WildBlueSkies - Trends and strategies in Digital Media

Google Acquires Picnik

dhirender — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:31:10 +0000

Today, we’re excited to announce that Google has acquired Picnik, one of the first sites to bring photo editing to the cloud. Using Picnik, you can crop, do touch-ups and add cool effects to your photos, all without leaving your web browser.

says the Google Blog

Picnik is a fast, fun, easy to use and powerful set of photo editing tools for editing, sharing and printing images using any internet browser on any computer platform says their blog. Moreover, it is integrated with a wide variety of websites like Picasa Web Albums, Facebook, Flickr, Yahoo! Mail and Photobucket, and gets millions on visitors every month,
In his Google blog blogpost, Brian Axe, Product Management Director has mentioned that Google would like to continue supporting all existing Picnik partners.

Yet Another Date For The 3G Auction

dhirender — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:19:54 +0000

After numerous false starts, and controversies spanning more than a year, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has announced that auctions of licences for third generation (3G) high-speed telecom services would start from April 9.
However, according to a statement, DoT said it would issue notices inviting applications (NIA) for potential bidders tomorrow for three slots instead of the original four, indicating that revenues would be far lower than original estimates of Rs 35,000 crore. The fourth slot will be auctioned later since spectrum for it will be available only in 2013.
One slot has already been given to state-owned MTNL and BSNL to roll out services in Delhi and Mumbai and the rest of India, respectively.
“The 3G market in India will be 5 to 10 per cent of the total mobile users. There are about 120 million GPRS users, out of over 500 million total mobile subscribers,” predicts Kedar Sohoni, president of Informate, a telecom research firm.
And now its anybody guess – will it happen this time?

1 Breath = 2400 Tweets

dhirender — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:10:14 +0000

Folks were tweeting 5,000 times a day in 2007. By 2008, that number was 300,000, and by 2009 it had grown to 2.5 million per day. Tweets grew 1,400% last year to 35 million per day. Today, we are seeing 50 million tweets per day—that’s an average of 600 tweets per second. [Via] Given that an average breathing cycle, lasts 4 seconds, every time you breathe, 2400 tweets hit cyberspace.
Wow!! that puts to rest all those stories about Twitter dwindling – while traffic to the website may be coming down, more people are moving on to tweet via applications such as Tweetdeck.

Mobile Internet Usage Shows Steep Growth In India

dhirender — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:27:33 +0000

The rather lackluster uptake for desktop internet is more than being made by the number of people accessing the internet via their mobile, with Google estimating that the number of people on mobile internet in India more than doubling, from about 8-10 million in the beginning of the year 2009.
IAMAI on the other hand, recently estimated the number at 2 million, which by any standrads does seem on the low side, given that there are more than 500 million mobile subscribers in India, and the drastic drop in the prices of GPRS enabled handsets.
The top users for mobile internet usage remains messaging, email, social networking and entertainment. I would have thought financial news would be another big use, but it seems the audience is skewed towards the younger generation. [Via]

The Internet Bus – Study Hall On Wheels

dhirender — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:43:14 +0000

A very fascinating experiment The Internet Bus, by a school in Tucson, US, has succeeded in transforming what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, with behavioral problems virtually disappearing – simply by mounting a mobile Internet router to the bus, and making it wi-fi enabled. Now students spend their time completing their college work, playing games, or even playing on their iPhones instead of punching and each other.
According to this article in the New York Times, district officials got the idea for wiring the bus during occasional drives on school business to Phoenix, two hours each way, when they realized that if they doubled up, one person could drive and the other could work using a laptop and a wireless card. They wondered if Internet access on a school bus would increase students’ academic productivity, too.

Google’s Experiments 1 GB Speed Internet For Consumers

dhirender — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:22:00 +0000

After a series of high bandwidth websites like YouTube and Google Wave, Google is now taking the next step by unveiling plans for an uber-high speed Internet access in a small number of trial locations across the United States – fiber-optic networks for as many as 500,000 people with connections of 1 gigabit per second (and there I thought my 80Kbps speed was fast).
While it may not really make sense for Google to turn ISP (though their earlier steps to bid for airwaves may indicate other intentions), a high speed connection would definitely be almost essential for all their cloud based products which are bound to follow, and for the world at large – so as a possibility for what could be, this 1GB internet access experiment would be unparalleled.
Interested communities have to submit a request for information (RFI) till March 26, post which Google would narrow down the lucky ones.
And all this while we still await the dates for our 3G auction.
Watch the YouTube video below to know more, or read more in the blog post.

Telenor Acquires Additional 7.15% Stake In Unitech Wireless

dhirender — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:12:13 +0000

With an additional Rs 2,022 crore invested in Uninor, Telenore has increased its share in the India joint venture with Unitech Wireless to 67.25%.
In a statement, the company said it had acquired a 7.15 per cent stake in Unitech Wireless by way of issuance of fresh shares and a final investment of Rs 2,022 crore. This takes the total investment in the JV to Rs 6,135 crore.
Uninor plans to use the funds to to continue the roll-out of services in new circles, and “to secure customer growth in the circles where Uninor is already available.

Wikipedia Mulls Indian Chapter, Wikipedia.in

dhirender — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:45:59 +0000

Tempted by the fast growing Indian internet audience, Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia, is considering a proposal to launch Wikipedia.in, a local India chapter, similar to its country-specific portals in China, Germany, US and UK.
With 80 million internet users today, and annual growth rates of 20% forecasted every year for the next five years, the potential for vibrant Wikimedia communities in India is significant, according to the Wikimedia Foundation. While Wikipedia is available in local languages including Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Punjabi and Bengali, the number of articles in these languages is still limited. Wikimedia noted that language is not a barrier in India.

YouTube Tests Online Movie Rental Service

dhirender — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:29:15 +0000

In its latest bid at a revenue model, YouTube has taken a page out of Hulu’s book, to begin testing an online movie rental service with independent films from the Sundance Film Festival.
The service will be initially limited to five Sundance titles, as well as a small collection of videos from partners in industries such as health and education, and will be available to web surfers through the end of the month.
Meanwhile, YouTube is reportedly in talks with other studios as well to include their productions in the service. Currently, the service is only available for the US.

Sequoia Invests $10 Million In Online Travel Agency Via

dhirender — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:17:22 +0000

In a round that reportedly closed in December last year, Sequoia Capital India has invested around $10 million (Rs46 crore) in online travel agency Via (formerly FlightRaja).
Via had earlier raised $5 million from NEA-IndoUS Ventures in 2007, and is believed to be the largest business-to-business (B2B) online travel agency (OTA) in India.
Founded in July 2006, Via provides services such as bookings for flights, railways, buses and holidays. Unlike other travel websites, Via works with agents who process their customers’ transactions online. [Via]