e Magus

By Brier Dudley It's been awhile since Microsoft introduced a game-changing social Web application, but Vine -- a service that's debuting today with a beta test in Seattle -- could be a contender. Vine is a hyperlocal, personalized message and alert system. It's intended to be a dashboard that people can use to keep tabs of their family, friends, activities and major events in their community. The dashboard -- which appears as a widget on a PC screen -- displays a map of the user's community and the status of their contacts. It also has buttons to send alerts or reports, which can be sent and received on the PC or as text messages on a cellphone. For more click here

It has been quite a while since I have blogged here. Well the reason is not that I was so busy that I did not find that couple of hours every week to write.. it was not that I was exiled into the Gautamano bay, and had no access to internet… it is not even the fact that I was not active on Internet… in fact, I was never so active on the Net, ever since I first started browsing around 15 years back, as I was last 2 months.. then what stopped me from blogging?? Blame it on the new sexy babes in the online space – Facebook and Twitter. Since the time I got active on Facebook and Twitter, I hardly find time for any other thing online, especially writing at one go and blogging about 500 words of my thoughts. I am all over drooling over these babes and I have access to them from my mobile phone too. Though the core feature offering of Facebook or Twitter is ‘Status Update’ it has transcended the update feature. People update their status, remark on others update, follow, write on walls, poke...

Following a tight pitch against local agency Crayons, Mindshare Delhi snapped the Indian National Congress (INC) media account estimated to be worth US$15 million. The agency will be handling the political party’s electronic media campaign in the run up to the general elections to be held from 16th April onwards in stages. Mindshare will focus primarily on TV and radio – reaching out to the ‘common man’ – which constitutes the majority of the voting population in the country. The account is led by client leadership and will draw heavily on resources from the exchange teams at Mindshare. “To be associated with a campaign that will help form the government to run the country for the next 5 years is a great privilege and honour. The entire country is talking about this campaign.” said Chirantan Chandran, partner of client leadership at Mindshare. Also Congress Party has bought the royalty rights for the AR Rahman song - Jai Ho... This song would be used by the party during this polls. Wil...

I have read this news article - wherein Google takes Internet to the villages in India. They have an Internet enabled bus that will camp in villages and experience the villagers to get a flavor of the Internet... Once a villager is convinced, and finds the immense potential of the Net, they might just adopt the medium in one form or another... Hmmm...a nice way to bridge the great Indian 'Digital Divide'... but, reminds me of an old Hindi saying "Rahne ko ghar nahin, sara jahan hamara" Will these people who struggle with the lack of basic amenities and infrastructure.. find Internet of any use that will change their day to day struggle. What value add would Google search engine give to these people?? Interesting though, I will need to follow this project of Google and see its effectiveness.. For the news article - read here Cheers Santosh

I-Cube is one of the most exhaustive reports available on the Indian Internet Market, which covers information areas like Internet usage amongst the households, Internet usage amongst businesses, Broadband status of the Indian market, content preferences, cross media consumption, public access, and online entertainment A Snapshot of the report I-Cube 2008: Internet usage in Indian households report offers interesting insights on the emerging pattern of Internet usage among Indian families. The report reflects on the Internet penetration rates as well as the characteristics of these families in terms of disparate profiles and affluence levels. Signaling a gradual growth, the total Internet population of India for the year 2008 stands strongly at 55.5 million users. India's urban Internet population has grown by 19% to reach 50 million (all India estimate) compared to 42 million in 2007. Of these 50 million Internet users (urban), 36.5 million are 'active users' who log on to...

There was this big hoarding screaming about the launch of Blackberry Storm by Vodafone. "SMS STORM to 111".. This was a phone I was waiting for, and did not buy into the iphone hype that was there a few months back. SMS i did. and I got a nice auto response saying someone would be in touch with me in 48 hrs.. The hours have extended to 240, and the promised call has not yet come.. This is what i call the great Indian Digital Divide. Wherein the technology is making huge strides forward... but the personnel service still belongs to the pre-independence years As long as this last mile connectivity is not fixed... digital mechanisms will not be effective :( Vodafone, I am happy to help you in this regard :) Cheers Santosh

techTribe Says Referral Job Site Not Working Out, Looking For A Buyer techTribe, backed by Canaan Partners, is now exploring options like finding a strategic partner or a buyer. The business model for online recruitment based on referrals is not “working out”, techTribe CEO and Founder Rohit Agarwal admitted in an interview to VCCircle. The company is now exploring options like a strategic partner or a buyer. San Francisco and New Delhi-based techTribe was founded by serial entrepreneur Rohit Agarwal, in 2006. Before starting techTribes, Agarwal was co-founder and VP of marketing and business development at Webify Solutions, which got acquired by IBM in July 2006. The company hoped to make money by becoming a referral job portal. It had received an undisclosed amount of funding from Canaan Partners, US-based Miven Venture Partners and The Entrepreneur Funds in 2007. “The model for referral recruitment as we had planned is not working out,” said Agarwal. Read more Will we be looking at ...