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The Great Indian 3G Auction, Deferred yet again.. Finance Ministry scales down the estimated revenue

I’ve been desperately waiting to get my hands on 3G and I am amongst those hundreds of thousands of people who already bought a 3G supported mobile handset for the same. Well the latest update on the whole 3G Spectrum saga is the auction has been delayed yet again and will take place only next fiscal year,hopefully.

Last reported on Jan 29, Government was going to setup a a board comprising a (GoM) group of ministers to resolve the issues and has not been done yet. The issues the board is hoped to resolve include setting the base price for the auction and finalizing the number of slots firms can bid for in the 20 of India's 22 service areas to be covered by the sale.

Whie the auction is delayed, the Finance Ministry has reportedly scaled down the estimated income from auctioning 3G spectrum. The Budget estimate for the year 2009-10 pegs revenues from the auction at Rs 20,000 crore only, which was earlier hoped to earn as much as Rs 30,000 crore. The total income from collecting telecom licence fees, entry fees and spectrum charges from the operators for the year 2009-10 is estimated at Rs 33,335 crore compared with the revised estimate of Rs 13,174 crore during 2008-09.The finance ministry.

The Finance Ministry has reportedly made an allocation of only Rs 23.5 crore towards rolling out an optic fibre cable network for the defence forces, despite DoT quoating a total requirement of nearly Rs 10,000 crore for the project and DoT will now have to take a proposal to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs to get higher allocation.

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NetworkPlay Adds Shopping Vertical - Thoughts On Ecommerce Advertising & Challenges For Networkplay

Vertical Ad network Networkplay.in has in a short time capture several vertical players in building out its inventory for online advertising. The latest addition to its line of verticals is shopping which its announced today.

Networkplay has added 6 sites to begin with and these include Naaptol.com, Cafegadgets.com, Storrz.com, Shopping.Zeenews.com, Infibeam.com and Onlinedeals.in. Ecommerce players have been tying up with ad networks and one of the bigger fishes in ecommerce i.e. Ebay had signed up with Komli not too long ago. What one needs to keep in mind though is the effectiveness of ads on these ecommerce properties.

How effective can online ads be on ecommerce sites?

Well compared to other media sites where the objective is to consume content on an ecommerce site we can safe assume that the intent is to buy and that might also mean compare and buy offline. But it does provide a window of opportunity for online driven sales for advertisers who can sell their product online.

Does this mean that all ads on ecommerce sites are effective?

Not really.. I feel a lot of online marketers and ad networks alike hardly ever stress on the creative and relevance of ads. Most of them are usually concerned with numbers with pertain to clicks, conversions and inventory. Sometimes the problem isn’t with the number of how many but what you say when you reach out to the audience also matters. This is sometimes lost on the advertisers and the agency who are both in a hurry to get things moving.

What will be the challenge for Networkplay?

Launching verticals one after the another might seem great but the real challenge for networkplay would be to make sense out of different verticals and provide value through each in a way which is best suited for publishers, advertisers and even the visitor of that property. If networkplay goes the one size fits all strategy of more and more inventory across its verticals without adding any vertical specific value (could be kind of advertisers, banner sizes or even demographic user valuation) then Im sorry but according to me they shall see their conversions and value as well as the advertisers going down the sink soon.

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iProperty.com Launches iConnect - a Real Estate Social Media Platform. What?

"For Home Buyers, investors, Brokers or Builders, iConnect is the perfect interactive platform to share information and offer free advice which makes good business sense and builds trust among community," say Murli Ramkrishnan, COO of iProperty.com, "iConnect is a great social media platform to educate potential buyers and helps raise confidence investing in real estate."

iConnect is a social media platform yes, but is it a great social media initiative or a great platform?

I don’t think so.

iProperty.com which took over Realacres.com last year to set its business aspirations in India on sail yesterday announced the launch of iConnect a social media platform for those interested in Real Estate. It is a QnA platform on the lines of Simply Ask which was earlier run by Real Acres. According to the release:

iConnect Features include:

A group allow like-minded members within your community to build their own little group
Create and join groups, Create group discussion
Keep up to date on what is happening within your social circle and receive real estate updates
Seek advice within the community and ask all your queries
Subscribe to group activity stream
Add applications to grow and expand your network
Create own identity badge

I don’t want to slander reputations or new initiatives but this just isn’t social media. Connecting, making friends, user generated content, sharing media everything are aspects fo social media yes, but putting them altogether in a platform doesn’t make it web 2.0 or a social medium.. in their inherent sense.

Social media to put crudely is being where your crowd is, to join the conversation and not pull them all up on a new island and ask them to talk. And finding just press releases as the only mention when I look for iConnect from iProperty on social and search media certainly isn’t social either. It would have been great had we come to know of this from a blogger who covers Real Estate, or some forum, or someone tweeting about this. That’s social. I am afraid perhaps this time the property behemoth got it wrong.

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Its Vodafone’s Turn To Play ‘Big Bad Operator’ - Blocks MyToday Sms Service

Well not too long ago Airtel had done it and I guess even telecom companies suffer from herd mentality albiet in slow motion. So 4 months after Airtel blocked Mytoday’s free sms service Vodafone has gone ahead and done exactly the same. Reason given? - ‘the service does not comply with the telecom regulations’. Really? and you realised that today? After MyToday has added 3.8 million mobile phone users in the country? And after 4 months of Airtel blocking the service?

vodafone

Apparently the news report on this story states that Mytoday was informed by value-added service provider Smart Wireless on the fact that Vodafone had blocked Mytoday’s service. I double checked the same by sending an alert to 1000+ sms subscribers of WATBlog via the MyToday service and given that I own vodafone the sms came through and wasn’t blocked. So either the issue has been resolved or Im just lucky.

What will it take to change telecom operators attitude?

Either ways this points to the closed garden attitude of the operators. I am a firm believer that for this to change the way the whole telecom scene currently operates needs to change as well. Unlike the internet where the ISP is just a carrier of data and has no say in the content that flows through his pipes here the telecom guys don’t only have a say but can choke the pipe from time to time. What can bring about a drastic change in this is if I can change my pipe without changing my identity. Which according to me can only happen with MNP (Mobile number portability). I have mentioned the same in an earlier post as well.

Though most vas players are upbeat on 3G given the unending delay and the lack of money for the same I doubt if 3G would really make as big an impact in opening this walled garden. I feel when and how MNP is implemented would have a major impact on the value of content players in the telecom scene.

On a sidenote I for one am dying to change my operator without changing my number. Ill be honest. Whether they block or they don’t block Mytoday.. Vodafone Sucks!

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