Friday, August 10
Naukri Launches Professional Networking Site - Brijj
During a recent earnings call, Naukri CEO Sanjeev Bikhchandani had explained their need for a professional networking site: Job sites don’t tap passive candidates, and Bikhchandani believes that a networking site can plug that gap. Naukri.com has a database of over 10 million resumes, and a possible integration with Brijj gives it the opportunity to engage better with those for whom Naukri goes off the radar when they’re not looking for a job.
However, Naukri is not the first Indian company to try the professional networking site. Rediff had launched Connexions as a professional networking site, then there’s also Techtribe, which recently received funding from Canaan Partners; they’re attempting the reverse: a tech networking site trying to make inroads into the tech jobs space with a referral system.
Source: ContentSutra
Wednesday, August 8
Interested in becoming a Google Business Referral Representative?
Why should you become a Google Business Referral Representative?
Joining the Google Local Business Referrals (LBR) program is a great way to earn some money while connecting people to the businesses in your neighborhood. The information you collect could be seen by millions of people who use Google every day. And you'll be helping the businesses you refer attract new customers while also making it easier for people in your community to find the products and services they're searching for.-
What will you be doing as a representative?
As a Google Business Referral Representative, you'll visit local businesses to collect information (such as hours of operation, types of payment accepted, etc.) for Google Maps, and tell them about Google Maps and Google AdWords. You'll also take a few digital photos of the business that will appear on the Google Maps listing along with the business information. After the visit, you submit the business' info and photo(s) to Google through your Local Business Referrals Center, and we'll pay you up to $10 for each listing that is approved by Google and verified by the business.All you need to be a successful Business Referral Representative is a passion for helping local businesses succeed, a love for the Internet (some knowledge of Google is great, too), and access to a computer and a digital camera.
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How much will you be paid? How will you be paid?
You can earn up to $10 for each approved, verified referral you submit. This includes $2 when a business referral is approved by Google; and $8 when an approved business verifies that the information you submitted is accurate. Referrals are approved by Google based on the completeness and quality of data supplied by representatives. Businesses verify their information either by sending us a response postcard or verifying their information online.As long as your earnings total at least $25 a month, you'll receive a monthly check.
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Why is Google doing this?
In keeping with our mission to organize the world's information, we're always looking for new ways to make that information more universally accessible and useful. With the Google Local Business Referrals (LBR) program, we're focusing our efforts on small businesses across the United States, helping connect them with potential customers in their communities. -
Will you be a Google employee?
No. Google Business Referral Representatives are independent contractors to Google, not employees. As a contractor, you'll be paid according to the terms of the program, but won't receive employment benefits such as health insurance or paid vacation. Your payments will be mailed to you by check and can be tracked on your personal Local Business Referrals Center.
Tuesday, August 7
Matrimonial websites losing out to dating websites
Yet, a majority (51 per cent) of Indian youth online are registering with dating and friendship sites rather than marriage websites.
This makes dating the tenth-most popular activity online, ahead of matrimonial services, according to a recent report on matrimonial services by research firm Juxt Consult. Dating is three ranks ahead of matrimonial services which follows at number 13 with a close to 48 per cent of the online users using the service.
With 60 per cent of the online user population below the age of 25, “dating and friendship is bound to attract more users than matrimonial services,” reasons Mrutyunjay Mishra, director, Juxt Consult.
In 2006, matrimonial services had a mere 15 per cent of the online users population availing the service as compared to 24 per cent of the youth registering with popular dating and friendship sites.
The trend continued in 2007, with dating and friendship having a larger user base at 51 per cent as compared to matrimonial sites recording a 48 per cent of the overall user base registering with them.
The Year-on-Year (Y-o-Y) growth, however, is higher for matrimonial services at 130 per cent as compared to 88 per cent for dating and friendship sites, noted the report.
However, "unlike the matrimonial sites that command high user loyalty and brand premium for dating, social networking sites like Orkut and Fropper, chat rooms like Yahoo and even search engine Google, where users random search for sites with dating options, displaying no loyalty" observed Mishra.
The reason for no popular focused dating sites "is that the Indian culture does not have a concept of dating before marriage. And one would not register on a dating site for finding a life partner," Murugaval Janakiraman, chief executive officer, Bharatmatrimony.com stated emphatically.
"Dating sites would just be misused here ," he added. Bharatmatrimony.com is one of the largest online matrimonial services having 35 per cent of the market share
Interestingly, online India is not completely breaking away from the age old social norms by dating frivolously "There is a huge overlap between dating and matrimonial services. Almost 37 per cent of Internet users are into both the activities," said Mishra, adding: "Almost 72 per cent of the people who are into dating and friendship online are also registered with matrimonial search sites. Similarly, 77 per cent of the registered users of matrimonial services are also undertaking dating activities on the net."
Source: BusinessStandard
Bharti Airtel partners with Google
In a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange, Bharti said the suite of services will be offered free of cost to all Airtel broadband subscribers.
Source: Forbes
Internet Co-Inventor Launches Startup
The networking startup's first product is the Anagran FR-1000 Flow Router, designed for new generation video, voice, data, and wireless applications. The FR-1000 can eliminate network performance issues in applications like telepresence, Internet Protocol TV, and voice over IP, and consumes 80% less power than traditional Layer 3 routers, according to Roberts, Anagran's founder and CEO.
The FR-1000 watches and evaluates all traffic that travels through it. Instead of processing and routing individual packets, the router processes traffic based on specified priorities and assign the highest quality of performance to critical information. It uses the Intelligent Flow Discard approach to eliminate delay and packet losses.
The router also uses Behavioral Traffic Control to prohibit any traffic from using more than their suitable share of network resources. Thus, Anagran is able to guarantee quality video and voice, faster downloads, and minimal delay for all traffic, the company said.
The FR-1000 can be plugged into an existing IP network infrastructure. It works with other routers, WAN optimization or deep packet inspection products. But Anagran claims with the FR-1000, additional special-purpose appliances may not be necessary to improve network and application performance.
Anagran's router has been tested in multiple service provider and corporate network environments for over six months, and it's now widely available.
Source: InformationWeek
Google’s GPhone to be unveiled by 2008
According to the Telegraph, Google’s is crossing fingers that it’s ‘GPhone” will be as well-known as Apple’s iPhone, which was launched in the US in June amidst a lot of hype.
Several Google services such as search engine, e-mail and interactive maps, will be loaded on to the forthcoming GPhone.
Google services, such as its search engine, e-mail and interactive maps, will be loaded on to the phone. It is thought Google will derive its revenue from the lucrative mobile advertising market.
One manufacturer believes that the phone could be launched in Europe at a 3GSM Conference early in 2008.
Source: TechShout
Local search gets intelligent
To start with, the company has launched the search engine for Bangalore city, and plans to include local information of all metros and 22 cities in the next one year.
The technology involved in the search engine is an advanced algorithm that dissipates all available information and contextualises each word or a set of words to search a desired information, to give accurate local information.
The search can give information for instance on the availability of home-delivered food, place for hair cut, priest or a shop to repair mobile phones or electronic goods with options of zeroing in on the service to the micro level up to the block, phase and even lane level.
The company was founded in December 2006 by Kiran Konduri and Shriram Adukoorie who started their careers in Wipro and then joined Microsoft. Konduri was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug about 10 years ago.
Source: BusinessStandard
Online retail spreads its net
But how do you get the traffic in the first place?
Interestingly, online retailers are looking beyond traditional online advertising methods like search engines, banner ads and email marketing to lure online consumers. Many online entrepreneurs these days are finding gold elsewhere—offline marketing is what's helping them boost their online sales!
Real world doorway to online shop
If you happened to notice the huddle around this tiny kiosk right in front of Big Bazaar at Lower Parel, Mumbai on January 26 this year, you'd know exactly what we are talking about. This was one of the first few offline experiments that Future Bazaar, the online arm of the Future Group, tried. And it was a runaway success.
What they did was set up tiny kiosks in some key areas in various towns including Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad. These kiosks had catalogues of the merchandise that sell on their website. One had to simply walk into the kiosk, look at these catalogues and approach the sales people to place an order. These sales people in turn would log on to the Future Bazaar site and place an order for the items which would be delivered to the customer at home.
What worked with the kiosks is the fact that although the sale was happening online, the consumer never had to log on to the web. This made them more comfortable while placing an online order.
Although these kiosks were temporary initiatives, there is no denying their success. A normal retail outlet such as Big Bazaar has an annualised sale ratio of Rs 8,000 per square foot, while on sale days their annualised sale ratio can touch Rs 20,000 - Rs 25,000 per square foot. "But the kiosk did about 20 times more sales per unit of area as compared to the sale a normal retail outlet does even on sale days!" says Sankarson Banerjee, CEO Future Bazaar.
Thanks to this success, Future Group is planning to make these kiosks a permanent fixture at various locations in suburbs of metros and tire-2 cities.
Wooing customers from smaller cities
What prompted Future Bazaar to try this experiment? There are many facets to this, say analysts. The biggest factor is about location. As with brick-and-mortar retail, finding the right location is the most important factor for online sale too. Metros are important of course, but the real test comes when you are trying to attract non-metro customers. These customers are neither as tech-savvy as their metro counterparts nor do they have easy access to the internet.
Take for instance a city like Asansol which is a three hour drive away from Kolkata. Here the population is rich enough to be able to buy expensive brands, but they don't want to drive all the way to Kolkata to buy it. Nor are they comfortable about logging on to the internet on their own to buy products. This is the kind of population these offline marketing plans target. And these strategically placed kiosks do exactly this.
"Interestingly these kiosks helped us attract a very different kind of customer," says Banerjee. "For instance, a much larger percentage of women came to the kiosk than come online. We also saw people from different walks of life—from senior professionals to daily wage earners—wanting to take advantage of the offers available through this format," he adds.
Ironically, these offline initiatives have been very successful in the metros too. Future Bazaar's experiment at the Lower Parel Big Bazaar for instance, saw large number of customers who had just finished shopping in the store come and pick up more products at the kiosk. "This is because the same customer will buy different things at different times inside a Big Bazaar and for home delivery," said Banerjee
Partners in the game
Players like eBay have given a slightly different twist to the kiosk strategy. They are tapping internet cafes around India.
"We have partnered with Reliance Web World in 100 Web Worlds in 16 cities with plans of scaling up this quarter to 140 Web Worlds in 24 cities," says Rathin Lahiri, CMO, eBay India.
It works almost similar to the kiosks, the only difference being that the consumer goes to an internet cafe instead, where the cafe owner handholds her though the entire process of buying online.
There is no denying the fact that even today, the most widely used window to the internet is still cyber cafes. According to IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) 24% of India's 50 million-odd internet users still accesses the net via pay-and-surf cyber cafes. So it makes superb business sense to have these cafe owners bring in newbies to your website. The strategy has worked for eBay India at least.
"Reliance Web Worlds were among our top three new user acquisition channels for the year,” says Lahiri.
Campaigning for more
Then of course there is the good old print media that online players are reaping benefits from that. Like the Indiatimes ad campaign called 'Readers offers'. Here, Indiatimes would select a product each day and place print ads with a special price in frontline publications such as TOI or the Mumbai Mirror. These offers would also run parallel on the Indiatimes site (www.indiatimes.com).
"The response so far has been brilliant. With this we managed to capture the entire readership of the print dailies which runs into lakhs of Indians," said an Indiatimes spokesperson.
Celebrity charm
Then of course there is the old trick of using celebrities to charm users into buying your product. eBay India has been running campaigns like 'Green House' that were heavily publicised in multiple channels such as radio and print ads. The campaign spoke about sports anchor Mandira Bedi decorating her house in Bandra with items bought only from the eBay India site. This worked wonders for the site, as people would log in to buy just the same products as Bedi. The number of hits soared for sections such as home décor and furnishings.
The same went for the apparel section which now ranks among the top accessed sections on eBay thanks to the 'Style Diva' campaign. This saw thousands of users voting for Kareena Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra or Bipasha Basu as their best dressed style icon.
Source: TimesofIndia
George Zacharias quits Yahoo! India
Speaking on his decision to move out of the company, Zacharias said, “Yahoo! India has been growing at a robust pace and the journey has been both challenging and rewarding. This decision has been a tough one but as I leave a well-oiled, strong leadership team and move on to set up a young organisation, I wish to thank Yahoo! for all the support during my tenure and know that Yahoo! India will continue to scale greater heights as the leading Internet company in this country.”
Nilsson said, “We wish George success in achieving his personal goals. As India continues to be a major focus for Yahoo!, we are excited about the aggressive pace that we have set ourselves to realize the enormous opportunities in this market, and grow the business both organically and inorganically”
Source: Exchange4Media
Sunday, August 5
Microsoft to Offer Free Version of Works
The world's largest software maker has been pondering the future of Microsoft Works, its basic spreadsheet and word processing software, in the face of rising competition from Google Inc.'s suite of business software services.
Unlike Google Docs and Spreadsheets, which are delivered through an Internet browser, Microsoft plans to pre-install Works on computers and display advertisements stored in cache. The software normally retails for $39.99.
When a user connects to the Internet while using Works, that cache of ads will refresh, said Melissa Stern, a Microsoft senior product manager in the Office group.
The company plans to roll out the advertising-supported Microsoft Works SE 9 in a few months. Microsoft would not disclose either the PC makers with which it was working or the markets for the test program.
Source: FoxNews
