Why pay Reliance and Sulekha for local search ?
The bug for being Numero Uno has severely bitten Mr. Anil Ambani and his team 
The core team keeps announcing things one after the other even before the products are ready. For instance, they announced the launch of Reliance Mobile Money Transfer in a filing with the Stock Exchange Mumbai on the 6th and I just a while ago called Reliance Customer Care who had no idea about what Reliance Mobile Money Transfer was. Great!
They are in the news yet again today, Reliance Communications has tied up with Sulekha to launch Local / City Search on Mobile. Each search will cost a customer accessing this service through R World Rs 3. I don’t find any compelling reason to use this service when we have Freebies like OnYoMo’s Mobile Search or JustDial’s local call [3999 9999] to get information on the move.
Quickly I want to review OnYoMo’s mobile city search. The site [connectivity] and UI are really cool [GPRS and the Mobile Web is still evolving in India and Airtel's connection speed is around 28 Kbps]. As you can see I was looking for Chinese Restaurants on Airport Road, Bangalore. OnYoMo’s engine is not quite intelligent and it returned results for “Chinese” matching any “Road”. Had those unwanted results at the bottom, I would have bothered less.
Scrolling down does lead me to the restaurant I had in mind – Megabowl and I am not disappointed. However, the Call and Save options don’t work yet, it would have been really cool and would qualify for the WOW factor, had they been working. I am sure you are an intelligent consumer and know where to look for information now, especially if you are on the Web, then you have half a dozen choices – Google, Yahoo!, JustDial, Burrp, YellowPages, etc.
Tags: Local Search, Mobile Search, City Search India, Yellow Pages
Minekey: Recommendation by Behavioral Targeting
Minekey a Silicon Valley based startup with R&D center at IIT Kharagpur has developed a unique Recommendation Widget based on behavioral targeting.
As a publisher, one can signup with RSS feeds and display it on blog or website. They will be tracking user browing habits through a cookie collecting and analyzing data. Dr. Sudeshna Sarkar, CTO of Minekey, pursuing research in Information Retrieval said,
The Minekey recommendation engine employs sophisticated algorithms to recommend items to a user based on a user’s own interests, as well as the context of the current page. The algorithm also incorporates many other features including interests of the user community, the dynamics of theme evolution, a user’s short and long term interests, personalization affinity of the user, etc.
It would be nice to see some more Web 2.0 companies backed by Researchers. Minekey has also raised Series A funding and I am wondering how are they going to make money out of these Widgets ? Embed Ads ? Or become a platform like Digg / Sphere ? Your thoughts ?
Tags: Web 2.0, Minekey, Widgets, Behavioral Advertising
Do we really need Airtel’s GPS Navigation ?
Bharti Airtel Ltd in association with Wayfinder Systems has launched GPS navigation for select few cities in India[Bangalore, Chennai, Chandigrah Delhi NCR, Kolkatta, Mumbai and Pune] and for almost the entire US and Europe. Few months ago I had seen a GPS navigation system in Bangalore and didn’t find it good and compelling enough to recommend to others. The bad thing about this is, it is only compatible with BlackBerry 8800 sets. How many of us are really Blackberry users ?
Mr Sanjay Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Mobile said,
Airtel users will also have the option to purchase map information and area coverage details of Europe and North America.
Why should one purchase GPS in the US when you can install Google Maps which is as good as a GPS system. In the snaps below you can see Google Map View as well as Satellite view of Redmond Ridge in the state of WA. Mobile screens captured on my Nokia N70 running Google Maps powered by Airtel Online GPRS network.
Web 2.0: Google to fund Gadgets + Mashups
Google just a while ago announced about a new intiative – Google Gadget Ventures to encourage independent developers from around the world to develop mashups and products around the Google or Web 2.0 platform and pocket $5,000 if the community likes it. Looks like they are extending the Google Summer of Code, which was restricted to students only, to any Developer now.
Google is also willing to seed fund your venture upto $100,000 depending on the business proposal. So are you that creative developer who can build great products and services ? Then Google wants you
Tags: Web2.0, Google, Seed Fund, Web India
Microsoft Live Search and Mail to power Hutch mobiles in India
Emerging Asian telecom, Hutchison Essar has tied up with global software major, Microsoft Corporation to provide Mobile Search and Mail services. Hutch customers will be able to use Windows Live search for mobile, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live spaces. More information about Microsoft’s Mobile Services is available here.
Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer said,
This alliance with Hutch allows Microsoft to partner with country’s leading mobile data service operator to offer rich set of online services through the power of Microsoft’s software technology
With this tie-up, Microsoft is a steap ahead of Google in the Mobile space in India.
Tags: Mobile India, Mobile Search, Hutch, Microsoft
Decks cleared for 3G Auction in India
The Department of Telecommunications accepting TRAI’s recommendation on implementation of 3G is likely to go ahead with the spectrum auction said a PTI press release. Most of the bandwidth required for 3G is currently held by the DoD.
TRAI in its proposal had recommended a reserve base price of Rs1,050 crores for PAN-India 3G license. With current recommendations, only 5 operators can be accomodated and it will be an interetsing race as we already have 5 service providers(Reliance Communications Ltd through Reliance Infocom, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd, BSNL, Tata Indicom and Hutch) with PAN-India presence who are desperate for the spectrum.
With, Anil Ambani’s decision to aggressively expand, Reliance Telecom, the GSM arm of RCom for PAN-India presence, race will hot up in the GSM segment. Two other operators, Idea Cellular Limited and Aircel India, which have recently obtained approvals for PAN-India expansion are unlikely to budge out of the 3G race. Where do you see the spectrum rates heading ?
Tags:3G , Mobile India , Telecom India
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