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Saturday, November 1, 2008

WATBlog Update "Saturday Startup Review: Nearhop, Paisamatters and Parentree" from "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

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"Saturday Startup Review: Nearhop, Paisamatters and Parentree" from "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

Saturday Startup Review: Nearhop, Paisamatters and Parentree

Today we have 3 startups for review and though they are all online startups they are targetting diverse audiences via the online medium. Lets have a look at them and check out WAT’s Hot and WAT’s Not!

nearhop

One sentence description: An Indian travel search engine

About Startup: Nearhop is a travel search cum travel planner engine which provides the following:

1. Computes all the possible ways using bus/ flight/ train with combinations upto 3-hops.
2. Can be used by people to know how to reach a town/village. Right now we have 5000+ places.
3. Database with around 38000 flights/trains/buses and will add more.
4. All city bus/local train routes at one place.
5. Book tickets at service providers site
6. Arrival and departure times of each flight/bus/train in a particular town.
7. Generate routes to near town
8. Can see the paths in google maps.
9. City bus/ local train routes on mobile

About Founder: Venkata Rao Chimata an MTech(CSE) from IIT Kanpur in 2005 who has worked  in a startup called Arada systems, Bangalore for a year and in Juniper networks, Bangalore for 2 years. He launched the Nearhop on 8th of August, 2008 and is a solo entrepreneur with no cofounders.

Company Location: The company is located in Hyderabad.

Funding Status: Funded by Friends and Family

WAT’s HOT: The concept is brilliant! The idea of 2 and 3 hops i.e. where you change mode of transportation to get from one place to another and how you can book it in a way that you waste minimum time is great. Infact as the data populates on this site the remote locations or villages this could become a comprehensive travel planning tool within India. As the combination of bus, train and flight helps you search the cheapest as well as the fastest way to get to a destination.

WAT’S NOT: Execution isn’t great! I mean both from a UI perspective and a Usability perspective. The product does well for an alpha level effort but is in no way what I would call ready for release or mass scale adoption. I think the data of bus train and flights for 2 hops or 3 hops can be presented in a much more user friendly manner side by side rather than a listings format. Also the UI is as old as the internet with use of real basic html which makes the site look dated and unfriendly! It is understandable though as this is a one man effort and Techies and designers are two different breeds but users dont care about who is the founder and whether it is one man effort or no all they care about is a great service.

One sentence description: A comparison engine for loans

About Startup: Paisamatters is a comparison engine of home loan products enabling users make an informed decision and select the best suited loan. They soon plan to add comparison of other loan products like loan against property, personal loan and car loan along with existing home loan. It has existing features like  emi calculator, a QnA section and a simple to view comparison result.

WAT’s HOT: Well the features like emi calculator and comparison features are useful especially the results UI.
WAT’S NOT:
There is nothing unique in their offering at this moment as loanraja, loanwala and apnaloan all offer most of these features

parentree

One sentence description: An Indian parenting community

About Startup:
Parentree focusses on practical aspects of Indian parenting by enabling parent-to-parent conversations and advice. The information that is exchanged includes parenting tips, reviews of schools and preschools, children’s activities in our cities, fostering intelligence and confidence and creativity in our children, good nutrition, pregnancy, child development, emotional development and behaviour. They also have an editorial team that writes about the latest research regarding children and parenting. Features include Journals (blogs) - any parent can write, Groups - discussions,  Reviews - Reviews of products and services for children and Social networking.

About Founders: Sathya Narayanaswamy has worked in various roles in engineering, product management and general management at companies like Lockheed, Lucent, Syntel and multiple Silicon Valley startups.

Co-founder Shobha Durairajan held various engineering positions, for over 10 years, at companies like Lucent, IBM and Lockheed Martin.

Co-founder Gita Dayal started (and currently moderates) an online group for Bangalore parents. She has held various Product Management and other positions, for over 10 years, at companies like eBay, Zaplet, Hewlett Packard and EDS.

Funding Status: Funding from family and friends

WAT’s HOT: Well the parenting content and community space as thus far been dominated by a single player in indiaparenting.com which nodoubt has grown into a great web destination but that still leaves an opportunity for a new approach. Parentree takes the community partcipation approach with the right blend of editorual content and UGC. Also community features like groups, blogs and reviews add to the community participation.

WAT’S NOT: Well its not going to be easy to compete with indiaparenting which is among the top 1000 sites in India and has been around for almost a decade. What Parentree needs to quickly build is user traction and participation which will be tough. Also from a feature standpoint better content display (too little content on homepage) which may prompt the user to sign up faster.

Hope the startups were worth your saturday! If you are a startup and want to be featured on saturday startup review then shoot us a mail on info(at)watblog(dot)com with the subject satuday startup!

Thanks to Anand, Sathya and Venkata for intimating us about their startups.

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Friday, October 31, 2008

WATBlog Update There are 2 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

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Champions League T20 website rights bagged by Global Cricket Venture

Lalit Modi (the man behind IPL T20) recently announced the launch of the Champions League T20 which brings the best T20 teams across the world together in one tournament. The tournament will be kicked off on the 3rd of December and will go on till the 10th.

The rights to the Champions League T20 site has been won by Global Cricket Ventures which is a joint venture between Live Current Media and NetlinkBlue. According to this agreement, Global Cricket Ventures will build, manage and monetise the official website of the Champions League Twenty20 for a period of 10 years.

championst20 champions league twenty 20 logo

Even earlier Global Cricket Ventures had won the rights to manage and monetise the BCCI.tv website which launched recently and also the IPLT20 website which was phenomenally popular during the IPLT20 series.

The big problem for Global cricket ventures would be which domain name would the site be hosted on as domain squatters seems to have books all the possible domain combinations for champions league T20.

For example championsT20.com, Championsleaguetwenty20.com and even clT20.com which is very much like their iplt20.com are already booked by domainers who plan to make money with these domains or are hoping that Global Cricket Ventures buys them. There is no news from global cricket ventures as to which domain would the champions T20 site be launched.

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UTV Q2 Results - Net Profit Up 86%, Bullish On Gaming & Internet

UTV Consolidated results for Q2 are out and net profit us up by 86% to Rs.32.8 crores from Rs.17.6 crores. The key highlights of the results are the comments made by UTV Chairman & CEO Ronnie screwwalla on gaming and internet businesses. More in the release.

Ronnie Screwvala on Gaming

"In the Interactive business segment, both our acquisitions of Ignition and Indiagames are on target
that was set out for the current fiscal. Indiagames has witnessed a consistent quarter on quarter
growth, where as we anticipate second half of this fiscal to be extremely buoyant for Ignition. During
the quarter we also acquired an online gaming company in US, True Games to complete our offering
from Gaming standpoint. This completes our capabilities to develop, publish and deliver gaming
content across all consoles, online and mobile platforms."

Ronnie Screwvala on Internet Business

"New Media business segment focuses on digital distribution of content over Web and Mobile. We
have aggregated an enviable content catalogue of music from across the country, which has delivered
phenomenal results in just few months of operations. Other, notable venture as part of this business
has been the launch of our business and finance portal UTVi.com, which has been rated as #2
finance and business portals in the country. Overall, the entire business segment shows immense
promise in just few months of operations."

The quarter also meant that Disney’s strategic investment of 1.18 billion $ in UTV’s broadcasting business was now complete. Though the separate results for these businesses are still not out these statements point to more investment in this space. We will be getting in touch with UTV next week to get you more dope on these statements and their future strategy in gaming and internet. So stay tuned!

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Thursday, October 30, 2008

WATBlog Update There are 2 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

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Telenor Picks Up 60% In Unitech Wireless for 1.07 B $

It seems like Unitech wireless has been up for sale for quite sometime now and finally someone seems to have bought into the telecom firm which has a pan india telecom license and spectrum in 13 cities.

telenor unitech

Unitech which was earlier rumoured to have sold off 26% to Telenor and then reported to have sold 49% to Telecom Italia has finally sold 60% to Telenor for $1.07 Billion!

The deal would happen in tranches with the first tranche of 20 %, Telenor expects to acquire the entire 60 per cent stake by September 2009. The deal would be funded via a rights issue of about 12 billion Norwegian Kroner (about $1.7 billion).

Unitech Wireless would pump-in $3 billion (about Rs 14,700 crore) investment over the next three years to roll-out operations. More on this here.

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WATBlog’s Guide for Events In November

There are events happening across India this november and here is a list for you to check out:

tie isb5th-7th November - TIE-ISB Connect, ISB, Hyderabad: Tie-isb connect is an annual networking event for entrepreneurs and investors organized by the TiE, Hyderabad Chapter and the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (WCED), ISB. The event is a must attend for aspiring entrepreneurs, early-stage ventures, and growth-stage ventures with potential investors, successful entrepreneurs and mentors. The event agenda can be found here and one can register here.

nasscom animation and gaming5th-7th November - Nasscom Animation and Gaming Conference, HCC Complex, Hyderabad: The 6th edition of its Animation & Gaming would bring together animators, producers, program directors, broadcasters, production units involved in media & entertainment, art & design schools, IT companies, investors, VC's, government officials from Films Division/ Information and Broadcasting Departments, media etc. This event aims to be an ideal platform for Indian animation, gaming, electronic media, mobile and console players to participate at the event and demonstrate their competencies, strengths and capabilities. One can download the agenda here and register here.

startup saturday8th November - Startup Saturday, Mumbai S.P.Jain Institute : Startup Saturday is an initiative by Headstart to provide entrepreneurs in each city with a monthly community driven forum that is structured in agenda but open in discussions. A Startup Saturday provides a forum for entrepreneurs to discuss, present, network and learn from peers, prospective customers, adopters, partners and investors. This is a free event and one needs to check the Startup Saturday, Mumbai page for registering.

iamai11th November - IAMAI Digital Entertainment Conference, ITC Grand Central, Mumbai: Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) is an industry body which has been organising conferences year round. Check our coverage of past IAMAI events here. The Digital entertainment conference would focus on the entertainment industry and its opportunities to go digital. A must attend for digital and traditional professionals in the entertainment field. One can check out the agenda here and register here.

marketing 2.0 conclave14th November - Marketing 2.0 Conference, Taj President, Mumbai: The marketing 2.0 conference is being organised by the Media and Marketing Institute which was recently launched 9.9 Mediaworx. The Marketing 2.0 conference is a day long conference which focusses on digital transformation: from niche to mainstream.

broadband tech conference21st November - Broadband Tech Conference, The Imperial, New Delhi: The 5th Broadband Tech India 2008 will bring together professionals from the telecom world, including industry leaders, customers, venture capitalists, analysts, government officials. It will provide a detailed insight into the dynamics of the broadband industry. One can register for the event here.

Well thats not all for november.. After the success of the first WATBlog Panel.. WATBlog is working on one more of its own event (which may be different to the earlier one!) the details of which shall be on WATBlog next week. So stay tuned! And have an eventful November!

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Wednesday, October 29, 2008

WATBlog Update There are 3 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

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September Adds 10M Mobile Subscribers While Airtel Adds Jobs On Mobile To Its Offering

So Slowdown or No Slowdown the telecom subscribers refuse to slowdown in this country. Total addition as on september as per TRAI has been 10.07 million mobile subscribers and at the current rate it wont take more than 18 months to touch the 500 million mark!

Even the subscribers are increasing the ARPU’s (Average revenues per user) is one of the lowest in the world at just Rs.300 per user. No doubt then telecom operators are thinking of innovative ways of adding to the ARPU. So Airtel one of the largest telecom operators in India which boasts of over 62 million telecom subscribers as on March 2008 have tied up with Naukri.com, Clickjobs.com, monsterindia.com and sulekha.com to power job alerts on mobiles. Just recently naukri and sulekha had tiedup with mobisoc to launch their mobile apps as well.

jobs-on-mobile

Airtel users need to dial *321*661# inorder to subscribe to the alerts. The alerts are charged at Re.1 per day i.e. Rs.30 a month. There is ofcourse no news on how much of this revenue would be shared with the jobsites. Though given the operators tendency to grab a lions share of the revenues Im pretty sure the revenues share for jobsites would be negligible. But even for one second if we consider that Airtel promotes this service via a multimedia campaign i.e. print, tv etc and even 1% of the subscribers subscribe over a year given the paucity of jobs in this maket that would mean a revenue of 7,00,000 subscribers X 30 rupees a month = Rs.2.4 crores a month! Now only if there was a different revenue share and jobsites would be rich!

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SimplyHired.com Launches JobSearch For India - 25% Job Cuts Expected in India - SimplyFired.com?

Updated: It seems that simplyhired also has a how did you get fired? stories site at simplyfired.com! I guess even they prepare for the worst.. So incase simplyhired tanks after all the funding atleast they have a community and content site of those who are simply fired! Well such are times that simply fired might  just work better!

Original Post: At a time when the jobs space is set for a slowdown especially with 25% of corporate India looking to cut jobs post diwali as per this ASSOCHAM report. In short people are getting simply fired!

simplehired-or-simplyfired

Now in this gloomy environment SimplyHired a job search engine based out of the US and funded for 17.7 million in three rounds of investment by angel investors like Guy Kawasaki of Alltop.com and by Fox and Foundation Capital is launching its site in India and also across Canada, UK and Australia at the sametime.

According to a statement by the Founder of Simply hired who is of Indian Origin, Gautam Godhwani “The launch of these websites is an integral part of Simply Hired’s effort to expand our mission in building the largest worldwide job search engine,”

Well vertical meta search engines haven’t done great as yet in India. Yes there is iXiGo.com in the travel space but that too doesn’t yet have an apparent sustainable business model. SImplyhired would also need to grapple with the established brands of naukri and now the up and coming shine.com.

On a lighter note: recently i was speaking to a recruitment consultant and in good fun I advised him to change his business model for this recession phase. Told him to start a layoff consulting firm i.e. whom to layoff and why!! And guess what he actually thought it was a good idea given the times we are in!

Disclosure: For those who dont know we run WATJob.com a Jobsite for Web, Advertising and Tech Industry in India. So incase you are still hiring or looking for jobs do log on.

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Linkedin Launches App Platform - Slideshare Among The First Apps

Linkedin.com the professional network which according to this research has been touted as the most popular network in India and which was recently in the news for looking out for local tie ups in India to grow its Indian userbase has launched its app platform.

Linkedin app platform is an open social based platform called InApps. From the beginning Linkedin has been very careful from the very beginning to make sure that it is positioned itself as a serious business network for professionals and continuing that approach it has made sure that there is a strict approval process in place for all apps so that only professional and relevant apps get through the system.

Not only this it is also limiting the number of apps a single user can add upto 15 only. And thats not where the restrictions end as unlike its counterparts in facebook and myspace which allow any competing ad network ads to be placed inside the apps Linkedin’s app platform only allows app developers to use LinkedIn's current ad system which means less customization and targetting availability.

Given that Linkedin offers a huge base of professional Indian users I expect companies to both submit apps as well as explore advertising opportunities within apps as time goes on.

linkedin-slideshare

One of the first apps to be featured on the linkedin platform is Slideshare the presentation sharing startup which has offices and delhi and has been covered on WATBlog before.

You can check out the demo of the slideshare app on Linkedin below:

Linkedin essentially has zero competition in India besides for Brijj.com which is not looking at launching apps platform or opening api anytime in the near future. Also apps like slideshare will increase the value that linked provides as a platform for professionals and it would be increasingly difficult for another player to play catch up!

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