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There are 7 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India" Asian Major iProperty.com Acquires RealAcres.com as Part of the Rs.18 Crore Asian Expansion StrategyIPGA Limited which runs the iProperty.com group of property websites acquired Indian property major RealAcres (Horizon Infoventures) for a reported AUD 5 million (around 18.8 crores in Indian Rupees). The acquisition of RealAcres.com sees iProperty.com adds to its market-leading online property operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Philippines, and represents its latest in a string of acquisitions since its listing on 11 September 2007. According to their release, the Group has committed to invest over 188 million INR (AUD$5 million) in its Asian expansion and India is a key part of the plan. iProperty.com sees itself continuing to make substantial investments in the Asian region and India will be a prominent part of its future plans. t is expected to invest close to $500,000 over the next 6 months as part of workforce expansion in 3 major metros, in return for 43 per cent stake of Horizon Infoventures in the first stage of the deal. VCCircle reports that the management and the vendors of RealAcres.com have been retained and have entered into a minimum three year service agreements.
The Growth SectorWhat this acquisition strongly suggests is the potential this niche holds, that a lot of people have speculated on since a long time. There is a reason after all that the Indian property market has seen some intense competition from players like MagicBricks, Makaan, 99acres, Indiaproperty.com all of which have powerful media majors backing them. etc. WATBlog had in fact analyzed the Indian property space over a year back and pointed out the immense growth potential in the sector. Interestingly RealAcres was not part of the list that we had surveyed then. The International TwistIt is interesting to see this news right after 99Acres tied up with US based SecondHome.com to attract foreign property investors looking at India. I wonder, if such an audience is also part of IPGA’s reasons to look at India. So that makes 2 property majors having a tangible international side to their business now, and we are still waiting for Consim, People Interactive and Times Group to make a similar move which seems inevitable at the moment. One might even think the fact that RealAcres doesn’t have a big media house running it being probably a major reason for iProperty to acquire them instead of a tie up with any other. Consolidation?We had reported long back on People Interactive Group’s plans to go public and use the capital for acquisitions in online classifieds and communities, by 2009. Now what I wonder is if the plans of acquisitions and the current tie ups lead to a consolidation in the sector. It would be interesting to speculate on the possible alliances and adoptions if that becomes the case. Sanjeev Bikhchandani of InfoEdge had in fact shared his views on acquisitions with Rajiv last month in an interview to WATblog, and is a good read to perhaps gauge an industry leader’s perspective on acquisitions. WAT wishes the team at RealAcres the best.
Thumbnail courtesy Picture Taker Related PostsAlso check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult Microsoft LIVE Search : Will It Steal The Show ?
WATBlog was invited to a selected screening of some of the new features on Microsoft LIVE Search today. I went hoping to find something interesting. More interesting than the algorithm-tweaks itself. And what I saw were just wonderful. Microsoft has nailed it right there. The usability changes done to the LIVE search are just wonderful. Add a lot of value to the user. I always knew LIVE Search’s algorithm was as good as the other alternatives (Read:Google) - I had done enough trail-n-error to prove this - but users have been slow in adopting. There can be a plethora of reasons for this, one being users comfort level with Google. For users to migrate to Microsoft LIVE Search in a large number, a marginal tweak in the search algorithm will not do. A significant leap in the user experience is what is needed. Today, I witnessed something like that at Microsoft’s corporate office, here in Mumbai. Here is what I saw - Image Search So there is no page 2, we were told. When you do an image search, thumbnail pictures are shown in a grid. You keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. The page updates itself, to show all your image search results right there on the first page. I liked it. It takes far less time than an entire page load-up so the results are visible to you faster. If anyone has ever searched for the right image to put in on a blog post, they’ll know what I mean. There’s something called a scratchpad. So, while you are searching for the images, you can drag-n-drop selected images in a region called scratchpad. Scratchpad stores these images and shows it to you the next time you do an image search. This is maintained via cookies, so it’s machine specific. Helps you create a pool of images that you want to refer to again and again. There was also image filtering. So, you can filter the image search resukts to show only the black and white images. Or images with faces. Or images with “head and shoulder” (yes). An image preview is seen when you move a mouse over a thumbnail. Clicking on the image opens a special window/tab where to the extreme left you have all the resulting images as a film strip and to the right hand side, in a different frame, the clicked image on its original page. Video Search OK, now here is where the most amazing feature comes in. Just go to www.live.com. Above the search bar, click on video. And do a search for any video that you want to see. Yes, you get thumbnails of the results. All well till now. Now, just move your mouse pointer over any one of the thumbnail preview and keep it there for a few seconds. What did you see? YES, the video starts playing, right there - out of a thumbnail preview. This demonstration had me going WoW ! Incredible! I mean, how cool is that! You don’t have to try and play each video to see if it’s really the one that you’re looking for (Tell me that has happened with you). This one feature is a very important milestone. Technically and from the usability perspective. Makes the life of the user a lot easier. Ravi Datanwala, Group Manager - Live Search, Consumer & Online International Microsoft India told us that this is something that emerged out of Microsoft Research. Very good work, I must say. Microsoft sure is innovative. Oh well, I always knew that. No waiting for the other camp’s response on this. Local Search Hmmm, three taps in my room were leaking today. Stuff in my room were floating. I wanted a plumber. Heck, I needed a plumber. I didn’t know just hours later, I;m gonna witness something which could have helped me. Googling for plumbers in Mumbai is hardly useful, as you might know. So, what ? Well, plumbers in Bandra is what I was looking for. This was exactly what was demonstrated to me by Ravi, today at Microsoft. Putting in a search query like this, gives you names and numbers of the relevant services in that area. I actually noted down a number. Although it’s not actually a unique feature. Asklaila has been doing it for ages now. And even Google local results can show you ones. Just that Microsoft LIVE search results were more relevant and they could be done right from the main Live.com interface. You don’t need to know of a different sub domain (like local.google.com) to perform the search. An incremental improvement. LIVE Search Cricket A very interesting India-specific innovation. Well, the feature is currently in internal testing. No beta as of now. But we got to see the tests. Searching for cricket updates don’t send you to third party websites about Cricket (cricinfo.com, etc). But what it gives is the cricket match score updates and cricket match schedules. Ravi told us that the feature will be covering many sports in the near future. The feature was a little “hush-hush” as of now, according to Ravi, and you are probably reading about it first on WATBlog. When available on mobile, this will be an interesting feature. xRank is another feature where Live automatically ranks the celebrities. This is based on some internal algorithms. Although I didn’t find it much usable, but might be a good thing to play around for a while. For the record Katrina Kaif had an xRank 1 while Shah Rukh Khan had an xRank of 175. So, as I said, not much useful. The ranks are probably based on the queries about a particular celebrity.
We would love to know about your thoughts on the new features in Live search. Looking for a live interaction in the comments. Most Commented PostsAlso check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult Indiatimes Launches Digg Like Hotklix.com - Ho.. Humm.. Yawn..Indiatimes.com has a history of some pretty badly failed launches in the webspace. For starters think of Phatchicks (Sleazy chat service), o3 (The lost blogging service) and iTimes (bad social networking)! But the times group never gives up does it? So they have gone ahead and cloned Digg.com to launch HotKlix.com (What’s with times and sleazy names?)
One look and you can say that there is nothing innovative about this baby and Times is probably the last one to launch such a site after all the portals like Yahoo (which acquired delicious which became more delicious recently), Rediff (Blogshowcase), Sulekha (Newshopper) and even the recently launched in.com which has news in the digg format. There were rumours recently of how google might acquire digg.com so Im not surprised the Indiatimes guys finally woke up to the possibility of such a site. On the whole this site will get traction primarily because its indiatimes.com which ofcourse even after its failed product launches it still garners a sizeable traffic to its main portal site which is linked to its news site economictimes and timesofindia.com. Its been around for a while and with the Times group media muscle will stay around forever if you ask me. But do you think this clone what is successful strategy will work for long? Whats your view? Related PostsAlso check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult Microsoft SilverLight All Set to Shine - Develops SilverLight for Mobiles
Microsoft’s SilverLight has indeed come a long way since the last time WATBlog took a peek into the technology. I could not help but reflect on Ankit’s parting lines,
The very next competitor to Microsoft’s SilverLight is a long reiging emperor, Adobe’s Flash. With almost every video and online gaming site fully embedded with Flash files, it’s going to take Microsoft a hell more than just a technology to dethrone them.
S Somesagar, head of Developer Division, Microsoft Corp, said
The current mobile market seems to be all hot with news, with every mobile company worth its salt trying its best to dethrone the other from their obvious advantages. With the expected launch of the iPhone in the Indian market and also allocation of 3G services in the offing, it is saddening to know that iPhone’s Safari bowser won’t support SilverLight and might force many to miss attractive interactive content in future, just the way iPhone and PowerPC users had to miss live coverage of the ongoing Olympic Games in China. Related PostsAlso check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult Online Tools for Personal Finance and Tax - Where and What to Look For..It is said that if you want to manage something (Girl friend, Money, Relations, etc), you must be able to understand them first. In other words, if you can’t understand them properly, you really can’t manage it well. Your personal finances & tax also falls within the above concept. How do you know whether you are doing well with your finances or not? So there are tools and calculators available which can help you with a self analysis and provide a road map for your finance decisions.
Managing personal finance adeptly is the key to secure a bright future for your family. India, being a rapidly developing nation, is now open to the global market when it comes to investing money for the growth of business. Investment planning, Retirement planning, mutual fund & tax planning are the main parts of personal finance. Personal finance management has assumed all the more relevance at present market situation. To grab definitive information on personal finance management and personal finance tips we are providing some well known websites : myiris.com , moneycontrol.com , sify.com , content.icicidirect.com , icicilombard.com , icicilombard.com.
To calculate taxes: First online tool for tax planning is Tax calculator. Almost each & every financial site whether it belongs to mutual fund Company, Investment Management Company or Life Insurance Company provides the above facility. Sites like Sify , moneycontrol provides wide range of calculators. Almost all sites provide Salary Tax Calculator but very few provide separate Capital Gains Tax Calculator also.
For your Insurance needs: Second online tool is Insurance premium calculator as people from India still feels that Insurance is the safest way of investment. There are few types of insurance calculator ULIP calculator, premium calculator & most important Insurance calculator. Companies like Bajaj Allianz provides even Life Insurance Retirement Income Calculator which according to some people worst combo ever. You can find Premium calculator on each & every site while ULIP calculator on some sites & Insurance calculator on very few sites. Very few companies like SBI Life insurance provides.
Mutual Fund investments tools: Third tool is Mutual fund calculator. These Calculators are designed to assist you in determining the appropriate amount. Due to this they have various types in it, such as Return Calculator, SIP calculator, Mutual Fund cost calculator, Networth Calculator, Returns Calculator.
For planning retirement: Next tool is Retirement planning tool. These tools and planners might help you in getting broad idea about your financial planning. However it's always recommend that one must consult his Financial Planning Advisor before taking any decisions as this is not a Childs play. Companies like Birla Sun life , Bajaj Capital , Bharati Axa Life insurances provides it while some banks like SBI, ICICI are pushing Reverse mortgage as a new retirement planning tool.
Making the most of the web for your financial goals: Now days people use Social networking sites like Orkut , Face book to create virtual communities of common interested people & guide them accordingly. Right now many individual are handling these communities & in future we hope to see many corporate brands to come up with their own communities to attract new users. We had seen many QnA sites went wrong due to delayed irrelevant responses. None of the available QnA sites like Yahoo answer, Rediff QnA or ibibo Sawal provides real time financial answers or help in the form of chat. Financial Blogs are picking up greatly for the net savvy investors but all we can say that it's a double edged sword. It is great that awareness is spreading but sometimes wrong information gets picked up.
So ultimately, how much worth are these online tools?
Personally, after looking at the current market trend, I feel India still needs a well developed & sorted online tools for Financial & Tax planning. We still don't have most required Wealth management & portfolio management tools easily available in India. Only 2-3 companies provide it & to use it you have to follow their tons conditions. So, using these tools to understand your financial planning is good but never trust on them as results vary from one site to another.
Lastly what we need in India is standard online tools available for every financial sector & online monitoring authority for the same. As India becoming net savvy & most of the investors likes to solve their problem on a single mouse click, it will take some time but it's vital issue which can't be neglected so easily.
Related PostsAlso check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult NDTV Lumiere Ties Up With Jaman.com For Online Movie Download & Live ScreeningNDTV Lumière the TV channel of NDTV Group that shows the contempory cinema in India has acknowledge the importance of online media has tied up with jaman.com a US based video entertaintment portal which will now provide video downloads and live screening of NDTV Lumière’s content. Speaking on the tie up Dhruvank Vaidya, senior vice-president, new ventures, NDTV Imagine, said "The Internet is a growing medium and our target audience is comfortable with it. Also, they can access movies at their own convenience."
NDTV Lumiere’s movies will be available at 2$ per download which will be available to a set of asian countries. The other noteworthy player in this space is Rajshri.com which is not only providing movies for download and premiering movies online since sometime now but also started creating content for mobile videos called mobisodes. Also there is Bigflix which seems to be providing 14000 titles at 1$ for download. On the TV Channels and traditional companies front Shemaroo was one such player which announced the decision to put its movies online for download We have always believed that online offline integration is the best way to leverage and scale media businesses in India as it provides both reach and interactivity at the same time. Just recently Hungama.com had tied up with Dailymotion to power bollywood centric content on their India centric video sharing site. Also there is youtube which launched its India centric site. Closer to home Zoom tv tied up with Rediff ishare to showcase their tv shows. So this trend of US centric sites either coming to India or India centric Video content creators tying up with US centric online videos sites seems to be catching up fast.
Related PostsAlso check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult MTNL Slashes Broadband Tariff in Delhi - Launches MTNL-TV
According to reports, the PSU has decided to offer its 2Mbps connection to the users at a minimal rental of Rs 99 per month, offering 150MB of free downloads, and Rs 149 for 400MB of free downloads. For the powers users, it has also slashed the rates of its unlimited downloads (night unlimited) plan from a decent Rs 899 to Rs 599 per month. However, the reduced rates shall be open from the 15th of August for new customers and on September 1st for its existing customers. The company’s Executive Director (Delhi), A K Arora, said that MTNL planned to boost up its existing user base of 2.6 lakhs broadband users, riding on the reduced tariffs.
It seems finally Ankit’s dreams of getting television channels on the mobile are going to come true! Related PostsAlso check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult More Recent Articles
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I guess it is obvious to believe Smita Thorat is one happy CEO, though "We sought out a leading Asian group to work with us to take our business to the next level and are excited to now be a part of iProperty.com Group and the iProperty.com network," all she had to say about the acquisition.
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