voice

Vodafone Goes Bubbling

by Paul Joseph August 23, 2011 Featured

Vodafone mobile has taken an important step towards introducing the next major innovation in the social scene. Voice based blogging has been in use for some time now but its usage has been almost exclusive to celebrities. Bubblly social messaging , a service of Bubble Motion, has given fans to interact with stars more intimately. It being called voice-based Twitter gives a good idea of its functionality. Indian stars have been swarming to the voice blogging service this year, led by top Bollywood stars ( Amitabh Bachchan , Lara Dutta, Priyanka Chopra), TV personalities (Madhavan), cricketers (Yuvrav Singh), musicians (Sonu Nigam) and many more. These celebrities share voice-recorded updates on their daily lives, keeping their fans informed in an authentic and intimate way. This move will prove a mutually beneficial deal where Vodafone will introduce a new mode of communication to its 130 million subscribers Bubble Motion further expands throughout India. Since launching Bubbly just one year ago, the service has taken Asia by storm. Used by hundreds of celebrities, entertainers, sports stars and musicians as an authentic way to keep their fans updated, Bubbly has catapulted to over 10 million users in India, Indonesia, Philippines, and now Japan. The service has delivered more than 300 million messages in the last year alone. This service allows anyone with a Vodafone India network to stay connected with their own friends and family by just dialing *7* and record their voice. Once they record their voice-clip, all their followers are intimated by an SMS instantly. The SMS will contain the link for them to click and listen to the voice. It’s currently free to start bubbling, and free to follow anyone in their network. In a release, Bubble Motion’s President and CEO Thomas Clayton (News – Alert) said, With 8 million Indian users, India is far in front of the rest of the world in adopting bubbling as a social messaging tool. Vodafone has recognized the social mobile groundswell early and have moved swiftly to bring this fun service to their customers. Looking forward to how the bubbly ZooZoo’s will use Bubblly. BY: Sahil Siddiqui

Tagged as: author, browsing, bubble motion, bubblly social messaging, electronics, mobile, news, technology, voice, web

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The Mobile Gamer (TMG) Gets S$1 Million Funding From One97 Communication

by Paul Joseph July 19, 2011 Featured

It is reported that mobile social game creator, The Mobile Gamer (TMG) have received series of A funding of S$1 Million from One97 . TMG is an award winning startup based in Singapore and it has more than 500,000 subscribers base for its game. TMG is a publisher of mobile social games like Club Wars , Monster Fight , Fun Factory , etc. these games work on all type of mobile handset that come with a mobile browser. In South East Asia, TMG social games are developed and distributed through kotagames.com . This kind of funding is not surprising because it was reported that UTV Indiagames was named among the top 100 games worldwide. According to one of sources of One97, “ Mobile social gaming is a high growth area of mobile gaming “. Recently, mobile devices offered different kind of games like Keymon Ache , Cricket , etc. This is not the first time One97 have raised funding, it was reported that funding of $28 million was raised from SAIF Ventures, Intel Capital, Silicon Valley Bank. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Vijay Shekhar Sharma Of One97 On Mobile Commerce And Monetization InkFruit Raises $3 Million From SAIF Ventures Welcoming Vijay Shekhar Sharma – MD – One97 As Speaker @ WATSummit 2011 Networkplay – One97 Tie Up For Mobile Ads – Sms, Voice & WAP BSNL 3G Services In Gujarat Help One97 Test Video Portal

Tagged as: a funding, fruit-raises, mobile, news, one97, saif ventures, the mobile gamer, vijay-shekhar, voice, web

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LG Optimus Black launched in India, available for pre-order

by Paul Joseph June 28, 2011 Featured

The Korean mobile manufacturing company has launched its new Optimus model LG Optimus Black on Pre-order. The Android model is having all needed features with are necessary for the make big selling graph. The new Optimus model LG Optimus Black price in India on pre-orders at Rs. 19,990/-. The LG mobiles are very popular for display and camera services. The LG Optimus Black features are marvelous. The Optimus model is having Dual camera services. The handset is enabled with Android v2.2 Froyo upgradable to v2.3OS with 1 GHz Cortex-A8 processor, PowerVR SGX530 GPU, TI OMAP 3630 chipset. High resolutions display screen of the mobile is providing good Image quality. Accelerometer and Proximity sensors are available in the model. The mobile is having audio and video recording and playback facility. YouTube and G-talk instant messenger service is also available. The LG Optimus Black reviews are over on the Internet. The LG Optimus Black specifications are tremendous. Dimension of the mobile is 121×63.5×9.2mm with 109gm of weight. The cell phone is enabled with 5 megapixels rear camera and 2 megapixels front camera facility with Geo-tagging, face and smile detection features. The handset is having 4 inches NOVA capacitive touch screen display. Multi touch input method; Optimus UI2.0 and Organizer services are available for better UI support. The technical features like digital compass, document viewers, voice memo, Voice dial and commands additional features are well equipped in this model. Micro USB v2.0 Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS and Bluetooth connectivity’s services are also available. The mobile is support up to 32GB expandable memory via Micro SD card. The mobile is having Li-ion 1500 mAh battery which is providing up to 6 hours talk time service. Stereo FM radio and multi formats supports MP3 and MP4 players are also added for nice entertainment service. Buy Dell Streak , Buy Samsung Galaxy Tab , Buy Spice Popkorn M9000

Tagged as: black-on-pre, image, internet, lg optimus black picture, lg optimus black price, megapixels-rear, mobile, model, needed-features, optimus-black, power, samsung-galaxy, spice-popkorn, voice

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HTC Evo 3D to release in India with bucket of features

by Paul Joseph June 28, 2011 Featured

The HTC EVO 3D Touchscreen mobile is a latest 3D mobile in Indian market. The mobile is very attractive and it will be available in Indian market with reasonable price. HTC mobiles have always become the near ones for the Indian customers. The HTC EVO 3D Price in India will be around Rs. 35, 000. The HTC EVO 3D features are very attractive. The Touchscreen mobile and their features are also really unbelievable. The mobile size is 126x65x12.1 and aggressive looks color with slim handset. It gives better quality photo and unlimited video recording with day, night and zooming mode. The HTC EVO 3D is having more accessories feature like Digital compass, HTC Sense UI, Gyro sensor, Document Viewer, HDMI port, Organizer, Google Search, Maps, yahoo, Gmail, Microsoft, YouTube, G-Talk, FaceBook, Twitter, Voice memo, dial & commands, Audio, Video Recorder & Playback, Stereo FM radio with RDS and also supports java. The mobile will be available in black color. The HTC EVO 3D specifications are very superb. The mobile is operated by Android OS, v2.3 (Gingerbread) Operating System with 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and Adreno 220 GPU. The mobile is very good for music lovers because it gives true tunes and amazing video quality. You can capture quality photos or videos with easy operated by 5.0 megapixel inbuilt camera and also have secondary 1.3 mega pixel camera. The most popular social Networking tools are available in this mobile like as FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, G-Talk, Picasa integration, Flicker and Voice memo, dial & commands also. The HTC EVO 3D mobile is powered by Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system with 1GB internal memory as well as external memory supports up to 32 GB. Good internet option is enabled in this mobile. the battery of the mobile provides better back up facility. Buy Dell Streak , Buy Samsung Galaxy Tab , Buy Spice Popkorn M9000

Tagged as: audio, become-the-near, digital, document-viewer, google search, htc evo 3d, htc evo 3d price, htc review, india, Indian, memory-as-well, microsoft, networking, video, voice

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Half A Decade Of WAT.. Half Way There Yet?

by Paul Joseph June 27, 2011 Featured

Today is WATBlog’s 5th Birthday.. Half a decade of blogging is something.. I was just going through our statistics today morning and realized that we have over 6000 posts and over 13000 comments posted. On the contribution front we have over 90 bloggers who have contributed articles to WATBlog over the last 5 years. We also have over 100 video interviews taken at WATShow which is our video interview portal. All in all over 2 lakh people visit WATBlog each month now and our Social presence has also grown to mirror our reach as facebook and twitter has over 3000 fans and followers each. We are no more ‘just a blog’ as we launched our own event formats in WATSummit and our own award function in WATAwards. We have always had the ambition of connecting Web, Advertising and Technology space in India and its been quite a journey in chasing that ambition. Today WATMedia Pvt Ltd which is the holding company of all WAT properties and brands employees over 60 fulltime staff , has offices in Mumbai and Delhi (Gurgaon) and also has a network of 50+ active bloggers supporting the regular blogging and reporting activity on WATBlog. Here is a timeline of the growth of what was started as a humble blog by a 21 year old to what I would today term as a thought leader in the digital media space.. 27th June 2006: First post goes up on WATBlog August 2006: 1st contributor joins WATBlog December 2006: WATBlog started getting recognized as an influencer with PR agencies calling us for press meets Year 2007: Growth year… We hit 1000 unique visitor a day by end of 2007. WATShow our video interview site is launched and so is WATJob our jobs portal. We also initiate a sister concern social media agency WATConsult Year 2008: Recession hits us and we respond by initiating events WATBlog Panels (Evening Panels) and WATBlog Wednesday (Evening networking sessions) Year 2009: We do 6-7 such events across Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and more.. Second half of the year saw WATConsult rise with the social media Industry catching up.. Year 2010: Golder year with 2 offices in Mumbai.. Social Media at all time high.. WATBlog wins Best Blog of 2009 at E4M Digital awards by beating BIG B blog at Bigadda Year 2011 (so far) : 2 BIG events.. WATSummit trends on twitter WATAwards gets underway.. WATConsult spreads its wings and crosses the 50 people mark.. We expand our office footprint to Gurgaon Delhi.. WATConsult wins best viral marketing award at IDMA 2011. As you can see from above its been quite a journey.. Over 100 people have worked with us and we have created several entrepreneurs too with some of our people running their own companies today.. Innumberable memories are etched in these 5 years.. We may not be the biggest or smartest company out there yet but we certainly were the most hardworking and yet the most fun to be a part of. What we are most proud about is that all of the above was achieved without a single penny from any investor or even any formal advisory board of any sort. We have hardly even used our family money. All people who ever worked for WAT have been below the age of 30 and even today the average age of this organization is 23 years. Its easy to leverage experience and build a business its tough to create things from scratch without having any clue how to go about it. We have messed up many times, looked like fools as well but we never gave up.. We fell and we rose and we fought and Im glad to say we survived. After going through so many emotions and ups and downs over the last 5 years or half a decade I wonder if we are half way there.. Are we close to what we set out to be?? The answer is no.. As an entrepreneur you are never satisfied. The ambition to be better, faster, leaner (costs) and bigger (growth) is an unending and non fulfilling journey. We still feel humbled by seeing our competition and many younger people and their work. We feel compelled to up our game. We feel like shaking our heads after every failed attempt and getting back to trying harder one more time. WAT isn’t about a company.. Its always been about an Industry.. The digital industry that has been voicing for its rightful place in India. Its been about a revolution that over the last 5 years took its own time to evolve.. But things are rapid and changing fast.. I see Ipads, Playbooks and iPhones powering a tomorrow for which we have worked really hard the last 5 years. WAT is the voice and the emotion that is associated with doing great innovative never been done before work in digital in India. Its about a community of so called geeks, online guys, digital folks or techies as some call them who have always been told that their medium is small.. or numbers are low or there is still time.. WAT is about the Dawn of the Digital Age that we will see in the next decade.. We shall be announcing our next WATSummit very soon and we would be talking about this “Dawn of the Digital Age” and how it will revolutionize the way people talk, work, love, share and grow.. Stay Tuned! Thanks to all our readers for fueling our ambitions.. We will make sure as we head to the second half of our journey that in the next 5 years WAT will evolve into the thought leader that it was always aimed at being. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Indian Social Media Landscape 2011 – Video By Nielsen NimBuzz Spreads Over 50 Million Users Worldwide In Less Than A Year Vodafone Anger The Masses: Social Media Backfiring On Them? Linkedin Crosses 10 Million Members In India TATA Docomo Introduces Route Finder And Smart Pilot As Location Based Service

Tagged as: digital, emotion, features, industry, jobs, landscape, office, people, smart, statistics, voice, wat birthday

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Award Winning App MyCityWay Comes To India

by Paul Joseph May 30, 2011 Featured

Want to know where to get an internet hotspot in Delhi? Confused about the network of roads in Chennai? Or looking for a decent apartment to rent for in Mumbai? How many times have we found ourselves in such scenarios? But now, a group of three Indians has launched an urban mobility app called My City Way that promises to change the way we look at our cities. MyCityWay is not a single app but a “combination of 50 apps” bundled into one. These apps cover almost everything ranging from dining , nightlife , shopping , events , attractions and much more. Based on the GPS technology , the app is crammed with the best of local information that would be useful for visitors as well as locals alike. The application also helps users to connect with their friends on Facebook to find the best places to hang out and enjoy the city. Brainchild of three Indians, Archana Patchirajan, Puneet Mehta and Sonpreet Bhatia, this app was initially launched for 38 cities of US . The app came under attention when it won $10000 for being “ investor’s choice ” and “ popular choice ” at the NYC BigApps competition in Feb 2010. Soon the team managed to raise $5 million in financing from BMW i Ventures , FirstMark Capital and IA Ventures . The Indian version of MyCityWay’s smartphone (iPhone, android and Blackberry) application will initially cover Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, and reach another six cities before the year-end. The application will be available cross-platform on iPhone, iPad, Android, Nokia and Blackberry devices. The app has been acclaimed from all the users around the world and the company expects to repeat the same performance in India as well. The launch has been welcomed by multiple telecom companies and handset OEMs . The company is also in talks with these organizations about the possibilities to integrate the services at a more fundamental level. You can download the MyCityWay app from Itunes and Android marketplace . What’s your take on The MyCityWay App? Tell us. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts SatNav Launches Live Traffic App for Smartphones Google Voice App For iPhone Launched Virtual Gifting Is Growing In India! WWW: WAT Weekly WrapUp 29th August – 5th September 2010 Sony Launches ‘Qriocity’ To Compete With Apple iTunes

Tagged as: apple, cities, firstmark capital, friends, itunes, mobile, nyc bigapps, oems, phone-launched, technology, virtual-gifting, voice, web

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Mobile Research Firm Says Android Predicted to Overthrow Apple App Store

by Paul Joseph May 6, 2011 Featured

In a recently released report by Research2Guidance , researcher Egle Mikalajunaite has graphically compared the number of Apps in the Apple App Store and the Android Market. With a lot of high profile App releases in the past few months the Android Market is certainly achieving significant momentum. The graph starts from the start of 2010 to present day on recorded statistics, after which it goes on to predict the number of Apps for the next 7 months. Some interesting statistics are also shared. For instance, in April, 28,000 new Apps were published in the Market compared to 11,000 in the App Store. Just to give some perspective, the number of apps added each month by either of them every month is more than some other platforms’ total number of Apps. As you can see, sometime around August 2011, the number of apps in both stores will be equal. After that, Android will continue to get more new applications per month than the Apple App Store. This is huge. Apple’s App Store has long been seen as the largest content store on the internet. Its position at the top has been unchallenged for years and Apps were one of the reasons people were driven to iOS devices. Android taking the number 1 spot is not all roses though. Alternative App Stores have risen such as the Amazon App Store and the Opera App Store . They have tighter checks on App Quality and have better App Management Tools. Also, a majority of applications in the Market are freeware meaning no revenue for developers from App sales. Also, with so many new Apps being added, discovery becomes a major problem. The Market’s search algorithms aren’t known to be the best. For example, searching for “Google Reader” in the Market brings up 7-8 different readers before the actual Google Reader App. If official Google Apps aren’t easy to be discovered, one can only imagine the visibility problems being faced by small independent developers. There is no guarantee that the 1000’s of new apps being added are of a certain quality or have real utility value. The normal consumer is not going to have more than 50-100 applications, what he or she cares about the most is the quality of them. We think Google should not rest in its laurels of Application numbers and tighten its search algorithms to ensure consumers can easily find the App they are looking for. They must also concentrate on weeding out low quality apps. The Future of App Stores definitely has Android in it. The Research2Guidance Report is a great read, and you can go through it for free from here . Check the Winners Of WATAwards Here Related Posts 10 Mn Downloads Registered By Spice Labs On Blackberry App World If Mobile Apps Shape Who We Are..Indians Mean Business Do Mobile Apps Compromise Your Privacy? Google Voice App For iPhone Launched Android Market reaches 100,000 Apps, Apple still far ahead!

Tagged as: downloads, internet, mobile research, phone-launched, platforms, store, voice, web

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Rural VAS Update: Handygo Partners Tata Indicom

by Paul Joseph April 20, 2011 Featured

Handygo Technologies has partnered with Tata Indicom to launch a VAS service called ‘Ek Behtar Zindagi’ for the customers in the rural areas of India. ‘Ek Behtar Zindagi’ sounds interesting and useful for the rural customer because the service guarantees to provide day to day information. Updated information like forecast, agriculture, livestock, mandi rates, fisheries education, health, finance too. To subscribe this service the Tata Indicom subscriber have to dial a toll free number 556780 . The subscription pack is available at Rs. 5,10,20 per month and get talktime of 50,100,200 minutes for 7,15,30 days. The subscriber can also continue the service of Rs. 2 per minute on 55678 . In addition to this, 50 visibly challenged people are employed by Tata Teleservices Limited in tie-up with National  Association of Blind in India and Blind Relief Association in Delhi. These employees are specifically employed to make calls for the products of Ek Behtra Zindagi. Handygo is said to provide incentives and bonuses to best caller on the monthly basis. We have reported that a similar kind of VAS service called Behetar Zindagi was introduced by Reliance in collaboration with Handygo extending a thoughtful service for the rural communities. This is Handygo’s second tie up in this space and it seems big operators are taking a liking to handygo’s service to rural areas. Showcase Your Digital Work Here! Win An Award! Log onto WATAwards Related Posts Airtel Has Highest Number Of Active Subscribers, What About The Rest? Tata Indicom To Charge Flat Charge Per Call. Is This A Risky Strategy? Internet to become ubiquitous in India Virgin Group to Exit from Virgin Mobile India Airtel launches “One Number, One Voice” service to enhance user experience

Tagged as: mobile, news, tie ups, voice

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Air India Introduces Mobile Check-in Facility

by Paul Joseph April 12, 2011 Featured

Air India will now let its domestic users avail mobile check-in facility . This facility will allow travellers with web enabled mobile phones to perform basic check-in functions. Travellers will have to visit http://flyai.mobi from their phones and carry out the series of instructions provided there to complete the process. Currently the facility is only being rolled out for the domestic travellers of the six major metros — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. A spokesperson of the national carrier said, “Air India’s mobile check-in facility, which is being made available for all domestic travel from the six major metros from Thursday, will be extended to other stations and international flights in a phased manner.” The new check-in facility will be of great assistance to passengers. This facility, which follows in the line of tele check-in, web check-in and self check-in kiosks, will be of added advantage for on-the-go travellers. With the new facility, the queues that we see at the airport will shrink and passengers won’t have to get bored standing to complete the check-in process. There are some technicalities that travellers need to keep in mind. The system would let one person to check in through a single transaction. In case of a passenger name record which has a list of travellers included, each traveller would have to check-in separately. If you are asking, what to do with the baggage, then you are not wrong. Passengers with luggage can also enjoy this facility but, there is a catch. Before the security and custom checking are done, they would have to slump off their bags and baggage into the drop counter. There are a number of international airline operators like Air Canada, KLM Royal Dutch Airline, but amongst the Indian airline services, Air India is the first to offer this facility. Other Indian airlines, Jet Lite and Jet Airways offer SMS based booking and reservation facility but, restrict it only to some cream layered customers and Kingfisher is only offers a web check in facility. Obviously, Air India’s service is more customer friendly as all the details such as traveller’s name, date and flight number, boarding time and gate number, seat number, class of journey will be available to passengers on an electronically generated 2D bar code on their mobile phones shortly after they follow the instructions. With data usage from mobile phones on the rise, this facility would be a welcome feature for not just the frequent travellers but for everyone travelling with Air India. Once this facility is adopted by other carriers and on other stations, traveling by air would be an even better experience when the time spent waiting at the airport is reduced. What’s your take on this new facility offered by Air India? Showcase Your Digital Work Here! Win An Award! Log onto WATAwards Related Posts Online Bookings For Air India Take-off, Cheaper Tickets The New Online Mantra London-based NRI Launches Blog To Voice Protests Against Air-India! Online Travel Portals Taking Flight To Offer Cool Discount Deals

Tagged as: cheaper-tickets, digital, mobile, mobile check-in, online-bookings, portals-taking, sms, travel, voice

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Welcoming Mahesh Murthy, Founder of Pinstorm as Jury for WAT Awards

by Paul Joseph April 8, 2011 Featured

Mahesh Murthy, Founder of Pinstorm. Mahesh Murthy is one of the jury member at WAT Awards held on 22nd April,2011. With over 25years of experience in Advertising and Marketing, of which 15years has been in Digital Marketing. He writes a regular column in Wall Street Journal. Mahesh Murthy’s Bio Founder of Pinstorm | India’s recognised expert in Youth Marketing | won award of Creative Director for “Asia’s best commercial of the decade” | Writes a column in Wall Street Journal Mahesh Murthy’s view on ‘ The growth of Digital Media in India “ Digital Work in India is certainly good and admirable. But we need to recognise the talent of technologists and strategists on the digital side. Realization by clients is needed for digital medium to grow in India. Technology, Strategic implementation and scale are the areas where maximum innovation can take place in the Digital Media in India The growth of Facebook and its escalation over T.V is the largest driving factor that will take the Digital Media ahead. Interact with some of the leading experts in the Industry. It is a final call for Social And Digital Entrepreneurs as well as Social and Digital Agencies. REGISTER NOW for the nomination of WAT Awards, 2011. Showcase Your Digital Work Here! Win An Award! Log onto WATAwards Related Posts Welcoming Carlton D’silva, Creative Director, Hungama Digital Media Entertaiment, As Jury at WAT Awards Welcoming Vishal Parekh, Marketing Director, Kingston as Jury Member at WAT Awards InkFruit Raises $3 Million From SAIF Ventures WATShow with Mahesh Murthy of Pinstorm on Online Branding vs ROI Data & Voice Will Be Free – Mahesh Murthy At Digital Media Conclave

Tagged as: digital, digital-media, india, industry, jury wat awards, mahesh-murthy, news, online, online-branding, pinstorm, social, technology, voice, watawards

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