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Google Places Removes Third-Party Reviews From “Places”

by Paul Joseph July 26, 2011 Featured

Google has removed third-party reviews from its Google Places service following complaints from its competitors. Google was accused of hosting content from its competitors without paying them compensation. Google Places is a service which lists local businesses like restaurants, hotels, cafes, etc. It allows visitors to write reviews, rate the businesses or even upload photos. Google also shows the particular place on Google Maps . The service competes with other business listing services such as TripAdvisor , Yelp in US or mouthshut.com , JustDial , Sulekha.com , Infomedia Yellow Pages in India. After months of complaints from competitor firms like TripAdvisor, Yelp and Citysearch, Google has finally taken an action. The another reason which may have triggered this decision is the U.S. antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The issue is among those believed to be investigated by the FTC. Another accusation that Google is labeled with is that it gives preference to Google Places over its competitors’ services in search results. Stephen Kaufer, TripAdvisor’s chief executive, told Wall Street Journal that he will “continue to object to” Google’s promotion of Places pages above TripAdvisor and other competitors. After third-party reviews were taken down from Google Places, the number of reviews on each listing has significantly come down. Google now just shows the links to third-party sites such as mouthshut.com. It is now depending on its large user-base for reviews and ratings on various business listings. It is to be seen if Google’s fellow users respond favorably or defect to its competitors.

Tagged as: accusation, allows-visitors, business, businesses, federal-trade, from-competitor, google-places, news, seen-if-google, shows-the-links, street, street-journal, yellow, yelp

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Google Places Removes Third-Party Reviews From “Places”

by Paul Joseph July 26, 2011 Featured

Google has removed third-party reviews from its Google Places service following complaints from its competitors. Google was accused of hosting content from its competitors without paying them compensation. Google Places is a service which lists local businesses like restaurants, hotels, cafes, etc. It allows visitors to write reviews, rate the businesses or even upload photos. Google also shows the particular place on Google Maps . The service competes with other business listing services such as TripAdvisor , Yelp in US or mouthshut.com , JustDial , Sulekha.com , Infomedia Yellow Pages in India. After months of complaints from competitor firms like TripAdvisor, Yelp and Citysearch, Google has finally taken an action. The another reason which may have triggered this decision is the U.S. antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The issue is among those believed to be investigated by the FTC. Another accusation that Google is labeled with is that it gives preference to Google Places over its competitors’ services in search results. Stephen Kaufer, TripAdvisor’s chief executive, told Wall Street Journal that he will “continue to object to” Google’s promotion of Places pages above TripAdvisor and other competitors. After third-party reviews were taken down from Google Places, the number of reviews on each listing has significantly come down. Google now just shows the links to third-party sites such as mouthshut.com. It is now depending on its large user-base for reviews and ratings on various business listings. It is to be seen if Google’s fellow users respond favorably or defect to its competitors.

Tagged as: business, business listings, federal-trade, from-competitor, google-places, international, seen-if-google, shows-the-links, street, tripadvisor, web, yellow, yelp

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Foreign Media Firms Entering India Through Online Route

by Paul Joseph July 22, 2011 Featured

According to a report in Mint, many multinational media firms are on the verge of launching India-specific editions of their websites soon. The media firms which are reported to take this move are The New York Times and Huffington Post The New York Times plans to launch an India-specific edition of its website in next couple of months, an executive of the company told Mint. The site will have a mix of both international as well as local news. For the uninitiated, The New York Times is one of the most renowned daily newspaper from USA. There is also a talk that the news and content aggregator Huffington Post will be launching its India specific edition in next few months. Huffington Post was bought by internet giant AOL for $315 million . Following this, UK and Canada editions of Huffington Post were launched. But, one thing that can go against Huffington Post in India is that it is still an unknown brand to the Indian masses as compared to NYT. Wall Street Journal had launched its online India edition way back in February 2009. The next to follow was Financial Times which started having India homepage on its website since March 2011. The reason these media firms are looking at online in India is that there are no restrictions in doing business in digital media. This is not the case in either print or broadcast where there is 26% restriction on FDI (Foreign Direct Investment). But, India is too large a market for multinational media firms to ignore. Hence, though there are meager returns on online news and current affairs business right now, these multinationals are setting their footprint in India in the hope that they will get rich dividends in not so distant future. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts US Newspaper circulation dips as users move to Internet Are Twitter Trends Driven By Mainstream Media? NewsHunt Claims To Be Most Downloaded Indian Mobile News App ‘Gaming’ The Ephemeral Internet Google Tweaks Algorithm To Counter ‘Negative Promotion’

Tagged as: financial-times, huffington post, indian-mobile, internet, media, mobile, newspapers, social, street, web, web edition

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National Security Guards Website Hacked

by Paul Joseph July 7, 2011 Featured

The National Security Guards (NSG) website according to PTI is the latest addition to the list of Indian government websites which have fallen prey to hackers . This list includes a subdomain of the NIC website and also the CBI website . However, unlike the NIC hack where Anonymous just put up a message on the homepage of the website, the hackers in this attack seem to have gained access to a certain amount of data as well. To ensure the security of data the passwords of all email accounts have been renewed . The NSG hosts sensitive data like tenders on their servers. The website is operated by the technical wing of the NSG along with assistance from the National Information Centre (NIC). This hack which was first reported on the 3rd of July seems to have gone fairly unnoticed. Even The Hacker News , a website operated by a group called the Indian Cyber Army , didn’t have any coverage on this news. Most hacker groups, after hacking a website announce it publicly on Facebook, Twitter, their own website or PasteBin . There was no such news on any of these channels nor has any hacker group even claimed responsibility for this attack. It seems that the motive of this attack was to gain access to sensitive data without letting the NSG or the world know about it. Hacking of government websites raises a lot of concern about the upcoming Aadhar (UID) project where along with personal info like name and address even biometric information associated with each person would be stored on servers. Although assurances have been given by Nandan Nilakeni and other representatives from the UIDAI , sensitive data lying on the cloud is always susceptible to misuse and theft. This is why the CBI has all of its data not on the internet but on their own their own network. The AntiSec movement is picking up pace with its main motive being attacking government websites of various countries . Although its motive is to expose corruption, we would be happy to see the NIC step up and increase the security of government websites. [via OnlyGizmos ] Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts This Isn’t The Way To Increase Your Userbase, SoSasta [Updated] Now Comes White Hat Viruses Google Street View Halted On Red Tape Avenue Anonymous Hacks NIC Website To Protest Corruption Indian Security Expert Exposes Vulnerability In LinkedIn

Tagged as: attack, data theft, expert-exposes, google-street, hack, india, Indian, indian-security, news, nsg, representatives, street

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Aadhar Project Expands To Various States; A Million UIDs A Day From October

by Paul Joseph June 27, 2011 Featured

A quick search on Google news for ‘UID ‘ reveals pleasant information about the Aadhar number issuing process starting in various states like Karnataka , Bihar and Kerala . Most of these states are taking the assistance of the General Post Office (GPO) to allow city residents enroll for the Aadhar number. Nandan Nilakeni, the Chairman of the UIDAI had said in a press conference in Bangalore that they were targeting a million enrollments a day from October . Currently, the number of UIDs issued  stands at 98 lakhs. Kerala CM Oommen Chandy has said that they aim to provide UIDs to the whole state within one year . If they do achieve this goal, Kerala will become the first state in the country to completely implement the Aadhar project. Unlike Karnataka and Bihar which are taking the assistance of the GPO, the Kerala government has given Akshaya , Keltron , and IT@School , which are state run agencies, the responsibility of conducting the formalities associated with the project. The focus of the Aadhar project in its initial phase was primarily to give Aadhar numbers to village residents and people below the poverty line . The enrollment process starting in Bangalore marks the expansion of the project from rural areas to urban regions. The city is launching the process through 35 GPOs in the city. Perhaps this action is to encourage the software professionals in Bangalore to build software on top of the Aadhar API . In addition to the iris scans and fingerprints the UIDAI requires four other details – name , date of birth , address and gender . All of this information would be tied to the Aadhar number and stored in a centralized database . Each person’s information would occupy around five megabytes which would make the total size of the database six petabytes (That’s sizx thousand 1 TB hard drives). On this possible misuse of the Aadhar number Ashok Dalwai, Deputy Director General of the UIDAI said: “The UID is a dumb, unintelligent, 12-digit number. It does not reveal anything at all about the person, so the question of manipulating the UID card just does not arise.” However Nandan Nilakeni in an interview to CNBC TV 18 said that security agencies can access this data subject to approval in cases of terror threats.  Nilakeni’s target of a million UIDs everyday is ambitious and if it is achieved, it would only give more reasons to develop software based on the Aadhar API. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Basic Aadhar Authentication API To Be Available For Free Google Street View Coming To Bengaluru Radio One gets on mobile while mCarbon to launch interactive SMS service in India Microsoft Officially Unveils Windows 8 RockeTalk Launches An App For Samsung’s Bada Platform

Tagged as: aadhar, api, bengaluru, city, country, data, database, deputy, india, news, person, poverty, street, windows

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Stockezy.com Ties Up With Zee Business For A Stock Market Show

by Paul Joseph June 14, 2011 Featured

Stockezy.com , a community site for Indian Stock market investors, has tied up with Zee Business for one of its stock market related shows. The show is ‘D Street Ka Don ‘ which is a weekly show hosted by stock market analyst Mr. Rajesh Tambe. The tie-up will allow users to get programme details and post questions on Stockezy.com which may feature in the show. D Street Ka Don is an interactive programme where the stock market analyst takes queries from viewers during the show and provides appropriate answers and analysis. With the launch of its online avatar on Stockezy, investors will now have the flexibility to submit their specific queries and get advice online even after the show hours. The Stockezy website will even summarize and recap the show’s key highlights that educate and empower the investors on how to analyze the market trends and stocks. Elaborating on this tie-up, Mr. Tushar Makhija, CEO and co-founder, Stockezy said, “We are extremely happy with our partnership with Zee Business for its renowned show ‘D Street Ka Don’. This is a step forward in our vision of facilitating every Indian to invest wisely and take benefit of the Indian stock market. With D Street Ka Don, Stockezy will not only offer an interesting customer experience but also expert advice from Mr Tambe at viewer’s convenience”. The website is designed to connect Indian stock market investors with each other. The site is free to join and allows members to rate stocks , ask questions , create watch lists and manage individual portfolios . In March this year, Dorsey Wright & Associates , an investment advisory firm based in Richmond, acquired 19% stake in Stockezy. Stockezy claims to have 30,000 registered users and 100,000 monthly unique visitors. 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: block-leaves, business, community site, hosting, Indian, news, radio, social, startups, stock-market, street, tie ups, women, zee business

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The New Google Wallet: What’s In It?

by Paul Joseph May 30, 2011 Featured

Google Wallet is now official . Yes, it is the name given to the much-rumoured Mobile Payment System that Google finally unveiled last Thursday. Google Wallet is an Open NFC-based mobile payment ecosystem that let’s users pay for items by tapping their phones against a supported payment reader. The app will allow you to securely store your (multiple) Credit card information, Google Prepaid Card (provided by Google that will be linked to your credit card), Coupons, offers, and other loyalty card information. On opening the app on an NFC enabled smartphone, the device could be tapped against the reader to buy the item or to redeem an offer. The purchase will be instantly charged to your credit card and you will get a digital receipt of payment that will be stored in the wallet. To start with, this Android app will work on Sprint’s Nexus S 4G , MasterCard credit cards issued by Citi bank , and will use Mastercard’s PayPass method to process the payment. The latest attempt by Google is seen as a catalyst to usher Mobile payment revolution. However, there is still a debate amongst the experts on whether the application will be able to succeed in a market that has relied on plastic cards (debit or credit) for decades. People have grown accustomed to the payment process they employ today and the biggest problem with the financial applications is that people are afraid of giving up access of what they consider to be their most valuable possession, their money.  So any attempt to rope up a new payment process will have to start from changing the mindset of people. Google’s Agenda Google is not a finance institution. It is not charging anything either from the retailers or from consumers to use this application? Then what’s in it for Google . This is one obvious question and the answer lies in the advertisement based model that is at the heart of the Mobile payment system.  With Google Wallet, it could reach to the holy grail of Consumer Marketing space- the point of sales . The information gathered from this medium can be coupled with its all other services (or products) such as Google Offers , Admob and location based services to target its ads. Information about the buying-habits of a consumer is like a treasure trove and Google can use this information to offer more targeted coupons through Google Offers. Google Wallet might also eliminate Google’s need to buy Groupon. Last November, Google made an offer of $6 billion to acquire the hot discount provider but the deal ultimately failed to take off. But it was also reported that this new idea of Google is stolen from eBay and Paypal. And the search giant for being sued by them. This claim would harm Google’s reputation or not only time would tell. What are your views on this new technology? Will it be able to make an impact on the use of plastic cards for payment purposes? Do let us know in the comments. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Google Launching It’s Mobile Payment System Google To Tap Into Mobile Payments? Virtual Wallets On Smartphones Soon To Become A Reality? YouTube Turns Six With 3 Bn Daily Views, 48 Hours Of Uploads Per Minute Google Street View Coming To Bengaluru

Tagged as: application, daily, financial, google wallet, mastercard, money, news, payment, paypass, search, social, street

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Friday Feature: Tantalizing Tweets

by Paul Joseph May 27, 2011 Featured

Welcome to a new feature on WATBlog:  ‘Tantalizing Tweets’ . We are going to give you some light reading to tickle your funny bone. We will compile a list of the funniest tweets of the previous week and the context in which they were written. Harold Camping’s Prediction for May 21st Judgement Day or Rapture @AdamWestBrooks Eugh people on twitter are making # rapture jokes like there’s no tomorrow @TamekaRaymond Breaking News: An Earthquake of 0.0 Magnitude has hit New Zealand. #Rapture @BorowitzReport Judgement Day minister updates prediction: “The World doesn’t end this week. Oprah does. My bad, sry.” @Jesus_M_Christ Oh shit, I need an excuse. APRIL FOOLS!!!!! Bipasha Basu Detained At Airport @mrunmaiy Best of #HeardOnTwt – the only Bomb Indian officials could get their hands on was Bipasha () @amreekandesi Bipasha Basu says she paid Rs 12,000 for excess baggage at the Bombay airport. Got rid of John Abraham pretty cheap. Leapord Enters Hema Malini’s House @Diagoneb “Leopard strays into Hema Malini’s bungalow” -  http://bit.ly/lGYkDc . I guess she must be shooting for Cheetah aur Geeta @BollywoodGandu A leopard has entered Hema Malini’s residence. Maybe he wants a sip of some Kent purified water. Bollywood-Hollywood Mashups @NotSiddCoutto Pirates of the Caribbean ka The End #bollywoodhollywoodmashups @Bluezappa Four wedding and funeral and Baraat #bollywoodhollywoodmashups @NotSiddCoutto Fashion of the Christ #bollywoodhollywoodmashups Karunanidhi’s Daughter Jailed @aarwen Who’s the luckiest man in the world?kanimozhi’s husband (214crore in hand and wife in jail!!) @over_rated It’s like investigating the Corleone family and sending Fredo to jail! Miscellaneous: @OhMyKohli It takes one Amitabh to sell diamonds. It takes 3 Abhisheks to Sell a sim card. What an Idea Sirjee. @diagoneb Google’s Street View starts mapping in B’lore. I hope they don’t get onto Avenue Road ‘cos once you get in, there’s no coming out. Which is your favourite tweet? Did you come across something funnier? Do let us know in the comments below. Have a great weekend! 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: airport, bipasha airport, bipasha-basu, camping, daughter, happy-birthday, hosting, house, india, indian-paypal, social, street, twitter humour, wedding, women

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Dates To ad:tech Inch Closer – Are You Attending Yet?

by Paul Joseph April 4, 2011 Featured

Good news is on its way for all the digital companies in India. As  reported earlier, ad:tech in the US is an event which opens several opportunities to many digital  media companies. New Delhi will be part of this world’s largest advertising and technology event. The event is believed to be held on 27th April – 28th April 2011. Ad:tech is believed to feature some of the leading minds of the industry like: Celebrity Keynotes Babs Rangiah- Unilever David Fisher- Facebook Joshua Maa- Madhouse Takayuki Hoshuyama- D2C Japan Elisa Steele- Yahoo.Inc Pearl Uppal- Fashionandyou.com Rajan Ananda- Google Sav Evangelou- Digitas UK Some of the exhibitors in the events are: comScore, InMobi, Wall Street Journal,  Yahoo and many more ( complete list of exhibitors ). Considering ad:tech is big event, many marketing companies have came under one roof to promote themselves at this massive stage. Sponsors like: Indiatimes.com, Rediffmail.com, Ozone Media, InMobi, One97, Neilsen,  Microsoft Advertising, In.com ( View complete list of Sponsors ) Showcase Your Digital Work Here! Win An Award! Log onto WATAwards Related Posts ad:tech Coming To India In 2011 – Tipping Point For Digital Marketing Is Near?

Tagged as: ad:tech, complete-list, digital, digital-work, events, exhibitors, india, indiatimes-com, industry, japan, street, street-journal, tipping-point, yahoo

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Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 going to upgrade with Andorid 2.3 Gingerbread

by Paul Joseph March 30, 2011 Featured

Sony Ericsson mobile company is going to upgrade Xperia mobile with Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. The company will launch this model as soon as earlier in India. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mobile will come soon in India with Android v2.3 Gingerbread. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Price in India is around Rs. 32,000/-. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Features are very attractive. The handset is having large FWVGA display screen with dual camera facility. Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS service with 1 GHz processor. Motion, gesture and 3D gaming services are provided by this mobile. Wireless LAN Wi-Fi service is available.Touch sensitive gaming controls and PSP like gaming service is also provided. Bluetooth, GPRS and 3G connectivity service is also added. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Review can be collected from the Internet. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 specifications are powerful and incredible. Quad Band GSM and 3G HSDPA network connectivity service is available in this phone. FWVGA 4.0” large Touchscreen display is coming with 854×480 pixels resolutions. Camera service of this mobile is providing dual service rear camera is using for video and pictures capturing and front camera is using for video calling service. The phone is enabled with Android v2.3 Gingerbread operating system. The mobile is built with 1 GHz Scorpion processor with Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon processing. Multi-touch input method and Timescape UI facility is also provided by this phone. Memory service of this handset is given 400MB Internal memory with 380MB RAM and up to 32GB external memory. Video player supports MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV format and Audio player supports MP3/eAAC /WMA/ WVA format. Active noise cancellation with dedicated Mic and Digital compass facilities are provided. JAVA software service is providing games and games download service. Synchronization service like Exchange ActiveSync, Sync Microsoft and Exchange email server facilities are provided. The cell phone is having Google Maps with Street view service. Social networking like YouTube, Calendar and G-talk services are provided by Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. The mobile is having Li-ion 1500 mAh capacity battery which can provide talk time up to 8 hours 25 minutes for 2G and 6 hours 25 minutes for 3G. Bluetooth v2.1 facility comes with A2DP service. Wireless WI-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and DLNA connectivity services are provided nice data connectivity. 3G HSDPA/HSUPA connectivity is given video calling facility. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 pictures are accessible on the Internet. The company will expect bright future for this model.

Tagged as: calendar, ericsson, exchange-active, india, microsoft, model, player-supports, providing-games, review, sony ericsson xperia x10, street

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