had a major impact. With so many people desperate for jobs and quick earnings, the scope of luring them into cons becomes esaier....
More About: Companies , Indian

Omniture Ties Up With ComScore To Measure Accurate Web Audience Profile
2009-09-23 11:20:00
The analysis of web traffic has always been a matter of Grey area. Despite Availability of so many Web analytics it is tough to find demographics and other accurate info regarding the Visitors. Omniture and Comscore thus are coming together to launch a unified digital audience measurement system. The solution would be derived by Combining the strengths of both the Web analytic giants. The new measurement system will utilize Omniture server data and would be melded with Comscore’s estimates for the web traffic. The company thus wants to provide publishers and advertisers a single platform to accurately measure traffic and demographic profile of visitors. For example, ComScore does not accurately measures the visit numbers owing to visits from different platforms. Omniture at the same time lack demographic data, thus both the companies would leverage their strengths to measure correct analysis of web traffic. Omniture was recently bought by Adobe for $1.8 billion. The web a...
More About: Profile , Audience

WATTech Series – Coming Soon!
2009-09-23 08:28:00
At WATBlog, our primary aim is to cover everything Web Advertising and Technology. Initially, the three might seems mildly distinct, but the three are what I believe drive development, encourage enterprise and inspire innovation. I still remember the surprise that dawned on me as a child when I realized that all of television, all the TV shows, all the cartoons, everything that happened on that screen was only because someone had a product, and needed a medium to advertise it. That apart, over the last few years, we’ve covered social media, the internet space, the developments in telecom, and startups and a lot of it is from an Indian viewpoint. However, we’ve rarely covered Technology and development in technology. Though I’ve been writing for WATBlog only for a while, and have been a reader for not much longer, I’ve felt that while covering commercial developments in technology, we’ve either skipped some explanation of it or we’ve ignored certai...
More About: Series

YouTube Becoming More Of A Social Network – Launches Activity Stream,
2009-09-23 07:23:00
YouTube has been quite busy with rolling out new features to facilitate more stickier usages at the same time present the site as a Complete Social Network . We notified you regarding the trending topics adopted by Youtube although YouTube at the same time also unveiled some mind-numbing features including Activity Stream , largely ignored by blogosphere. Feature Additions by Youtube: Friend suggestions: YouTube has started rolling out friend suggestion features on its homepage. The suggestions are provided by looking at the e-mail addresses used by users in sharing videos. It has also notified that it would soon roll out suggestion feature based out of Gmail Contact List. Activity Stream: YouTube would now support activity feed for Users subscribing to others. Earlier only upload activity was showcased in stream but now even the favorites, ratings, comments, etc of the users would be streamed . It clearly signals the emerging Social networking landscape on YouTube. Watch Vi...
More About: Social Network

Indian Kids Turn The iPhone Into A Joystick – Impress The Judges At T
2009-09-23 06:14:00
Being pretty young myself Ive been a firm believer that technology innovation is going to be driven by the youth in India. I have this statement that I make to VC’s often. I say the Mark Zuckerberg of India is 14 years old right now. What I mean is that he is right now playing with Xbox and fooling around with the iPhone and by the time he is 18 or 19 years old he would be kicking ass when it comes to building products on these platforms. Dont believe me? Check the video below: The video above shows a two people startup which applied to Techcrunch 50 and also won the best presentation award. Himanshu Baweja who earlier worked with minekey as a software engineer is a Delhi based boy. His company details can be found on their website. As the video above shows iMO has used software both on the iPhone and on the PC side to convert the iPhone into a joystick for PC games. This is just the start as the opportunity for this kind of application of touch devices is endless and they c...
More About: Kids , Iphone , Indian , Judges , Turn