Saturday, December 1, 2007

If this report from Business Standard is to be believed, there are 18 lakh GPRS users in Gujarat alone! So what would be the total number 0f GPRS users in India?

GSM subscriber base crossed the mark of 50 lakh recently in the state. Operators have witnessed a growth on an average of around 200% of GPRS subscribers in Gujarat.

Nearly all handsets above Rs. 4000 in the market are GPRS capable. What would be interesting to know is if these GPRS connections are being used for internet connectivity (mobile as a modem for PC), since availability of even dial-up internet is a question mark in rural India. Brough Turner had pointed out this in his comment on why Reliance Infocomm is seeing surging demand for data in non-urban India.

Hutch:

"We have seen a jump of around 300 per cent in the number of GPRS subscribers across the state within a year," said Sunil Sood, operations director of Hutch.

Airtel:

B P Singh, COO, Bharti-Airtel in Gujarat,said, "Airtel witnessed a ten fold growth in GPRS subscribers here."

Idea:

Gururaj Kulkarni, circle head and VP of Idea Cellular, said, "After Idea launched GPRS in August 2004, we have GPRS enabled sites across the circle today covering every small city within its coverage. "We have seen a growth of more than 100 per cent in the GPRS subscriber in the state," Kulkarni added.

BSNL:

BSNL is also providing GPRS and EDGE services. "Currently, we are offering the services in 18 cities and 64 villages. We have recently started the service so it would be difficult to judge the growth but we have seen a tremendous demand for GPRS even in the rural area," said Piyush Khare, DGM mobile, Gujarat, BSNL.

April saw the GSM user additions in India go below 3 million users mark for the first time in 2006.

According to the subscriber figures released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the GSM user base touched 72.12 million in April, up from 69.2 million in March.

Bharti = 20.68 million
BSNL = 17.59 million
Hutch = 16.06 million
Idea = 7.64 million
Aircel = 2.83 million
Reliance = 2.01 million
Spice = 1.98 million
MTNL = 2.02 million
BPL = 1.31 million

GSM user growth in this year:

April 2006 = 2.93 million
March 2006 = 3.78 million
February 2006 = 3.17 million
January 2006 = 3.50 million

Facebook : privacy : tracking users

Original Article in the TOI

SAN FRANCISCO: Seeking to keep the peace in its popular online hangout, Facebook has overhauled a new advertising system that sparked privacy complaints by turning its users into marketing tools for other companies. Under the changes outlined late on Thursday, Facebook's 55 million users will be given greater control over whether they want to participate in a three-week-old programme that circulates potentially sensitive information about their online purchases and other activities.

Facebook provided two different opportunities to block the details from being shared, but many users said they never saw the "opt-out" notices before they disappeared from the screen.

With the reforms, Facebook promised its users will now have to give their explicit consent, or "opt-in", before any information is passed along. The concessions were made after more than 50,000 Facebook users signed an online petition blasting the system, called Beacon, as a galling intrusion that put the Palo Alto-based startup's pursuit of profit ahead of its members' privacy interests.

More than 40 different web sites, including Fandango.com, Overstock.com and Blockbuster.com, had embedded Beacon in their pages to track transactions made by Facebook users. Unless instructed otherwise, the participating sites alerted Facebook, which then notified a user's friends within the social network about items that had been bought or products that had been reviewed. Facebook thought the marketing feeds would help its users keep their friends better informed about their interests while also serving as "trusted referrals" that would help drive more sales to the sites using the Beacon system.

But thousands of Facebook users viewed the Beacon referrals as a betrayal of trust. Critics blasted the advertising tool as an unwelcome nuisance with flimsy privacy protections that had already exasperated and embarrassed some users. Some users have already complained about inadvertently finding out about gifts bought for them for Christmas and Hanukkah after Beacon shared information from Overstock.com. Other users say they were unnerved when they discovered their friends had found out what movies they were watching through purchases made on Fandango.

If Facebook adheres to the new "opt-in" standard, "it would be a significant step in the right direction," said Adam Green, a spokesman for MoveOn.org, which launched the petition drive to revamp Beacon just nine days ago. "It also says a lot about the ability of Internet user to band together to make a difference."

The backlash against Beacon illustrated the delicate balancing act that Facebook must negotiate as the company tries to cash in on its popularity without alienating the users fueling its success.

Beacon is a key component in Facebook's "Social Ads" programme, which is vying to make more money from the rapidly growing audience that uses the social network's free services as a place to flirt, gossip and share personal passions.

This isn't the first time that Facebook has done an about-face after introducing a feature that raised privacy concerns. Last year, Facebook rolled out a "news feeds" tool that tracked changes to users' profiles. After thousands of users rebelled, Zuckerberg issued a contrite apology and added a way to turn off the news feeds.
This time around, a customer support representative expressed Facebook's regrets in a Wednesday night note that foreshadowed the changes made on Thursday.

Five cool things you can do with your GPRS phone

Original article in Hindustan Times

Ruchi Hajela , Hindustan Times

Email Author

November 30, 2007

Get started with a browser
Any web surfing experience can be awesome or awful depending on what browser your phone has. Hence, it would be good to download a decent browser to begin with. Opera Mini is one such browser that can be installed on any Java phone. It basically converts and compresses web pages to suit your phone screen.

Often, the browsing experience on mid and lower mid-end phones can be quite uncomfortable and having Opera Mini browser can help. Opera Mini is fast and hence reduces your GPRS consumption. You can download Opera Mini free of cost from www.operamini.com and occupies as little as a 50-60 KB space on your handset.

Instant messaging on the go
Why waste money on SMS when you already have a GPRS connection? Just download a free Internet messenger on to your handset and keep chatting away with your friends to glory. Check out Nimbuzz (www.nimbuzz.com), a free messenger that integrates your Yahoo!, Google Talk, Skype and MSN messengers all in one. This chat messenger also allows you to make mobile to PC calls.

Another option is MovaMessenger, yet another free messenger that even allows you to see avatars or picture profiles of your contacts. Here also you can chat with MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ and Google Talk contacts. MovaMessenger, however, is a bit more heavier and lazier than Nimbuzz, experts say. The application works on any GPRS enabled Java handset. The application is also expected to allow file transfers in a later version. MovaMessenger does not work on Windows mobile handsets.

WidSets
Stay updated about what's the latest on your favourite websites using WidSets. A WidSet is like an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed that alerts you and pushes information on to your website as soon as it is updated on the website. Go to www.widsets.com and there is an entire library of the WidSets available today. The library currently has WidSets for BBC News, Reuters, Accuweather and Wikipedia amongst others.

To download the software, go to www.widsets.com. You will be prompted to download WidSets on your phone. After you have downloaded and installed the software then simply launch it. On launching it, you will see a number of balloon-like structures containing the names of different websites and publications. From these, just pick the one you are looking for.

WidSets are free of cost. Unlike RSS feeds that list updates on one side of the webpage, each WidSet gives you information from a different site.

Maps
So what if you don't have an expensive GPS (geographical positioning system)-enabled device? You can view a street map of your neighbourhood and maybe even try to spot your own house in there. Try downloading GMaps or Google Maps on your mobile phone and you can view street level maps of places from all over the world.

However, in order to get directions and plot routes, you will have to have a GPS service on the handset. Until then, only viewing is possible.

Some freeware
If you are looking for some free entertainment, try out www.gamejump.com. In exchange for watching a couple of advertisements of two three seconds, you get to play a game that would otherwise cost you some money. The quality of the games is excellent. You can also download some free applications like calendars and e-mail clients among others.

We suggest you get an unlimited GPRS connection for your cellphone and make the best of mobile on Internet. Happy surfing!

Online Ad - Holes and Gaps

Original Article by Matt Mcalister

Somehow I keep expecting some company to break through and solve the problems with the Google AdSense model. As advertisers, buyers and media vehicles get smarter about efficiency, the holes in the system get bigger and bigger.

AdSense revenues help a lot of mid to large-sized web sites, but really more as incremental revenue. By the time you're big enough for AdSense to support your business there are several other revenue opportunities with larger payouts avaiable to you.

And there's no doubt that AdSense (and most Internet advertising) is failing to help people find and buy the things that matter to them. How can it be that we have an ad model that is considered wildly successful when a campaign or ad unit gets a click-through rate of 1%? And the reality is that it's much much worse than that on average.

Why are click through rates so low? Because the ads don't matter to people. They aren't relevant. They don't help people identify products or brands that matter to them. They don't help people locate the right deal at the right time.

Yes, some people get lucky if they're paying attention. There wouldn't have been $5B in search ad revenue in the market in 2005 if nobody was clicking on the ads. But the click performance and subsequent conversion rates suggest this kind of ad network is just a spray hose of wasteful bits showering the Internet with clutter.

It doesn't work for advertisers, either. Advertisers want more control over their ads, where they appear and to whom they are shown. Blanketing text links blindly across the Internet does not necessarily result in paying customers. They know they're wasting money, but they can't afford not to be present in the network.

The AdSense model does much more to help Google and the Google shareholders than it does to help any of the customers it is supposed to serve.

I think the Amazon affiliate program is much closer to a more sustainable ad model for the future. When you can track clicks all the way to a sale then everybody wins. The weakest link in the Amazon affiliate chain is the media vehicle which has to work a lot harder to drive clicks that convert to sale. But the buyer and the seller are both happy, and that's ultimately what matters most.

I'd love to see an ad network that is able to let media vehicles optimize the ad content and display rules for the ads. The look and feel of an ad is not going to crank up the conversion rates. Media vehicles need to help the right ad get to the right person.

For example, when I post on my blog, I should be able to flag a stream of ad content and define the type of algorhythm that makes the most sense for that post and the users who are most likely to read it. This post should probably link to lead generation service providers even though I haven't explicitly used the term "lead generation" anywhere in the post…uh, well, you get the idea.

Likewise, users should be able to self-identify as buyers. I haven't yet setup a wifi network in my home, so I'd love for every tech-related web site I visit to show me the latest deals and setup guides and retailers for wifi gear. I'd actually like the content on all those sites to adjust, as well. I want to see what's new and interesting at these sites, but they should be able to surface content from deep in their archives that is relevant to the things I'm actively pursuing. My intent should edit the home page for me.

I guess I'm saying that somebody needs to build a service that on one side connects directly into an advertiser's sales conversion or transaction systems and on the other side distributes marketing links and images for media vehicles to take and optimize. The system should track performance across the chain and offer optimization options at all points along that chain.

Pieces of this exist and some of it is very complicated, I know, but I don't see why efficiencies can't be improved. And if enough advertisers are able to offer affiliate programs to track impression-to-click-to-sale, then they may even start competing with eachother and offer better incentives to media vehicles that find customers for them.

Users would see ads for things they want to buy. Advertisers would sell more product. And media vehicles would earn more from the revenue share. Where's the down-side?

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Sybase 365 launches new MMS content delivery gateway

Sent to you by Anks via Google Reader:

Sybase 365 launches new MMS content delivery gateway

via SMS Text News by Alex on 10/24/07

Mobile messaging specialists Sybase 365 have launched their new MMS content delivery gateway - enabling content providers, marketers, and media companies to deliver MMS content directly to consumers' handsets, globally, with a single connection.

"MMS is, and will continue to be, the most viable method for delivering rich media," said Marty Beard, President of Sybase 365. "Mobile campaigns are becoming an increasingly important part of companies' communication and advertising strategies, and multimedia messages are exceptionally effective because of their ability to engage the recipient in interactive campaigns."
MMS 365 runs on the Sybase 365 operator-grade network, ensuring successful delivery of complex content, management of high traffic volumes, and seamless delivery to consumers' handsets via its connections to more than 700 global operators. One connection to MMS 365 provides direct content delivery to millions of subscribers, eliminating the need for content providers to manage separate, time-consuming negotiations and connections to individual operators.
MMS 365 supports all popular types of rich content including photos, graphics, audio, video, alerts, ringtones, and wallpaper allowing content providers to use the most effective method to communicate a campaign to subscribers.

Things you can do from here:

Subscribe to SMS Text News using Google Reader
Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites

Google Introduces Simplified AdSense Management

Sent to you by Anks via Google Reader:

Google Introduces Simplified AdSense Management

via Mashable! by Stan Schroeder on 11/6/07

Google

Forget pasting and repasting your AdSense code whenever you make even the smallest change to your ad units. With the new, simplified AdSense management you create each ad unit once, and when you change it on your AdSense management page, the changes will automatically be reflected on your site. The changes will not be instant; according to Google, sometimes you'll have to wait a couple of minutes (10 tops) for the changes to actually go live.

This greatly simplifies ad management, especially if you're not a code ninja and you need to remember where the hell you put the code in the first place whenever you want to change your ad unit. This way, experimenting with AdSense will be less cumbersome and I expect that many publishers will be able to increase profit because they will experiment with their ad units more than before.

The new system does have limitations, though. You cannot change the size of the ad unit; if you want that, you have to create a new unit. Also, it's not possible to delete ad units from the management page, but units that haven't had any impressions for 7 days will automatically become inactive.

If you can't see this new options in your AdSense management page, it's because Google is once again gradually rolling out the new features. In their words: "it'll be there soon".

Things you can do from here:

Subscribe to Mashable! using Google Reader
Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites

Sunday, November 4, 2007

30+ Reminder Services

Sent to you by Anks via Google Reader:

30+ Reminder Services

via Mashable! by Sean P. Aune on 11/4/07

We all could use a little help remembering the things we need to get done in life. Luckily there are a lot of sites out there to help you do just that! What follows is a list of 30+ sites to send you emails, text messages, and phone calls to help you get to where you need to be on time and... what was I saying?

(more...)