January 2012

Twitter CEO Justifies Twitter’s New Policies: Helping Freedom Of Speech?

by Paul Joseph January 31, 2012 Featured

We wrote earlier how Twitter censoring some tweets based on requests by Governments is  detrimental  to social communication as a medium. This caused an outrage on the social network and Tweeps protested this announcement with  #TwitterBlackout . Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo  has argued that Twitter is still transparent and the current policies are for the good for the communications platform. Costolo argued that Twitter’s new policy is in fact helping freedom of speech. He said that earlier if a Government demanded that Twitter remove a tweet or block a user, they had to comply. Now with the new policies the content will be censored but only in the country that has demanded it. Twitter will try its best that they do not go ahead with this but if the demands are rigid then they will only censor the content in that country. This is actually a very good thing. If you tweet something considered to be against the law, your tweet will still be visible to the world even though it may be blocked in your own country. This may actually give rise to better journalism and reporting. Behind the closed walls of a country, we could still get a glimpse of the situation or breaking news in that country. “ There’s been no change in our stance or attitude or policy with respect to content on Twitter ,” Costolo said. “ What we announced is a greater capability we now have. Now, when we are issued a valid legal order in a country in which we operate, such as a DMCA takedown notice, we are able to leave the content up for as many people around the world as possible, while still operating within the local law. You can’t operate in these countries and choose the laws you want to abide by .” In my previous blog post, I was very harsh on this new policy because Censorship of any kind is absolutely intolerable, but considering the various nuances of this policy has made me believe that this may indeed be one of the best loop-holes discovered to aid Freedom of Speech. There however remains the aspect of people in the blocked country not being able to view any content. Well, Proxy Servers and anonymous routers might be able to do the trick for them. What do you think about Twitter’s new policy? Do let us know. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Special Feature: Is Twitter Flirting With Self – Censorship? Wikipedia Pledges To Go Dark Tomorrow To Oppose SOPA. Twitter Cowers. Are You Doing Your Bit? Italy and Saudi Arabia Move To Regulate User Generated Content? What About The Free Internet? Twitter Attains Meaningful Growth And A $3.7 Billion Valuation! Twitter Lacks ‘clear long term vision’? So What?!

Tagged as: #twitterblackout, censorship, dick costolo, features, freedom of speech, international, mobile, news, technology, twitter, web

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Indian Digital Radio Startup Gets Series A Funding From Ojas Ventures

by Paul Joseph January 31, 2012 Featured

While our country is currently fixated on FM channels, there is definitely a digital revolution in the works in Bangalore. Digital Radio startup, Venturenet Partners Pvt. Ltd. has managed to get Series A funding from Ojas Ventures for their yet to be launched Digital Radio service, Radiowalla . Venturenet is a young one year old startup which already has one service, called Spot Radio under its belt.  Venturenet launched Spot Radio last year in August, 2011 and it has been moving upwards ever since. Right now they have managed to partner with around 20 national retail chains with over 2000 sites in the country. They are expected to be present in 10,000 sites before this year ends. Radiowalla is their direct to consumer approach which will initially offer Internet audio channels for normal netizens. They are expected to launch this in April. The funding amount is as of now, undisclosed. Venturenet was founded by Anil Srivatsa and Harvinderjit Bhatia . Previously, Anil was the CEO of Kings XI Punjab and COO of Radio Today Broadcasting (Meow 104.8 FM) among other companies. Ojas Ventures is an Indian VC firm that is focused on early stage funding of Indian technology and Digital Startups. Pavan Krishnamurthy and Raghu Batta from Ojas Ventures will be joining the board of the fledgling startup to steer it in the right direction. They both said in a joint statement, “In Radiowalla founders we saw a set of passionate and experienced entrepreneurs taking an innovative approach to building music based business that addresses a large and growing market opportunity. We’re confident that our operating experience together with working closely with founders will help in creating a valuable company.” Looking at their website one gets the feeling that they will emulating the Pandora experience for India. Their ‘mood’ based offerings seem somewhat analogous to Pandora’s Music Genome Project . Pandora is not available in India and Radiowalla might just bridge the gap. There is also the slight problem of adoption as broadband speeds are not that good all over India for streaming music and content. If more and more people adopt 3G and if there is better Internet infrastructure in the country in general, the service will succeed nicely. Until then they face some very strong challenges in terms of adoption. What is your take on Indian Digital Radio channels and services? Do let us know in the comments. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Venturenet’s Spot Radio Will Transform In-Store Advertising ‘ARTISTE RADIO’ – Live Online Radio Launched By In.Com Saregama Enters In A Partnership With Timbre Media To Offer Genre-based Radio Ojas Ventures Invests In Social Gaming Start-Up Play140 Sify Partners With Radio City To Launch ‘Radio on Sify’

Tagged as: digital radio, events, funding, internet radio, news, ojas ventures, radio, radiowalla, spot radio, startups, web

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BlackBerry Losing Its Grip On The Market Share?

by Paul Joseph January 31, 2012 Featured

Once, BlackBerry was the default choice of enterprise customers for their communication needs. But, that is changing fast, especially in the established markets like North America and Europe, according to a New York Times report .   Apple has captured a significant market share from Reserach In Motion (the makers of BlackBerry) in North America, where it once was a dominant player. Samsung is slated to do the same in the other established market of RIM i.e. Europe with its Android operating system. BlackBerry is still going strong in developing markets. But, it is finding it difficult to hold on to its market share in more developed countries. While Apple Inc’s iOS and Google Inc’s Android operating systems have captured a lot of imagination, RIM has failed to innovate in recent years. Hence, many enterprise customers are switching from BlackBerry to other platforms. According to a recent global survey on information workers by research firm Forrester, 27% smartphone users have Android, 26% BlackBerry and 24%, an iPhone. “ Android and Apple together are eating BlackBerry’s lunch ,” said Frank Gillett, a Forrester analyst. Last year,  Blackberry Servers had gone down , sending millions of people across the globe into a frenzy. the servers were down for 4days . after the issue was solved to make it up to the customers Blackberry maker RIM offered all the customers 12 premium apps free of cost . And recently it was also reported that both the CEO’s stepped down from their position. Was this a good news ot bad only time can tell? The one asset that RIM can still bank on is security. But, that won’t be for too long, since other players are also addressing this issue. Some of Samsung’s new phones, like the Galaxy S II, include extra security features for enterprise customers. The newest version of Google’s Android operating system, called Ice Cream Sandwich, has built-in encryption. RIM is aware of its problems and is taking a number of steps to address them. It recently brought a new CEO on board in the form of Thorsten Heins. Heins is betting big on BlackBerry’s new operating platform called BlackBerry 10 or BB10. But, this has also received a severe jolt, since the new OS won’t be ready before late 2012. Now, it’s hard to imagine that enterprise customers will be ready to wait for that long. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Android Captures 40% Of US Smartphone Market If Mobile Apps Shape Who We Are..Indians Mean Business Android, iOS Race Heats Up: Nielsen More Than 300,000 Android Phones Activated Daily, Reports Google Android To Become Asia’s Most Popular Mobile OS?

Tagged as: apple, blackberry, international, ios, iphone, news, reports, rim, samsung, technology

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Samsung Galaxy S III Features

by Paul Joseph January 31, 2012 Featured

After creation of wireless technology, the new era of the world has provided a new and excellent face to the wireless devices. Many mobile manufacturing companies have stepped in to this industry and earned name and fame. The Samsung mobiles company has launched many mobiles which got good response from the market. People are great lovers of the mobiles launched by Samsung. The company is going to launch a new and unique masterpiece smartphone in India and that is Samsung Galaxy S III . The Samsung Galaxy S III price in India is not yet declared. The Samsung Galaxy S III pictures are available on net for getting more details about the model.     A wide 4.6 inches Super AMOLED plus capacitive touchscreen display is available in this mobile so user can see high quality pictures and also can watch video on this display. The display has 720×1280 pixels of resolution with 16M colors. The smartphone comes with an Android v2.3 Gingerbread operating system along with 1.8 GHz dual core processor. For more data storage, the mobile is built with internal memory of 16/32GB and up to 32 GB external memory via microSD memory card along with 2GB RAM.     The Samsung Galaxy S III features a 12 megapixel camera at rear surface along with LED flash and autofocus options. The smartphone is also added with 2.0 megapixels secondary camera. The Li-Ion capacitive standard battery is available in this mobile for long performance of talk time and standby time. The Samsung Galaxy S III is integrated by wireless connectivity like Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth v3.0 + HS, 3G, GPRS and EDGE. An HTML Web browser is also added in this mobile for internet access service. SMS, MMS, Email, push Email and IM as messaging services features are included in the model.

Tagged as: bikes, description, helvetica-neue, india, none-repeat, ribbon-hover, samsung-mobiles, scroll-top, world-learn

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Flipkart Valued At $ 850 Million! Scores 150 Million From From Accel Partners, Tiger Global

by Paul Joseph January 31, 2012 Featured

Looks like the enthusiasm of Sachin Bansal is shared by Accel Partners & Tiger Global Management, who have pledged US$ 150 Million to the company. This fourth round of funding takes the Valuation of Flipkart to a whopping figure of US$ 850 Million . Flipkart which initially started its operations with focus on books has diversified into myriad forms of products & services. Given the entry of Amazon via the e-commerce route, Flipkart seems to be in expansion overdrive & is expected to establish its foot-print in Tier II & Tier III cities & towns. E -commerce is growing rapidly & Internet is being adopted at a higher pace in such smaller towns. Thus, Flipkart’s strategy to cater to such audiences seems appropriate. The only hurdles that we see are that of logistics & distribution. However, companies, when going for expansion, first take care of such high priority problems. With the aim of cutting down of delivery time from the average 5-7 days to 3-4 is not an easy task, but it is the first thing that the companies should focus on. Though, Flipkart has not divulged its roll-out plans, we believe it is in talks with distribution centers across the country. Oddly, with sudden growth of online deals sites, people seem to be getting bored , but still prefer to buy online!. Hence, Flipkart should also focus on creative advertising . However, with Flipkart’s latest acquisition across the board , it is in good shape to beat the odds & thrive even if one section falters. Carlyle and General Atlantic had been thinking of investing, but the deal did not materialize owing to difference in valuation of this successful company. Guess, now they will reconsider? Have you bought anything from Flipkart lately? How was your experience? Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts 10 Times Growth A Firm Possibility Reveals Flipkart CEO: Whats Their Secret? FlipKart Raises 10 Million $ From Tiger Global – Expands Beyond Books Online Shopping Surges In India, Reveals ComScore Flipkart Acquires Bollywood Content From Chakpak.com: Pursuits Of A Different Kind? Flipkart Expecting A Massive Surge In Sales This Year

Tagged as: binny, flipkart, funding, news, sachin bansal, web

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MS Office In The Cloud As BlackBerry Teams Up With Microsoft: Boost In Productivity?

by Paul Joseph January 31, 2012 Featured

BlackBerry Makers Research In Motion (RIM) has collaborated with Microsoft to launch a Cloud based Office Productivity Suite. Simply titled Microsoft Office 365 , the service will help Users & Admins alike to better manage the corporate data on the Smartphones & Servers. Blackberry who recently recovered from the blackout is in no mood to upset its present customers & is offering this service free of cost ! Of course the customers include only who have subscribed to the stand-alone Office 365 suite or the standalone Exchange Online offering. However, the good news is that no matter what the data plan one uses, Consumer (EDGE) or Business (BlackBerry Internet Services [BIS] or BlackBerry Enterprise Services [BES]), one can still purchase this service which is presently not priced. The new cloud-based service will do what iPhone owners have been doing for quite some time . Synching Emails, Documents, Calendar & Organizer data. However, RIM has an ace up it sleeve with BlackBerry Balance . This tool will assist Corporate IT Administrators to effectively manage Corporate data on the device which many enterprises fear might land into wrong hands . Furthermore, BlackBerry users can heave a sigh of relief because there is a choice to objectively separate Personal Data & Corporate Data! This cloud-based service will also bring remote lock and remote wipe functions with it. With the recent stepping down of BlackBerry head honchos & other events &  incidents , we wonder is there something more than what catches the eye? . With the probable acquisition of Yahoo, not yet materialized, is Microsoft eying RIM? The companies are already collaborating heavily behind closed doors to enhance customer experience . Furthermore, Microsoft & RIM primarily cater to the same end of the Customer pyramid, i.e. the Enterprise Market. There were even rumors of a possible take-over, but they remained just that, rumors. We believe there is still a lot of life let in RIM, but it has to up its game, if it wishes to remain a considerable force in the business circles. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts If Mobile Apps Shape Who We Are..Indians Mean Business Android Captures 40% Of US Smartphone Market More Than 300,000 Android Phones Activated Daily, Reports Google Android To Become Asia’s Most Popular Mobile OS? Android To Overtake Windows Mobile, BB And iPhone In 2010 – Report

Tagged as: bes, bis, blackberry, features, microsoft, mobile, news, office, rim, smartphones

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TravelX Hospitality Now Available As A Digital Magazine: The Future Of Magazines?

by Paul Joseph January 31, 2012 Featured

Our country is slowly getting on the Digital bandwagon! There is a flurry of activity in Digital publishing these days. We have e-papers since a while now but online versions of magazines which cater to specific topics is hard to come by. Some of them are the India Today Magazines and Tech-Magazines like Chip and Digit . Yet, there is paucity when it comes to Hospitality magazines. To bridge this gap Newsline Publications has just recently launched a digital version of their TravelX Hospitality magazine. Just go to Newsline’s website and click on the TravelX Hospitality magazine. The magazine’s content is rich and we love how nice the Magazine looks in your browser. You can have a full-screen reading experience by clicking on the prominent ‘expand’ button or by pressing the F11 key. The flow is pretty smooth and the aesthetic is simply awesome but at the same time retains its professional look. Here are some screenshots that we took: They are currently using ‘ Issuu ’ to publish their magazine online and we would say that it is a good choice. Notice how in the second image there is a link and all those social options. This is just the right way to seed in your content on Social Media and achieve widespread reach. The Magazine deals with the field of Hospitality and the happenings in the Hotel industry. If you are in the Hospitality Industry or are tracking its progress, this is a good magazine to read. Here is the link: http://www.newsline.in/TravelXonline.aspx Tell us what you think about it. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Most Commented Posts Paypal India Block Leaves IT Guys High & Dry – Need For An Indian Paypal? Wish Us Happy Birthday And WIN Free Customized TShirts from Myntra.com – Domain & Hosting from LimeDomains Be a BIG part of the next BIG thing! Join WAT! Now Women Meow On FM Radio! WATBlog Wins The Best Indian Blog Award 2009! Thanks To Our Readers, Bloggers & Staff!

Tagged as: digital magazines, issuu, news, newsline, travelx hospitality, web

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Twitter Moves Towards Content Curation

by Paul Joseph January 31, 2012 Featured

Why is Twitter insanely popular? That is because it is the perfect tool to send out byte sized opinions and news. It’s micro-blogging nature, the presence of Celebrities and even Politicians are the biggest things going for it as a social communications platform. As last year came to a close it was the star when it came to generating buzz , but the real question is, ‘Is Twitter looking at a new direction?’The first indication of this comes from the Twitter 3.0 design that they pushed out last year. The design was awesome and was consistent even on its mobile apps. They added ‘Home, ‘Connect’ and ‘Discover’ tabs to the interface and let go of the old ones like ‘re-tweets and mentions’. Twitter doesn’t want people using third-party clients either. Here, the ‘Discover tab’ is of some significance. When you click on it it you are treated to a very visual kind of summary of the days trending topics. Here’s an example: Now look at the latest startup that Twitter has acquired recently. Looking at the way things are organized, it looks like Twitter acquired it just for the sole purpose of integrating their technology into the Discover tab. Twitter is now addressing the fundamental problem with Social Networks, ‘Information Overload’! With Facebook and its Open Graph protocol letting loose  hundreds of social apps on the service, there is a real problem of content curation and aggregation. We have written about this before and how it will ultimately damage Social media. Summify is Twitter’s key. The service accesses the most relevant content and arranges it in a clean and neat manner. Basically, it cancels out the noise that is generated by large scale sharing of multiple content. Summify will stop its service and will be  directly integrated into Twitter. Expect something awesome to show up on Twitter in a few months! Content and Curation on Social Media and the Internet have always been kind of a challenge. The floodgates of information are already collapsing and it is a problem right now when you  want to look at the best and relevant articles and content. Google+ and Facebook have some sort of noise controls but Twitter, sadly lacks this. There are whole new wave of startups which are founded on the basis of ‘clearing the crap’ and discovering awesome content e.g Pinterest , Flipboard , Summify, Google Currents . What are your views on Content Curation in today’s world? Share them with us. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Special Feature: Facebook, Twitter & Firefox Requests Google Not To Be Evil Will Google+ Act As A Facebook Killer? Facebook Is -1 While Google Makes A Jump By +1 Google+ A Challenge To Facebook Networking Google Tweaks Social Search And Bing Bar Gets Facebook Integration

Tagged as: content curation, facebook, features, international, mobile, news, summify, technology, twitter, web

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Bajaj Pulsar 200NS Price – New Pulsar 2012 Model

by Paul Joseph January 31, 2012 Featured

Bajaj Auto has launched the much anticipated next generation Pulsar bike – the Bajaj Pulsar 200NS (NS stands for Naked Sport) . It is a stylish 6-speed bike powered by a 200cc liquid cooled engine generationg 23.5 Bhp of power .It sports a new engine, new transmission technology and new chassis. “The Pulsar 200NS is

Tagged as: bikes, Featured, latest tech news

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Samsung Galaxy S Advance Price in India

by Paul Joseph January 30, 2012 Featured

The new Samsung Galaxy S Advance is a large 4-inch multi-touch display smartphone powered by a  dual core 1GHz processor and loaded with the Android OS v2.3 . It is a mid-range smartphone with smaller display than its big brother and the one of the most popular smartphone – Samsung Galaxy S2 . It supports high

Tagged as: Featured, mobile-phones

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