WildBlueSkies - Trends and strategies in Digital Media

With 216 Million Mobile Subscribers, India Ranks Second

dhirender — Sat, 03 May 2008 02:03:49 +0000

Adding the 10.16 million wireless (GSM, CDMA, WLL) subscribers in March, India overtook USA to come in at second place after China. The total number of wireless subscribers now stands at 261.09 million.
A total of 10.40 million telephone connections (wireline and wireless) have been added during March 2008 as compared to 8.49 million connections added in February 2008 - which is a good sign. This also implies a reach of 300.51 million at the end of March 2008 against a reach of 290.11 million in February 2008 taking the overall tele-density from 25.31% in February 2008 to 26.22% in March 2008.
Broadband, defined as speeds above 256 Kbps, had a subscriber base of 3.90 million at the end of March 2008 against that of 3.47 million at the end of February 2008. Clearly we have a long way to go to achieve its target of 20 million broadband subscribers by 2010 - more so if TRAI actually goes ahead with its proposed definition of broadband.
Download the complete report here.

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How To Buy Smart

dhirender — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:46:44 +0000

SMS CG to 53030, and you could get the comparative price on CafeGadgets.in - the trick however is that CafeGadgets only sells … not unsurprisingly, gadgets.
So for instance, if you are at a shop wondering if you are paying too much for the Nokia E51, all you need to do, is sms CG Nokia E51 to 53030* and you’ll get an idea whether you are getting a better deal than the one you could get on Cafegadgets.in
Amazon has launched this feature earlier this month, but CafeGadgets would, I think, be the first ones to launch it in India.
While the Amazon TextBuyIt service allows you to buy the product as well, provided you have an Amazon account online, the CafeGadgets service stops at providing you with the pricing, along with the URL and the telephone number.
The expectation with Amazon TextBuyIt was that people would tend to use the service more for comparing prices rather than for buying it, which is probably where CafeGadgets scores.
The service works quite well, I sent CG Nokia 1208 to 53030, after checking that it was available on their website, and got an SMS back with the pricing on their website.
Now, if only there was a number where I could SMS the product I wanted, and get a listing of the places where I could get the best deals on the product - even better, a place around where I am - nothing beats instant gratification.

* For the record, SMSing CG Nokia E51 to 53030, which is currently not on their website will get you the price for the Nokia Stereo Headset HS-81.

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Report - Mobile Phones For Social Activism

dhirender — Fri, 02 May 2008 05:59:25 +0000

“Well over 3.5 billion mobile phones are in use around the world and organizations are harnessing this technology to help overcome humanitarian challenges,” according to Timothy E. Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation.
The recent report, Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use, examines emerging trends in “mobile activism” by looking at 11 case studies of groups active in the areas of public health, humanitarian assistance and environmental conservation.
These include the text messaging ‘nerve center’ that Oxfam-Great Britain and the Kenyan umbrella group PeaceNet created which collected alerts about violent outbreaks during the recent civil unrest and mobilized local ‘peace committees.’ The project served as a vital tool for conflict management and prevention by providing a hub for real-time information about actual and planned attacks between rival ethnic and political groups.
The GSM Association, together with a handful of non-profit and private sector groups in Kenya, developed another conflict prevention project that allows farmers to preserve their crops while protecting wildlife. The program monitors instances when elephants approach farmed land, and provides an early warning system via mobile that is reducing the incidence of human-elephant conflict in an area where as many as five humans and 10 elephants are killed each year.
Other case studies cover the areas of public health (such as connecting health workers to one another in Uganda), humanitarian assistance (such as alerting Iraqi refugees to food aid drop offs in Syria), and environmental conservation (such as using text messages to raise awareness about deforestation in Argentina).
About 86% of non-governmental organization (NGO) employees use mobile technology in their work, with 25% believing it has revolutionized the way their organization or project works. While the most common uses of mobile technology by NGO workers are voice calls (90%) and text messaging (83%), about 10% use mapping functionalities, 8% use it for data analysis, and 8% for inventory management.

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BuyUCoffee.com - Get Paid To Meet For Coffee

dhirender — Fri, 02 May 2008 04:45:27 +0000

Describing itself as the most revolutionary and most efficient dating service in the world, BuyUCoffee.com is an online dating community where users can actually get paid for going out on dates with other users. I wonder what this implies for the person who gets paid.
The site is for members only with a gold membership making you lighter by $140 but subsequently, you can start making by charging others for dates. All you need to do, is complete your profile, add a picture and set your own price that you would like to charge others for going out on a date with you. If another member likes your profile, they would contact you and would then have to pay you to go out with them. The site includes discussion forums and a section for users to create their own blogs.
This should be an interesting model to watch.

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Now, Track Down Remains Of The Berlin Wall Using GPS

dhirender — Fri, 02 May 2008 04:05:51 +0000

Launching May 1, a multimedia guide linked to global positioning satellites which map the path of the erstwhile Berlin Wall is expected to make it easier for historians and tourists to visit the last remains of the Wall. The guide includes infomation and anectodes about historically significant spots along the route. The guide would be available for hire for tourists, and would initially be available in German and English.

With a headset and a touch-screen, the guide features a colorful map of the city that can zoom in and out, showing the users where they are. The route of the former barrier between East and West Germany is marked in red while a yellow line guides the visitor from one wall section to the next, calculating the distances via GPS in meters.

The guide is part of a larger project to improve existing memorials to the wall, most of which were torn down after Communist East Germany collapsed and the border was opened in 1989. [Via]

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Report - Mobile Phone Banking For Low-Income Customers

dhirender — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:37:49 +0000

More than 800 million mobile phones were sold in developing countries in the past three years (GSM Association 2006) - in South Africa and Botswana for instance, one-third of people who do not have a bank account own a mobile phone or have access to one.
This report presents the first public findings on how low-income people view and use m-banking, using results of a survey of 515 low-income individuals in South Africa. Three hundred of those surveyed do not use m-banking, while 215 are customers of WIZZIT, a startup mobile banking provider.
Targeting the 16 million South Africans who lack or have difficulty accessing formal banking services, Wizzit, bills itself as a “virtual bank” with no branches of its own. Customers can use their mobile phone to make person-to-person payments, transfer money, purchase prepaid electricity, and buy airtime for a prepaid mobile phone subscription. WIZZIT also gives customers a Maestro branded debit card with which they can make purchases and get cash back at retail outlets and withdraw money at any South African ATM.
Findings drawn from the survey show that m-banking services are valued by poor people in South Africa and, for the WIZZIT users surveyed, is more affordable than traditional banking. Other findings include:

Early adopters of WIZZIT have low incomes, but are wealthier and more technologically and financially sophisticated than most poor people in the country.

Low-income people use WIZZIT’s m-banking services and give it high ratings for convenience, cost, and security - “cheaper” (70%), “safe” (69%), “convenient” (68%), and “fast” (68%). Nine out of 10 users surveyed say the m-banking service is “not expensive” or is “inexpensive” for the benefits it gives them.

97% of WIZZIT users surveyed said that they are “prepared to use technology,” and less than one-third of nonusers surveyed felt that “cell phone banking is (or would be) difficult or confusing to use.”

M-banking providers must build greater awareness of their services and must find the right balance between human interaction and technology to appeal to more low-income customers.

The report has implications for what the low-income look for if deciding to adopt such a technology, and the audience to target as the early adopters.

Related reads:
Report - Mobile Phones For Social Activism

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UTVi.com - The Business Channel Website Launches

dhirender — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:00:46 +0000

The website for the UTV business channel has finally launched at UTVi.com, albeit in beta.
The site has news, market updates, industry-wise updates, opinions, UTVi School, along with a community. There is also a section called Guru Blogs, which currently however has only two bloggers - I guess we can expect this to increase.
Surprisingly, there is also a tab which leads to Apnaloan.com and other references to it on the home page as well - I wonder where that is coming from.
The bottom has a UTV Network site section similar to what you normally find on the Web 18 sites - however thankfully, unlike moneycontrol, this has not been as brutally monetised - the ad banners are a lot better placed. Now to see how long that would continue.
Some sections such as this one still need to be populated with content. Clicking on any of the links in the navigation show a URL starting with http://124.153.101.158 - I wonder why.

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Launched - ReviewGist India, Product Research Made Easy

dhirender — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:10:13 +0000

Describing itself as a “product discovery and research tool powered by online reviews” with the objective of helping you make fast and authoritative product buying decisions, ReviewGist gathers review information for different products from various online review sites, and then tries to understand the specific opinions expressed by the reviewer about the product in question - thus bring out the gist of the review, or as the site claims:

the big picture with the small details: everything that’s good and everything that’s bad, we tell you which notebook has the stunning looks and the one which is a battery hog. We give you crisp aggregated information from different reviews - digested by our computers and served for you to sample.

The really nifty is the sorting within the results across a wide range of product features. This also allows you to enter a search string along specific product characteristics - for instance, a search for camera with the highest resolution. However, it may still have a few glitches - for instance, a search for the same, puts the Canon PowerShot S3 IS Digital Camera with 6.2 Megapixel is first, and the Canon PowerShot S5 IS Digital Camera with 8.3 Megapixel is second. However, this is better than the US version, which in a search for notebook with best multimedia gives the Harman Multimedia DVD 48 Player as the only result (image).
Currently the product categories are a little limited, but I guess that would increase over time.

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iBand - Making Music With iPhones

dhirender — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:16:29 +0000

Six hands wearing fingerless gloves and typing away at three iPhone touchscreens - that’s what you see in this YouTube video, which has been viewed over 2.8 million times.
The hands represent the iBand, a trio from Vienna, who fascinated by the iPhones possibilities decided to experiment with the accompanying software, and are living proof that all it takes is a couple of iPhones combined with the iPod or the Nintendo DS can create a band.
Marina, vocals, piano and guitar plays on MooCowMusic Pianist and Guitarist on the iPod Touch, while Seb On the drums plays on MooCowMusic Drummer with a customised soundset on an iPhone. Roger on the guitar, bass and xylophone plays on MooCowMusic Drummer and Guitarist with customised interfaces and sounds on an iPhone.
Their music is available on their website iBand.at for free download.

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Are Free Books The Future?

dhirender — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:44:45 +0000

In the footsteps of the music industry, comes Del Ray, which in an effort to promote the latest book in the Star Wars Legacy of the Force series, is giving away book one, Betrayal, for free download. It is available at Legacyoftheforce.com as a PDF download, an audio book, and ebook formats suitable for the Kindle and the Sony Reader.
Betrayal, which was a New York Times Bestseller, is the first book in the series and the free download will be available for two weeks until May 13, when the ninth and final book, Invicible, is released says ReadWriteWeb.
The free book download will also be available at a number of online retailers such as Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, Booksense.com, Borders.com, the Sony eBook Store, Overstock.com, etc.
Is this the beginning of a trend? Free books anyone? Pay what you want books?

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