Headstart is an event to showcase innovation. It focuses on getting the entire innovation ecosystem together: entrepreneurs, technologists, customers, investors and media. It was held in bangalore last year as well and this year the nominations for Headstart 2009 close in today i.e. on 7th Dec 2008. Do make sure that you don’t miss out as this is a great opportunity for startups and innovative ideas to get showcased.
Do note that nominations for the demo pit will stay open for longer.
This year Headstart is being held at the NIMHANS Convention Center, Bangalore on 9th and 10th Jan 2009. ACM Bangalore’s annual event Compute is co-hosted with Headstart. One can register for the combined event here: http://register.headstart.in/. The entry to stalls and the demo pit is free. The early bird registration (up to 30 Dec 2008) costs Rs 2,000 for both Headstart and Compute.
Headstart are also the guys who organize the startup saturday’s and this coming saturday it will be a triple treat as there will eb simultaneous startup saturday’s across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. A Special Start up Saturday Mumbai where there will be two demos: Librarywala (Finalist at Tata NEN Hottest startup) and Adroi. This would be followed by panel of investors and experienced entrepreneurs on what should a start up do in a slow down.
Panel:
Mahesh Murthy, Partner at Seedfund
Sasha Mirchandani, India head for Bluerun ventures
Gopal Krishna - serial entrepreneur for over 20 years across India and china. last co was Mobile2win which he sold to Disney
Rohit Nalwade - ex CEO of Consumervision - IIT B incubated startup.
Bangalore and Delhi also will host a special start up Saturday on the same date. For Delhi, its also the very first start up Saturday. http://startupsaturday.in
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Both Facebook and Google were working for sometime on their respective connect platforms to brings social networking features and data portability from their platform to any other platform that wants to use a facebook or a google id. The connect platforms are much like open id which allows users to have a single sign on across the sites but what it also has is the social features that it brings both in the case of facebook and google. In facebook the minifeed gets updated while google has google gadgets that add social features to your site.
Finally they launched both their platforms for the public yesterday. This post tries and pits them against each other:
Facebook Connect: Facebook had announced the connect platform at the F8 Developer Conference in July. It had also announced 24 partners which included the likes of Digg, Six Apart, and Citysearch for this platform.
What does Facebook Connect offer?
Trusted authentication: Offer Facebook users the option to log in to your site with one click.
Real identity: Integrate your users' Facebook identities into your site.
Friend linking: Let your connected users find their Facebook friends on your site.
Dynamic privacy: Enable users to bring their information and privacy settings with them to your site.
Social distribution: Allow users to share actions and information from your site with their friends on Facebook including publishing Feed stories to profiles and sending requests.
How can a Website integrate Facebook Connect?
The steps are about 6-7 of them which includes creating files on the server and copy pasting codes. A demo of facebook connect in action here. Facebook can also integrate with blogs and has done so with the popular tech blog techcrunch where users can comment using their facebook id.
Is this easy to do? Is it worth my time?
Well at the outset I must say that inorder to get facebook connect up and running you would have to be a developer. As without developer knowledge it would be tough to get it right. On the whole I think facebook has made it tougher for webmasters to integrate their platform with connect. Though it is really valuable as it has a viral impact for your content. For example you are running a blog and your visitors who comment their mini feed shows up on their facebook account informing all their friends that they commented on your site. Hence in effect every action taken by a facebook connect user will have a viral impact.
What is needed from facebook?
A plugin for wordpress? Yes bloggers are not only a source of great word of mouth but also a great way to spread traction back to your site. If the way facebook connect is enabled on Techcrunch would be available to all wordpress bloggers in the form of a plugin then that would be great! There was an attempt made by a spanish developer though his site isn’t working now. Im sure someone would do this sooner or later.
Google Friend Connect: Google friend connect has partners with the likes of Yahoo, Aim and Open Id to being single sign on and social features to third party platforms.
What does Google Friend Connect offer?
Check out the intro video below to know more:
How can a Website integrate Google Friend Connect?
Google friend connect integration is much simpler as compared to facebook as it involved copying two files to your server and then copy pasting the google gadget code that you want to use on your site. As the video shows above one can use it for comments, rating etc.
Is it easy to do and Is it worth my time?
Yes it looks fairly simple and is a great way for any webmaster to add interactivity to his/her site. Also as the gadgets can be unlimited there is no cap on what can be done with this tool. The only thing is I wish there was an orkut integration i.e. everytime a user participated one my site his feed on orkut should throw up my sites address similar to facebook’s mini feed.
Facebook Connect Vs Google Friend Connect - The Verdict
Well the verdict is fairly clear in the way these two are positioned. Facebook by virtue is looking for premium publishers to integrate its connect platform and hence the developer requirement which in itself filters the self run blogs and bloggers. Google on the other hand looks to be catering to the long tail of publishers be it any blogger to engage a community around its platform.
So in essence Google Friend Connect enables you to build/aggregate a community and some amount of interactivity to your site while facebook is all about expanding your community i.e. more viral impact via feeds.
All in all from an impact perspective I think a facebook would benefit a site more than google would even though the interactivity features in google are more and its easy to integrate on the whole it does nothing to impact the traction of the site as the participation via google friend connect doesn’t have the viral impact that facebook connect has.
Microsoft’s search engine Live Search India has launched a new contest a new contest "Win with Search". In this contest you're on the Live Search contest page i.e. winwithsearch.com for every search you do, a pair or Dice will roll and if you get a double '6' within a 10 minute interval, you win! There is also a random winner in this 10 minute internal when you experience our Video search results.
"Win With Search" is clearly aimed at increasing searches at Live Search. Inspite of having a decent product live search has not been able to garner more search market share. especially in India as as per alexa it ranks 9th way behind google and google’s services blogger, youtube and orkut.
But I am not sure such gimmicky marketing tactics are a way to increase search traction in the longterm. I feel google has built a brand name in generic search that is very tough to break and unless Microsoft buys Yahoo’s search business as it was in the news lately It would be very difficult for Microsoft to scale live search and give google any competition in the search space.
Yes Microsoft seems to be making significant strides and even adding new features like maps on the product end but it seems that their marketing functions needs better idea’s than this one to engage users and also to actually create awareness about their search engine.
They say that it's almost impossible to find domain names of English language words anymore. Many a people have made a fortune by selling their domain names off (Startups.com was recently sold off for a million dollars, though personally I feel the name is worth more).
With newer technologies coming in, will we see domain parking in other arenas as well?
My fascination is regarding Twitter specially. I am a huge fan of the microblogging tool and spend quite an amount on it. It is excellent for networking and people are mostly approachable. Corporate houses are soon realising its power in terms of consumer feedback and the impact it can have on their business. Having contests, sharing links and giving a human face to their organisation, many companies are coming forward and launching their twitter profiles. Starbucks coffee has more than 15000 followers. It uses Twitter to redirect customers to stores, inform them about new flavours, and take their valuable feedback, all under 140 characters. Closer to home we have Fastrack which updates us with its tweets regularly.
Now suppose you create an account under the name of McDonalds or say Adidas, then tomorrow when these corporations come on twitter, the first thing they might want to do is contact you. My best bet would be to go after the retailers and the media houses. Media houses especially, since they use twitter for news updates and a lot of their reporters (like CNN news anchor Don Lemon ) are already on twitter to seek stories and get that edge (the recent Mumbai blasts for example), its only a matter of time before they persuade their company to try twitter.
A company that is looking to expand into the social media circuit and wants to connect to its consumers will eventually try its hand on twitter and that's the day our twitter parkers will sport a broad grin.
However why limit yourselves to companies? There are famous people on twitter. Not only is it a vast repository of some of the innovative thinkers such as Venture Capitalist Guy Kawasaki and Transmetropolitan creator Warren Ellis, its also now got Raj Thackeray (or so it seems) and The_Real_Shaq, who indeed is the real Shaquille O' Neal (He created his profile as a retort to some guys who created a fake profile of his). Twitter is now a 5 million strong community.
Though seriously speaking, there is little incentive to go after people's names as far as twitter parking is concerned, except for the joy it might bring.
Obviously one major advantage here is that since your twitter account isn't being "hosted", you don't even have to pay anyone, unlike in the case of domain parking. One could argue that this way we're merely wasting space on the internet, but then that's an ethical issue most people wouldn't pay much attention to.
A popular international mens magazine FHM (For Him Magazine) which had launched its Indian version last year in association with Next Gen Publishing which owned the license to publish in India has now launched its content on mobile phones for Indian men. FHM is currently targetting men with GPRS enabled phones.
The magazine has tied up with Mauj Mobile which wil modify content for mobile consumption and also help distribute it through various mobile operators in India. Please note that FHM as of now does not plan to launch a mobile version instead it plans to distribute content like images, wallpapers and mobile calendars on the mobile portals of various telecom operators and also on Mauj Mobile site i.e. Wap.Mauj.com. Eventually a wap portal will also be created. They also plan to make available short form mobile videos.
Mauj has been in the news earlier for powering Radio city’s mobile presence and its seems with so many users on the mobile front more and more media companies be it TV, radio or print would want to be present on the smallest screen.
PayMate which had earlier launched its services in Srilanka in partnership with Bank of Ceylon now has moved north and launched its mobile payment services in Nepal through its local representative PayBill. PayBill has partnership with Everest Bank and Nepal Telecom the largest bank and mobile telephony players in Nepal to offer mobile recharge to over 2.2 million subscribers of Nepal Telecom a telecom company in Nepal.
PayMate plans to enable utility bills, movie and flight tickets, online purchase, retail shopping, person to person (P2P) money transfer, EMI payments with its mobile payments technology in Nepal.
Paymate has always followed the strategy of tying up with multiple partners to increase the distribution of its payments services. Be its tie up with Tata Tele earlier this year or its tie up with Sify outlets for mobile gift distribution.
Also paymate as a company is very focussed on the Indian subcontinent and it wasn’t a surprise that after srilanka nepal was next of the radar.
ibibo.com has launched 'iVideostar' which is a contest wherein users can display their dancing talent by uploading their own videos. Ibibo has roped in Bollywood choreographers, Bosco and Caesar, whose recent films include Singh is Kinng, Race, Golmaal Returns and Jab We Met to judge the same.
Inorder to build traction for this contest a television commercial has been shot and Bosco and Caesar have appeared in it.
Ibibo’s entertainment contest strategy
Ibibo has been running contests since its inception and they have been very smart about the choice of contests as well. They have been tying up with relevant partners and then executing these contests well. Infact some of the contest look completely branded initiatives and all of them revolve around entertainment.
A look at Ibibo’s Contests:
iVideostar - This is about Dancing videos and has roped in well known choreographer Bosco and Ceasar.
iFresh Face - Partered with Elite Modelling agency - This ensures that ibibo has a constant flow of good looking women posting their pictures. Which inturn attract the men to go and sign up.
SingUrDil - This seems to be a sponsored contest by Cornetto from Walls. Its again around entertainment that is singing.
iFashion Photographer - Partnered with FTV - Again fashion photographers would end up clicking pictures of models and most of them have to be good looking in short more eye candy pictures on ibibo.
All in all Ibibo is focussing on being a talent showcase platform via these contests and has a strong focus on entertainment. It also means that media creation i.e. pictures, videos etc are of an high quality and people rate, vote and promote more than they interact. Also guys and girls who participate in such contests work on spreading the word of mouth themselves with hope of winning the contest.
Amway India a direct selling FMCG company (also known as a multi level marketing company) has launched its own e-commerce portal at www.amway.in. It has partnered with Microsoft’s Enterprise Services division to implement the ecommerce portal. Amway aims to cross its objective of Rs. 2,500 crore in revenue by 2010 by leveraging the online medium to expand the company’s existing distribution network across 500,000 Amway Business Owners and also to tap the vast semi urban customers base with direct access to Amway’s product range.
Mr. Bill Pinckney, MD and CEO, Amway India threw some light on the size of business in India. He said “Having grown from Rs 91 crores to Rs 800 crores in under ten years, we are now poised for further growth and expansion, and need to reach out to a wider consumer-base. We believe, our enhanced presence on the internet has the capacity to fuel this growth.”
Amway had recently starting airing ads on TV to build a brand in India. Check the ad below
It seems with this online foray one could expect a slew of online ads as well from Amway. A sureshot pitch for a digital agency. Also given amway’s offline model an affiate marketing model works perfectly for its online ecommerce play. It remains to be seen how aggressive Amway is with its ecommerce foray and what kind of new media tools it uses to popularise the same.
