Early days and story behind WhistleTalk

The app is the brainchild of Vinoo Chacko who has more than thirteen years of experience in the software industry. Vinoo, a startup man from the very beginning of his professional life had a setback from his first startup. Moving forward he joined NetScaler which was later acquired by Citirix in June, 2005.

During the con call, Vinoo said that joining NetScaler was a wise decision as it enhanced his learning curve. During his tenure at NetScaler, he got the know-how to build a product out of an idea and then take it to the market. Once NetScaler got acquired by Citrix, Vinoo went back to the classroom as he felt that marketing skills were very much required along with the technical know-hows.

“I went to The Indian School of Business to polish my business skills and later on I joined Citirix where I served as a product manager for close to 5 years, before I started WhistleTalk in early 2012,” added Vinoo, while sharing about his professional life before WhistleTalk.

Today, Vinoo is the CEO at WhistleTalk and is trying to strengthen its presence in the social hiring space. But interestingly, the startup man wanted to start a social media recommendation product for resort owners initially.

“Few of our friends would meet on the weekend and would discuss ideas and in one such discussion we came up with the idea of preparing a product that would collect all the perceptions of users related to resorts, accumulate it and provide it to the resort owners. During this research, we found out that the final decision depends on the recommendations of friends and families. From there we started looking into activities that were influenced by reference models and thus we discovered that referral recruitment is one area that has been neglected in India,” shared Vinoo, while revealing the story behind WhistleTalk.

The startup that is based on the core idea of referral recruitment recently launched an enterprise edition. With this version, employers can use the enterprise solution to leverage the social networks of their current employees, thus making the talent hunting process simple, faster and saving on costs too. As for employees, they can earn rewards while they share the job opportunities on social media without much of a hassle!

Elaborating further on the features, Vinoo added that the enterprise version would try to make the job posting viral by sharing on various networks, track the entire application process and even manage rewards for employees.

Challenges and the road ahead

But isn’t he feeling the heat from networks like LinkedIn, which recently announced that it had crossed a milestone of 20M users? Vinoo thinks that networks like LinkedIn and other job sites are looking for active candidates and not for passive ones.

“An employee of an organization knows who is a potential candidate for a respective job and we are tapping the market which is of passive candidates. Additionally from a cost perspective we are bringing down the cost for an organization which is being used to pay rewards to the employees,” adds Vinoo.

The idea of reaching more passive candidates makes WhistleTalk interesting and even hiring managers are happy with the way the app has been working since it does not pull the already existing resumes from job portals like Naukri, Monster, etc.

However, Vinoo considers that employee participation remains the success of WhistleTalk and also the present challenge. But with time the challenge is being overcome and he has seen that at organizations where 40-50% employees are participating, the quality of resumes have improved and end of day employees are happy along with organizations.

Richcore, a leading Bangalore based Biotech company has deployed the WhistleTalk referral hiring solution and seems to be one of the happy clients. The app’s sharing feature along with its simplicity of deployment and the ease of use have been the core features that were referred by Sunil Sundar, HR Manager at Richcore.

The startup that is looking for a second round of funding by this year end, plans to focus on the enterprise model and will be launching a mobile version of the app in the coming three to four months. Indeed WhistleTalk is cracking the social hiring market keeping the focus on referral model.

Tapjoy headquartered at California, USA is a monetization and distribution services provider for mobile applications which would mean international opportunities for developers to make money from the Kakao Games platform.

The latest deal with Tapjoy sends a strong signal from Kakao to the already competitive space of Asian messaging apps. However, this has been one of the efforts from the messaging app company that has been growing its influence. It recently launched Kakao Home for its countrymen to enjoy a feature that has been similar to the Facebook Home. The new service will be a customized home screen experience on Android devices with widgets, notifications and deeper integration of the main Kakao Talk messaging service. And the service that was launched a few days back is already a hit in the local market.

Along with this the messaging app has been updating features such as renewing its Plus Friend advertising platform which would henceforth have dedicated homepages and custom design tools aimed at brands and celebrities and tying up new partnerships. Subsequently it has not stopped making partnerships with business to provide users better experience. The recent tie up with US based startup Evernote, a trusted name when it comes to storing personal details was one such initiative.

However, the messaging app Kakao Talk that has 90 million registered users with an impressive 29 million daily active users and $42 million in revenues in 2012, faces a stiff battle from other messaging apps like Line and WeChat. Line recently revealed it made $58 million during the first quarter of 2013, of which $17 million came from the sale of stickers or rich emoticons. WeChat, which also recently revealed that it has 190 million active users, has been pushing its app globally and India has been one of the focus areas in the recent times.

Why Jaya Vindhayal was arrested?

Jaya Vindhayal, a lawyer and president of the Andhra Pradesh unit of People’s Union for Civil Liberties or PUCL, was arrested in Hyderabad on Sunday afternoon. Section 66A has been applied on her as the Congress MLA has complained to the police on April 18^th that 4 weeks ago Vindhayal has accused him of being involved in various crimes such as child trafficking, ganja mafia, sand mafia and land mafia. The baseless accusations have tarnished the image of the MLA in the society, reported NDTV. In another story from FirstPost, it is being said that along with the Congress MLA, objectionable comments have been posted against Tamil Nadu Governor K Rosaiah. In addition to this, the police also claims that Vindhayal had also allegedly distributed pamphlets making objectionable allegations against Rosaiah and Mohan before posting the comments online.

Plea filed by Shreya Singhal

The arrest that was made on April 18th under the controversial act, has now taken an interesting turn. Law student Shreya Singhal, has challenged the validity of Section 66A and has urged that no arrests should be made under the Section till the Supreme Court decides on her PIL.

Shreya had filed the PIL last year when Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Shrinivasan were arrested on their Facebook activities voicing concern against the shut down in Mumbai following Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray’s death. The arrest that was condemned by even political parties was made under 66A, which forced the government to take a look at the controversial IT Act. Thereafter the PIL has been pending before the apex court.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the plea put forward by Shreya restraining government authorities from taking any coercive action against anyone for posting alleged objectionable comments on social networking sites. The good news is that while I am writing the post, HT has tweeted that the SC has announced no arrests should be made without the permission of senior officials.

https://twitter.com/IndiaToday/status/334908706145849345

The never ending misuse of IT Act 66-A

How would the senior officials react when pressure comes from the senior government officials? Definitely a space to be watched. In the entire last year, we have reported quite a few cases on how 66-A was misused –

1. Sanjay Chowdhary from Agra arrested for posting content about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.

2. Ram Nayan Choudhury arrested for sharing cartoons against Mamata Banerjee on Facebook.

3. Arrest of Jadavpur University chemistry professor Ambikesh Mahapatra on sharing cartoons again on Mamata Banerjee.

4. A businessman from Puducherry had been arrested for a tweet he made against Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s son, Karti.

5. Mayank Mohan Sharma and KVJ Rao, two Air India cabin crew members were arrested by the cyber crime cell by the Mumbai department in May during this year for their activities performed on Facebook. The two had been accused of allegedly sharing lewd jokes about politicians.

6. Arrest of Assem Trivedi on his cartoon which mocked about the Indian democracy.

And, we can keep on adding some more stories to the list but if one looks deeper to these arrests made on the basis of social media activities, we see that interests lie somewhere else.

Meanwhile, Vindhayal has got a bail a day later after being remanded to judicial custody for 12 days. But will someone care to find out what the posts were about and why she was arrested when there was a PIL already pending in the court?

Will update the post if the story develops further. But rest assured this won’t be the last case surrounding the controversial IT Act 66-A.

1. Section 66-A deals with messages sent via computer or communication devices which may be “grossly offensive,” have “menacing character,” or even cause “annoyance or inconvenience

Indian Premier League, India’s version of cricket in T-20 format has always had this greed hidden somewhere. There have been talks in hushed tones that some players play for their teams rather than the country. The cash rich game laced by glamour was bound to have such allegations.

But today as a cricket loving nation woke up, and some fans were still thinking how Rajasthan Royals lost a close game last night, we were all in for a surprise – Kerala speedster and former fast bowler Sreesanth was arrested by the Delhi Police along with his Rajasthan Royals team mates, Ankit Chavan and Ajit Chandilia. Along with them, 7 bookies have also been arrested. And how did the Delhi police nab the three? Courtesy social messaging app – WhatsApp and BBM, reports FirstPost.

The news that spread like wildfire since morning, brings the ghost of match fixing back to the circuit of Indian cricket. The 3 players have been detained for their alleged role in spot fixing during the last three IPL matches – Royals vs Warriors on May 6, Royals vs Kings XI on May 9 and Royals vs Mumbai on May 15.

However, the interesting development that messaging services like WhatsApp and BBM were used by the players and bookies to coordinate, was highlighted earlier in the day by Times Now. According to Times Now, Delhi Police had around 70 phones under surveillance during their probe into spot fixing in the IPL and were tracking messaging software like Whatsapp and Blackberry Messenger. It was while tracking these phone numbers, shared Neeraj Kumar, Delhi Police Commissioner in a press conference today, that they came to know about the spot fixing issue.

“The modus operandi was: there was an agreement between the bookies and a player that in a certain over they will give away a minimum amount of runs. The bookies also gave the players the directions. That they have to indicate they are ready to give away those runs. You rotate your watch or you put on your towel or you spend some time setting the field,” shared Neeraj Kumar at the press meet.

The Twitter world has been furious with the recent development of spot fixing taking away the charm of the IPL games. #SpotFixing and #Sreesanth have been trending from the moment news came out. The underline tweets give you the hint what greed has landed the players into when they already were getting enough.

Sad. My favourite IPL team, my favourite captain Rahul Dravid… let down my these rascals.

— Pritish Nandy (@PritishNandy) May 16, 2013

#spotfixing doesn’t surprise. It’s who we r. Get away with anything u can society. Surprising part is self-righteous outrage on those caught — Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) May 16, 2013

And the worst of it is that they play for a team whose Captain is one of the most honorable men in cricket. #spotfixing #shame — mandira bedi (@mandybedi) May 16, 2013

we’ve often talked about educating and mentoring. i suspect fear might be a stronger option. fear out of very stringent punishment

— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) May 16, 2013

Interestingly, both the messaging services which are considered more secure and have always been debated about their use has laid the trap. WhatsApp, that uses the mobile phone number as a user ID, can be monitored but BBM that relies on a unique PIN number that exists outside of your mobile network, has been tracked quite easily. This also puts a lid on the debate relating to the impossibility to track BBM, which has been misused especially during the London riots last year. In fact SEBI has been finding ways to check the use of such messaging apps, as reports have surfaced that these apps are being used to spread sensitive market related information to influence certain stocks.

One may debate that messages you send across these networks are by no means secure but then one needs to worry only if they are on the wrong side. But for now the players who have been booked under 420 and 120B, have been trapped by technology and social media gave the verdict before the final judgement.

For now, “There will be more arrests,” said Neeraj Kumar. Indeed the love of money opens the doors to hell.

Image courtesy: www.canberratimes.com.au, www.arabnews.com

Using Unmetric we have pulled out the 11 most engaging Facebook content posted by brands during Mother’s Day. Weightage has been given to shares, then comments and then likes. Since every brand wanted to cash in from the event, we considered those brands who had 2,500K and more shares on their content.

1. Vodafone Zoozoos (U=84): The most adorable brand on Facebook atleast for it’s funny characters – Zoozoos made sure that they brought a smile on the faces of their fans. With more than 12M fans, the brand posted a content on Sunday around 10 A.M. which has received more than 30K shares and got more than 2K people commenting on the post. The content also received more than 100K likes making it the most engaged content on the page in recent times. According to Unmetric, the engagement score was 1119.

2. LIC India Forever (U=51) : The largest life insurance corporation of India – LIC which has more than 1.5 million fans on Facebook wished fans on the occasion. The brand uploaded a visual of a mother and child reflecting the emotional bonding of both. The content was posted on Sunday and has received more than 13K shares. The content also made more than 500 people comment on the post and another 26K people liked the post too. The engagement score is 1216.

3. Panasonic India (U=55) : The electronics brand which has more than 2.3M fans on Facebook, didn’t miss out on this opportunity. The brand uploaded a visual content of a mother and child. Even though the content looked quite amateurish from a design point of view, it was shared more than 12K times and got more than 600 people talking on it. The content also received more than 34K likes with an engagement score of 937.

4. Save The Tiger (U=69) : The community that vows to save the Tigers also chipped on this occasion but in a very nice way. The community that is 2.6M strong, shared a visual content of a tigress with her cub. The visual had the emotional connect and aligned to the objective which got more than 9K people sharing it. In addition to this, more than 500 people commented and another 35K people liked it. The engagement score was 711K.

5. Aircel India (U=54) : The mobile operator of the country which has more than 4.1M fans on Facebook, didn’t miss out on the occasion The brand uploaded a more or less similar content of a mother hugging her child. However, the post also asked fans to describe their mom. The post got more than 6K shares, more than 600 people commented and another 24K liked the content. The engagement score was 399.

6. Bindaas : The India TV channel which targets the youth joined in the celebrations of mother’s day too. The brand posted a visual content which reflected the love for a mother from a child. The content was shared by more than 5K people and got more than 12K likes. The content also made more than 278 comment on the post.

7. KFC India (U=51) : The fast food brand also made sure that it wished its fans on Mother’s Day. The brand that has more than 3.2 million fans on Facebook, created a simple but an appealing mother’s day visual. The content was shared more than 4K times, got more than 289 people talking and was liked by more than 17K people. The brand engagement score was 317.

8. Tata Nano (U=50) : The common man’s car – Tata Nano has more than 3.7M fans on Facebook. The brand made sure it wished its fans on Mother’s Day. Along with a visual content, the brand shared a thought from Abraham Lincoln too, “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” The content was shared by more than 3K people, commented by 166 people and liked by another 10K people. The engagement score was 184.

9. Samsung India (U=42) : The technology company with more than 3.4M fans, wished them on mother’s day. The brand posted a very cute visual content that expressed love for a mother. The most engaged content in the recent times was shared by more than 2K people, commented by 159 and was liked by another 6K people. The engagement score of the brand was 155.

10. Junglee (U=39) : The ecommerce brand over the time has grown a hefty presence on Facebook with 1.9M fans. The brand shared a mother’s day message with its fans. The visual content wasn’t that appealing and it was the only brand to market on the special occasion. The content was shared by more than 2K people, commented by 159 and liked by more than 7K people. The engagement score on the content is 215.

‘U’ in the article represents the Unmetric Score that has been given by the social media brand monitoring product and it is a proprietary score.

Among these, Zoozoos, Save the Tiger and Samsung India stand out for me. How about you? Do share your thoughts in the comments.

Kakao Talk has 90 million registered users worldwide of which more than 50 million on Android phones but has no immediate plans to release the launcher globally since the focus is to test in the local market first – a statement that was clarified by a company spokesperson to TNW.

Talking on the features, Kakao Home has a set of exciting features such as the ability to check notifications for the KakaoTalk, KakaoStory and KakaoGame apps; reply to KakaoTalk messages without launching the standalone app; free themes; and widgets including weather forecasts, a clock and a task killer. In addition to this, the service will also provides users with the option to respond to messages and open up specific chat rooms directly from the home screen, without having to launch the actual app.

The service that was launched a couple of days back has already been a hit in Korea. The service has got a 4.1 star rating from more than 1300 reviews. Availability on all the Android devices has been a smart move in a country where Android holds a dominant 90 percent share of smartphones in the country.

The launcher is a significant move for Kakao when it is trying to bring in different features to increase the usability and engagement among users. The app that made $42 million in revenues and recorded an impressive 29 million daily active users, who send 4.8 billion messages per day has been working on some interesting integration of features. Recently the company was in news for its partnership with Evernote.

However, the popularity beyond the Asian shores is a riddle the company has to solve. Along with that, the app also has a fierce competition from rivals like WeChat, Line, etc. Line recently revealed it made $58 million during the first quarter of 2013, of which $17 million came from the sale of stickers or rich emoticons. WeChat, which also recently revealed that it has 190 million active users has been pushing it’s app globally and India has been one of the focus in the recent times.

Though it is too early to say whether Kakao Home could be the rival for Facebook Home, it definitely raises an alarm at a time when Facebook itself accepts that mobile messaging apps are a threat to the network.

Along with the numbers LinkedIn also shared some interesting facts about the top industries, skills, etc. According to LinkedIn –

1. Top 3 industries: IT Services, Computer Software and Accounting.

2. Top 3 skills include Management, Sales and Training.

3. Bollywood (1565), Yoga (4775), Cricket (2924) and Curry (231) are some interesting keywords mentioned by members in their LinkedIn profiles.

4. Most InDemand Employers: TCS, Infosys and IBM.

5. Ganganagar, Jalandhar and Delhi-NCR are the top 3 locations where people love their jobs.

The latest figure of 20M users also indicates that India is the biggest market for the platform after US. The platform which globally has more than 225M users is dominated by US at the top position with 74M and with 40M users coming from the Asian continent, India leads from the Asian belt too.

Keeping the faith in the country today, LinkedIn India is headquartered in Mumbai, with two offices in Gurgaon and a Technology Centre in Bangaluru, a first outside of the US. However, the network has been also keen to increase its base in APAC and early this year Hari Krishnan moved out of India operations and joined the Asia Pacific and Japan operations. In fact the Asia-Pacific headquarters of LinkedIn – Singapore which was opened in 2011, recently declared that it has more than 1M registered users.

The fresh numbers will be a boost to the users but at a time when platforms are talking about monthly active users, its time LinkedIn also shed some light on it.

WeChat India connecting on social media

The messaging app recently launched a 30-sec TVC on social to launch the brand ambassadors as well as to promote the feature of voice chat. The video that was launched a week ago, has got more than 2M views at the time of writing this article.

The brand has used social media effectively for creating buzz before revealing the brand ambassadors. The Facebook page that has more than 503K fans, created interesting visuals that were used as a teaser for fans. Once the brand ambassadors were introduced, the brand launched the “WeChatter” Facebook contest. The objective of the contest was to create maximum buzz about the new TVC. The contest asked fans to share the latest video on their page, tag maximum friends and send a screenshot of the whole activity ASAP. The fastest entries were given surprise hampers. Even though it wasn’t a great idea, the objective of maximum reach for the new TVC was achieved.

In addition to this, the Facebook page has been uploading behind the footage images of the TVC and encouraging fans to join the app since the ambassadors are on the app too. Both Parineeti Chopra and Varun Dhawan have created accounts on the app and right now if you follow them, you are served with the new TVC to watch.

Twitter, which has more than 3K fans is tweeting about the TVC and while I write, the Twitter account is updating with live updates about the press conference that is happening in Mumbai. #WeChatLive and #PhirKabMiloge hashtags have been catching the excitement of tweeps on Twitter too.

WeChat and its growth in India

WeChat which has been focusing in the Indian market has its interests in two fold – 1) The app has added Indian user centric features, 2) And has integrated with brands specially with Bollywood on the marketing aspect to create the buzz.

The app of late launched targeted features like video chat, voice chat and features like Hindi language support and Java based versions of the app to be able to run on feature phones.

On the marketing bit, WeChat tied up with the Bollywood film – “Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola.” The social media marketing campaigns were designed in a way that users had to use the app to crack the contest and stand a chance to meet the leading star cast, Imran Khan and Anushka Sharma and also win goodies like free movie tickets. The same movie promotions were executed with the movie “Himmatwala” too but we are not sure how much the app has benefited with both the movies as their box office reports were not that encouraging.

Mobile messaging apps are the next generation of social networks and players from Asia are going to dominate the market. It won’t be just WeChat but apps like Hike, Line, Kakao Talk, etc. would be the ones who would be providing stiff competition to networks like Facebook. But with 190 million active users WeChat is for sure to give stiff competition to WhatsApp. However, WeChat will have to spike up some integration with mobile companies to integrate the app on devices like WhatsApp did recently by partnering with Nokia to integrate a WhatsApp button on Asha 201.

Nevertheless, WeChat will see some exciting times in a country where the love for mobile devices has been proliferating really fast and as I follow the tweets of WeChat it states that it is the No.1 app on iOS in India. WhatsApp, are you listening?

He adds that Emails were the first revolution and Facebook, Orkut, etc were the second revolution that provided a closed group to stay in touch with each other. But Pushkar believed the communication was limited here and hence created Worldfloat – a global communication device which facilitates communication between many people on this planet on an equally diverse platform.

Pushkar started his efforts in June 2012 after getting the idea while reading Steven Johnson’s book “Where Good Ideas Come From” which talks of liquid networks. “I immediately saw people as bubbles. I then recruited some of the best IT engineers to put together this unique float technology which was hard to code,” he said in an interview with The Times Of India.

Again while sharing user numbers while talking to TOI, he said that, “The platform has around 6 million users and by June-end the platform should have more than 10 million users.”

Well, that was more than enough for me to give a spin to the next generation social network that boasts of taking over Facebook in the coming future.

How does the social network Worldfloat work?

The network which has incorporated a Facebook login, also has an email login. After authentication, the network asked me to provide some details and list my home town.

The first look of the platform is out of the box and it took me nearly 10 minutes to understand from where I should start using the network. The video that was provided is simply of no use; it is jazzy with zero information about the features of the product. The below snapshot gives you a quick look of the home page.

Are you wondering why are people floating like fishes in an aquarium? Well, it is the floating technology that has been implemented on this network. I did some Google to find more about the technology but I couldn’t find much. Let me know if you are aware of floating technology.

So the floating pieces are people from a particular city. You can browse through cities via a click and add people from that city. You can also click on a world map below to go directly to a particular city and add friends. You can check the profile details of the person whom you are adding, though the profile page is really shabby with some basic features.

The home page also has features like City News, City Tube, Personal Channel, Messages and Friends List. The City News provides the important news from your city and City Tube is the list of videos from the local city. However, City News fails to show any news but shows updates from unknown people. Similarly, the City Tube shows YouTube videos from Indian users as well as US users. In fact when you change cities, you find Indian accounts floating in the different countries. For example, the below screen is of Paris, France but it is swamped by Indian users who are based out in Indian cities.

Apart from this, the platform has a gamification feature under the name Treasure Hunt, where a user needs to click on the floating currency and scores points on the hits. Top scores are going to be given Rs. 1000/- vouchers. Rest you have a status update feature which allows you to share your thoughts with your community.

The site also curates news from popular news sites under the tab News Pipe. There are sections like Travel, Health, Movies which curate videos on certain keywords from YouTube. Movies section is showing movies from YouTube which have been illegally uplaoded by anonymous users. For example, the popular 3 Idiots movie embedded on the site, was uploaded on YouTube by some anonymous user. I hope that Pushkar Mahatta is aware of such activity happening in his next generation social network.

Do we need Worldfloat?

No! Forget being a revolution, Worldfloat is a pain for the eyes. The floating technology and the design looks pathetic from every angle. Even Orkut was far better than what Worldfloat looks like right now. The features like Travel, Health, Movies, etc. along with a social network is confusin. I think Worldfloat wants to be the Internet but even if it is trying to do the same then Pushkar should go back to the drawing board with his expert team.

I don’t find a single feature worth talking about. I am wondering what security features the network would have when it is showing me updates of people who are not my friend and if you click on the profile pages of any random user, you can see their email addresses too. Wonder how safe it is for a social network to show email ids to everyone!

So before I wrap this review, I have some questions for Pushkar Mahatta:

1. When was Facebook a closed group of network?

2. It has been said by you that Workfloat provides a way to communicate with anyone from anywhere in this world. But to talk, the other person needs to accept the friend request first . So how can we call Workfloat a global communication device which facilitates communication between many people on this planet on an equally diverse platform. Right now Twitter is the only network that does it.

3. Float technology will become a spam when more and more users will join the site. It would be difficult to click on a particular profile since there would be too many users floating from every direction. How does the network plan to stop such distraction?

4. Treasure hunt, the gamification model that has been implemented is bit shady. According to the rules book, the top scorer would get Rs. 1000 voucher but it is not clear for how long one needs to play. And in the interview given at TOI by you, there has been a mention of Rs. 10, 000 as cash prize but when does that trigger?

What surprises me is that The Times of India has covered two stories, where one has been the interview where the Founder boasts of VCs offering him $300 million but he does not wish to sell. However, this contradicts with his interview in Hindu, where he said that he might consider giving a small stake!

My sincere appeal is that both the leading news dailies of the country – TOI and Hindu should spend some time exploring Wordfloat.

Whatever it be Worldfloat is nowhere close to Facebook so don’t waste your time to give it a try. And, The Times Of India, please stop calling him India’s Mark Zuckerberg.

The nine hashtags that we followed on Twitter for Mother’s Day are listed below:

1. #OnlymomCan by Jabong: The hashtag which was started this Friday by the ecommerce brand Jabong, is still trending even though the contest is over. The brand that has more than 16K followers, asked them to tell what #OnlyMomCan do and interesting tweets won hampers.

Mother’s Day is around the corner & we want you to tell us everything #OnlyMomCan do!Your could win something special for your mom today :)

— Jabong.com (@JabongIndia) May 10, 2013

2. #ChefMum by GoodFood Mag India: The hashtag was launched by GoodFood Mag India. The international food magazine which has more than 2K followers asked twitteraties what is the favorite dish by #ChefMum with exciting prizes to be won.

Are you following @allthingsnice & @goodfoodmagin yet? Tell us what’s your favourite dish by your #ChefMum .Win exciting prizes and RT now!

— GoodFood Mag India (@GoodFoodMagIn) May 10, 2013

3. #Mommism by Kama Jewellery: The hashtag which trended throughout Saturday was started by Kama Jewellery. The brand with more than 1K followers asked to share their mother’s wisecracks that they remember. The best tweets had a chance to win exclusive pendants from the brand.

Follow, RT & tell us your favorite #Mommism .Win exclusive Pendants & Gold coin from @kamajewellery Check TnC’s here twitter.com/KamaJewellery/…

— Kama Jewellery (@KamaJewellery) May 10, 2013

4. #500kMomStories by Indiatimes Shopping: Ecommerce brand, Indiatimes Shopping started the hashtag where twitteraties had to ask their friends the fun times they have shared with their mom. #500kMomStories that trended on Saturday was offering cool mobile phones to some of the interesting tweets.

The prize for #500kMomStories is a Cool #MobilePhone.So guyz Follow us and ask your friends to share thiers Fun Tyms with thier Mom.

— Indiatimes Shopping (@ShopIndiatimes) May 10, 2013

5. #MomKiDaant by Cbaazar Fashion Friend: The hashtag that was trending on Saturday, was started by the fashion brand Cbaazar Fashion Friend. The brand which has more than 1K followers trended #MomKiDaant but was running a quiz contest related to its website. So to answer the questions twitteraties had to visit the website. The right answers got gift hampers to surprise their mom. Smart contest!

10 lucky tweeps will win vouchers to shop from our website Cbazaar dot in. Get ready to win a surprise for your Mother. #MomKiDaant

— CbazaarFashionFriend (@CbazaarFashion) May 11, 2013

6. #ThingsMyMomSays by Phoneix Marketcity: Launched by Phoneix Marketcity, the hashtag took no time to trend. The brand asked people on Twitter to share some of the witty lines or dialogues said by their mom. The best ones stood a chance to win a meal for two at selected avenues.

#ThingsMyMomSays Share some witty lines/dialogues your mom uses and stand a chance to #Win a Meal for two @caferoyalindia @marketcitykurla

— Phoenix Marketcity(@MarketcityKurla) May 11, 2013

7. #1ThingIlearnFromMyMom by Max Bupa: Max Bupa joined the party to trend itself and it is trending as I write this article. The brand asked twitteraties to share the most important thing they learnt from their mothers as moms are the best teachers. The best tweets stood a chance to win gift hampers.

Our #mother is our #first teacher! Tell us about the most important thing you learnt from your mom using #1ThingILearntFromMyMom! #contest

— Max Bupa (@MaxBupa) May 12, 2013

8. #MomMadeFoodIs by Oleev Oil: Oleev Oil which has 453 followers started its hashtag yesterday and began trending too. The brand asked people to tweet about #MomMadeFoodIs and 3 tweeps stood a chance to win gift hampers.

Want to win a special kitchen hamper for you mother? Follow us and tweet with #MomMadeFoodIs. Total 3 HAMPERS to be won! :D

— Oleev (@OleevOil) May 12, 2013

9. #MicromaxSuperMom by Micromax Mobile: The Indian mobile brand asked twitteraties to share amazing snaps of their super mom and creative snaps stood a chance to win a brand new Canvas mobile. The brand that has more than 11K followers had its hashtag trended in no time.

@micromax_mobile #MicromaxSuperMom Thank you Comfort India for this amazing Collage of Mom andMe twitter.com/anahitairani1/…

— sweetannu (@anahitairani1) May 12, 2013

As you can see, Twitter has been a clear choice in terms of a platform for running contests and engaging with fans. My favorite is definitely #MicromaxSuperMom for making fans scratch their creative cells. This isn’t a comprehensive list so do share any hashtag that we might have missed out. However, we have accounted only the hashtags that have trended the entire day.

Image Courtesy: http://palliumindia.org

So I tracked the Facebook pages of brands and have come up with a quick list of seven campaigns that are running on Facebook. However, I have not considered the pages that have only updated their cover photos or have posted a simple content wishing mothers. Here goes the coolest list of 7 Mother’s Day campaigns on Facebook, in no ranking order:

1. Mother’s Day Tribute by Pampers India: At a time when most of the brands have been posting visuals, Pampers India has come up with an interesting app. The Facebook page that is a home for 72K fans has created a Facebook app – Mothers Day Tribute that creates a visual e-card and wishes mommy. The best wishes stand a chance to gift hampers from Pampers India. The app provides templates and the option to pull up images to make the card beautiful. The app has no glitches and stays away from auto posting on the timeline.

2. Mothers Day Video by Mother Dairy: Mother Dairy, a brand that has been delivering healthy milk and bringing happiness to the family has shared a lovely video. The Facebook page that has more than 160K fans, has shared the video that shows how simple things can make a mother happy. The video which was uploaded yesterday, has got 300 views on YouTube and on Facebook it has got some popularity too with 24 shares. The simplicity of the video and the message scores for me.

3. Mother of the Year by KitchenAid India: Mothers all over the world are known for their food and KitchenAid India has caught the same emotion. The Facebook page that has more than 3K fans has created a Facebook app – Mother of the Year. So you have to simply nominate your mothers best recipe and the brand will not only make her “KithchenAid Mother Of The Year” but will send some amazing prizes too.

The app takes your details and your mothers details too. You need to list your mother’s favourite dish and the recipe too. The app also features all the entries. A great way to learn some amazing new dishes if cooking is your hobby. The app is simple and has a clean design which has got some great response from fans. One of my favourite campaigns for the simple idea and smooth execution.

4. Maa Tujhe Salaam by Max Life Insurance: Max Life Insurance, which has more than 322K fans thought of saluting the mothers for their unconditional and selfless love. The Facebook app which is exclusive for the fans will require you to like the page before you can participate in the initiative.

The app allows you to either upload your mother’s picture from your computer or Facebook album. The app has also provided options to edit the image such as increasing brightness, contrast and adding effects too. Once you are satisfied with the snap then you can submit for the contest with the required details and you can make it your cover picture too. 100 lucky winners stand a chance to win the submitted image as photo framed, courtesy Max Life Insurance. Isn’t that cool! A simple campaign, app does the job, executed well and the prizes are really cool.

5. Mothers Day by Iris Home Fragrance: Iris Home Fragrance, which has more than 37K fans on their Facebook page is celebrating mothers day. The brand has created a Facebook app – Mothers Day which allows you to create a lovely personalized card for your mother. The contest is exclusive for its fans and one would need to like the page to participate in the contest. The brand has also decided to give gift hampers to the best personalized message.

The app is perfect and it provides a set of 4 beautiful templates that you can select to share your message for your mom. But after you submit, the app had no option to share on Facebook. Nevertheless the app has a gallery option that allows you to see the lovely messages shared by fans.

6. Thank You Mom India by P&G India: P&G which touches billions of hearts has joined in the celebrations on the eve of Mother’s Day. The Facebook page – Thank You Mom India which has more than 1.6M fans has built a simple app – My Mom and Me. The brand has dedicated the entire month as mother’s month and is asking fans to submit interesting snaps of them with their mothers. The brand promises to share the submitted pictures on its page with the community. Simple way to engage with fans.

7. Johnson’s Baby India: The brand that is known to provide the best care to moms and their children, has approached the special day in a different way. The brand is not running any Facebook contest on its page but has shared a video on this occasion. The video describes the emotion of motherhood and how love spreads from one mother to another via a real life story. The video that has been uploaded a day before, has got 78 views on YouTube and is being appreciated by on Facebook fans too.

Maa Tujhe Salaam is one of my favourite for its concept and the way it is rewarding its fans. Do share your favourite campaigns too, and also as this isn’t a comprehensive list, do share any amazing campaigns that I might have missed out on this Mother’s Day.

And, Happy Mother’s Day!

The Asha series has been a phone inspired by India. At the event, Elop expressed his satisfaction with the way the Asha phones have performed. Selling 20 million phones already and also clocking a billion downloads from the Nokia Ovi store – the largest app store in India. Elop also added that the time is right as the platform needs a refresh for the Indian consumers.

The device that inherits the design of the low-end Lumia phones would be available in the markets from June sporting 6 vibrant colors. The primary specs of the phone would be – 3-inch touch screen, 4GB microSD card, 3.2 MP camera, 2G support and WIFI support. Customers can avail a 3G version which would be available later part of the year.

Elop also announced that Nokia has announced a global partnership with Facebook, saying that Asha 501 users on Airtel and MTNL will be provided free access to the social networking site. However, it was not clear for how long.

Partnering with social networking services has been a marketing initiative that is not new for the Finnish company. Recently they partnered with BSB’s mobile messaging app Hike to launch their app on selective devices such as Lumia 510, Lumia 720 and all Nokia Asha Full Touch phones sold in India. And last month the brand partnered with popular messaging app WhatsApp to integrate an exclusive WhatsApp button for its Asha 201 model. Last year it had also partnered with Facebook for its Asha 205 model to integrate a Facebook button.

Launch buzz on social media

Along with the launch, the Twitter community was out there talking about the new device and #NokiaAsha501 was trending all throughout the day. The Twitter and the Facebook presence of the brand seemed eager to reach out to their respective fans on social media.

Greatly ambitious yet remarkably cute candy-coated pocket power: #NokiaAsha501 nokia.ly/18vU5XK twitter.com/nokia/status/3…

— Nokia (@nokia) May 9, 2013

“@myportableworld: The Nokia Asha 501 with Optimized 2G and WiFi is the affordable smartphone for 80% of the population.”

— Vinu Thomas (@vinuthomas) May 9, 2013

#NokiaAsha501 is the perfect phone for the average indian user. Internet, apps, touch, entertainment and facebook. This is the full package

— nandagopal rajan (@nandu79) May 9, 2013

Selecting India as a global launch destination makes Nokia’s intentions quite clear. So would have to wait and see how Indians respond to the phone once it comes out in the market. For now it looks like a colourful device from the leading brand in the country to suit the common man’s pocket.

The tie up between CCD and Hoppr meant that the mobile app developed a platform for CCD so that consumers could interact with CCD anytime. The platform helped users to locate CCD outlets in their area and involved downloading coupons for specials and win rewards. These coupons could then be used once the user checks in to a CCD outlet via Hoppr.

The initiative has seen fruitful results for both CCD and Hoppr. According to Hoppr, the tie up with CCD has witnessed 6.5 lakh check-ins to CCD in the last six months, also tapping the Facebook shares of such check-ins. Md. Imthiaz, CEO and Founder of Hoppr also highlighted that CCD witnessed high coupon redemption which was led by Hoppr translating into higher sales for CCD. Imthiaz also added that since the specials were based on the bill so users were driven to spend more in order to avail the “Hoppr specials.”

CCD has also claimed that with Hoppr present on most of the mobile operating systems, it enables the brand to reach out to consumers specially the youth in the virtual space that is spread across 185 markets in the country. Even though the tie up to engage with consumers in their vicinity is unique, availing offers on check ins marketing strategy has been quite common.

2 years back CCD had tied up a similar deal with Foursquare which was trying to get into the Indian market. The deal was only applicable for Bangalore where every third check-in would receive 15% and Mayor got some more goodies. But the deal never evolved further than Bangalore.

In 2012, CCD again had a similar partnership with another location based app but this time it was with Mojostreet, an Indian app though. The partnership enabled check-in based offers at 1,174 CCD outlets across India. But, such partnerships that don’t evolve beyond providing more than the 10% discount are debatable. However, seeing the numbers, the recent partnership between CCD and Hoppr seems to have worked out well. And with 4M users already registered on the platform and 10,000 merchant locations on board, Hoppr might be looking to expand a similar business model with other brands and provide users incentives from their vicinity.

Image courtesy: powai.info

WeChat, the mobile messaging app from the Chinese social media giant Tencent, went global with an English name back in April, 2012. Since then the app has seen a striking growth and by January, 2013 the app had surpassed 300 million registered users. Later at the Boao Forum For Asia 2013, Tencent president Martin Lau revealed on stage that out of the 300 million user base, WeChat has over 40 million overseas users from countries like Malaysia, Spain, Mexico, Argentina and India.

The latest numbers, however, comes at a very interesting time when recently WhatsApp had credited itself to be bigger than Twitter. Speaking at the All ThingsD Dive Into Mobile conference last month, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum revealed that with 200 million active users the messaging app sees an average of 8 billion inbound, and 12 million outbound messages per day. So if we consider the current trend of growth by WeChat, it wouldn’t be wrong to assume that WeChat would surpass the numbers of WhatsApp (considering the features WeChat, Kakao Talk, etc. are far better than WhatsApp). This also would mean that WeChat would be bigger than Twitter, which last revealed in December, 2012 that the 140 character network has more than 200 million monthly active users.

Still one can’t undermine the potential of WhatsApp which enjoys international success. In fact, CEO Tony Ma speaking on the first day of GMIC emphasized that the mobile messaging app would determine the fate of Telenet’s long term strategy. Understanding the importance of International growth, Ma shared that “Internationalization is Tencent’s dream.” However, Ma killed any kind of hardware speculation by saying that “Tencent is a software company” and any hardware foray would only mean that integrating its app into partnering company’s hardware. A similar approach was implemented by WhatsApp when it recently partnered with Nokia to integrate a WhatsApp button on Asha 201.

Mobile messaging apps are the next generation of social networks and players from Asia are going to dominate the market. It won’t be just WeChat but apps like Hike, Line, Kakao Talk, etc. would be the ones who would be providing stiff competition to networks like Facebook.

Image courtesy: strategicuniq1.wordpress.com

The latest agreement would be carried out on selective phones of Nokia such as Lumia 510, Lumia 720 and all Nokia Asha Full Touch phones sold in India. Speaking on the occasion, the BSB’s Head of Product and Strategy, Kavin Bharti Mittal said that they at BSB are quite excited with this ecosystem partnership which is critical part of their overall business strategy.

It is a win-win situation for both the businesses. Hike which recently crossed 5 million users gets an opportunity to increase its user base with the feature of being a preloaded app in the handset. Subsequently, Nokia which has loaded the app in Asha as well as Lumia is trying to attract all pockets and in a way expects to increase its sale in the country. Smart move from the Finnish mobile phone maker at a time when it is leading in the country with 21.8% market share in the Indian mobile market.

Nokia has been quite proactive in getting into strategic partnerships. Last month, Nokia introduced its latest Asha 201 with dedicated WhatsApp button. However, the deal with BSB for its app does not provide the option of creating a dedicated button. 20 billion messages are being delivered by WhatsApp per day, clearly indicating that the numbers are on its side. Last year, Nokia had launched Asha 205 with a Facebook button too.

So, it would be interesting to see if with this deal Hike gets any boost in its traffic from India which at present is 60% of Hikes total user base.

After reading the initial story at YourStory, I was definitely interested to give a try to Imlee. The name of the network is inspired from the tamarind fruit that depicts the sweet and sour times of families.

How does Imlee work?

The social network for families has integrated a Facebook login and a simple email sign up. Once you are authenticated, the network will ask you to create your family tree by adding your immediate family members with some information such as birthday, email id, etc. Next is to invite the members and unless you get your family on the network, it won’t be that interesting. Along with this, the network requires some personal details to be inserted too.

The home page is the social feed where you can update your status, photos, links with your family members. The feed which is better known as Family News is a great way of getting all the updates from your family members and to engage with them too. Folks from my family are yet to join but I am excited to see the updates from my distant cousins with whom I have lost touch. The home page also provides a quick snapshot of your network, details of your personal memories in the form of photos and option to invite remaining family members.

Further the network is divided into four major tabs – 1) My Tree, 2) Family Diary, 3) Statistics, and 4) Albums.

My Tree: Is the most interesting and the addictive feature of Imlee. Here you get an opportunity to build an org chart of your family. So starting from your parents, to brother, to your cousins, you can add them and invite them too. I added 18 members and I wish I could have invited my grandparents to this network if they were alive today. Nevertheless, I have invited a whole bunch after adding some required information. You can zoom in and go through the entire tree. The biggest family on the network has 3000 relatives so you can imagine how useful the navigation feature is.

My only wish is if the org chart could be made more interesting, right now it looks like a bit boring company organization chart.

Family Diary: Another cool feature that provides all the personal details and dates that you should remember in one single snapshot. So you can just browse and get the info. Now imagine my mother who has 9 brothers and sisters and each one of them has at least 3 children so how tough would it be for me to remember all the important dates! Imlee makes it simple if you provide your mobile number, all the important dates such as birthdays, anniversary dates, etc. are sent to you as reminders well ahead. Can it tie up with gifting startups to send gifts too?

Family Statistics: You must have guessed by reading the name of the feature as in what it does. This is a section that provides a quick overview of your family data. All the data is represented as charts or graphs. The stats include total relatives in my tree, the male ratio, relationships, children per family, etc. The feature wasn’t exciting to me but it would be good to talk to the Imlee guys to know the real purpose of this feature. Again if the charts could be made visually appealing; right now it looks like the charts that would be loved by a finance department!

Albums: It is a repository of your photo collections and the albums shared with you from your family members. So you can go ahead and add your collection of albums like mom and dad, vacation and trips, childhood memories, etc. I have already started adding some and I must say that getting thoughts from my cousins would be more interesting than my Facebook friends.

Profile: You can select your profile and update relevant details such as the About section, have a look at your Storyboard – list of the activities that you have performed on the social network.

Is there a need for another social network like Imlee?

Definitely! Imlee is not a vanilla social network that is trying to copy features from other social networks. The objective of the network is to share memories of your family life with your family and relatives and undoubtedly it is doing that. The network which is still in beta stage, has a very clean design and also has the essential features. Content sharing on the platform is secured and follows the Google Plus sharing settings. I don’t see any direct competitors for Imlee in India right now but one can think of it in the same line of networks like SocialParent, FamilyLeaf, etc.

I am sure that going further, the team at Imlee would be looking to incorporate some new features but coming up with mobile apps would not be a bad idea. Considering the fact that the world including India are moving onto smaller screens. And then maybe the network might think of incorporating a messaging feature within the family members too. Am I asking too much from Imlee right now? Well, I am since I am excited to say a hello to my family members on Imlee rather than on Facebook where it is next to impossible to keep a tab on my cousins. Creating a list on Facebook and checking them is not a cool idea.

So are you going to invite your uncle, aunts, cousins, nieces, etc. to Imlee?

Speaking at the event, Libin considered the early entry of Evernote in China to be an advantage and pretty soon Evernote Business would be the productivity tool being used by a majority of Chinese companies. Evernote Business feature that targets the medium and small scale business wouldn’t be different in China. Though there would be a slight difference in costing as compared to US.

However, Libin made a point that cracking the Chinese market has been easier than the US since the western markets like US are still burdened by crappy enterprise software.

“The huge advantage in China, unlike the US, is that these companies aren’t burdened by 20 years of horrible IT decisions. They don’t have all this crappy enterprise software that they can’t get rid of,” said Libin.

Further in his talk, Libin shared his views on how important it was for them as an organization to provide better experience to Chinese companies as they did to US companies. He also informed the crowd present at the conference that the introduction of the dedicated Chinese version of Yinxiang Biji has been quite positive and with an addition of 4 million users, it has also grown its staff to 17 at Beijing office.

Considering the focus and the recent tie ups with businesses in the Asian market, I presume Evernote has big plans to be rolled out in future. The recent integration with the popular Korean messaging app Kakao Talk to save important notes and information is a clear indication of Evenote’s expansion plans in Asia.

Image courtesy: www.theverge.com

The incident took place during the coaching event of the NSUI in the Kandivali suburb of Mumbai on the night of April 14. It is being said that Suraj was drunk during the function. However, Nigam Bhandari, the Mumbai in-charge and Secretary of the NSUI, has confirmed that there is no proof that Suraj was in an inebriated state or had indulged in any vulgar dance. Along with Suraj, NSUI’s general secretary Vicky Vhatkar and a national delegate Hitendra Gandhi – have also been suspended for alleged indiscipline at the meet.

The interesting fact is not why Suraj was suspended but what caught my eyes was the use of social media for communication. NSUI, which has a reasonably good presence on popular social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, used both the networks wisely to clear its position on the matter. The Facebook page, that has more than 12K fans, made the first post yesterday stating that the party has suspended Suraj on grounds of indiscipline. However, the content didn’t elaborate much on what led to this suspension.

Speaking at the Big Tent India event in Delhi, Chief Minster of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah had made a valid point that, “Bad News spreads fast on social media.” And the same happened for NSUI, in no time Suraj Thakur was trending on Twitter.

Today’s issues – 1. Food Security Bill. 2. Suraj Thakur. 3. House adjourned.Pertaining to – 1. Roti. 2. Kapda 3. Makaan.

— Ramesh Srivats (@rameshsrivats) May 7, 2013

Those who missed Suraj Thakur’s dance yesterday, plz dont worry. His dance will be contiNUDE after one month suspention.

—Not Real Arnab G (@justicearnab) May 7, 2013

The NSUI Twitter account that had posted similar Facebook updates as tweets for its 1400 plus followers couldn’t do much. The trolls had a good time and the matter was big enough to damage the reputation of the party at least online. However, after 21 hours NSUI released a press release explaining the entire issue of suspension and also dismissing the reports of the alleged ‘nude party’ which had been trending since morning.

NSUI expresses deep shock & concern over the way Media/SM has sensationalized the suspension of its Office Bearers. twitter.com/nsui/status/33…

— NSUI (@nsui) May 7, 2013

But wasn’t that too late? The first step of updating fans and followers on social media was a thought of move but missing out the ‘Why’ led to the whole mess. Even though the party circulated the real facts, the delay of 21 hours is late in today’s age especially when the opponents are also on the same medium eyeing for such incidents to blow out of proportion. Time for NSUI to become more active and proactive on social media.

Back in 2009, Rabi Gupta, Co-Founder at iDubba, witnessed a similar problem and figured out that people don’t watch TV in a random pattern but they do so depending on their taste and preferences. But, due to lack of recommendations and timely alerts, they were missing out on their favourite shows and movies. Realizing this is as a market need, Rabi and his partner in business Ashish Kumar created an app with the initial aim to be an alerts and recommendation provider over the basic layer of a TV guide.

(L-R) Ashish Kumar, Rabi Gupta

The NCR based startup started their entrepreneurial journey by being bootstrapped but were later plucked by the Morpheus accelerator program. Even though they had able support from the accelerator, the television world was not ready to adopt to such changes.

“Our initial objective was to build additional useful content that was missing, along with the free content that is available from the TV providers. And once the additional content was being created, we had to tag them so that users are provided with the right alerts and recommendations. This entire process took us a good two years,” added Rabi, while sharing the initial challenges faced by the startup.

From building content to providing recommendations to iAlerts and gratifying users with rewards for watching TV, iDubba has come a long way. Today the app is no more a utility based app but features like social sharing and Tune In have made it more interesting for users to give iDubba a genuine try.

“Features like Tune In and social sharing are enabling us to provide users Social TV experience in India. Tune In is an attempt to capture the interests of a TV viewer and social sharing is sharing the content with your community with a control in your hands,” shared Rabi.

Social TV has its own set of challenges in our country and Rabi who has been interacting with the TV business for a pretty good time is well aware. So the startup has approached the Social TV experience in a way that matches the traits of television users.

“People generally love to talk about TV shows and so we thought of involving like minded users to chat about a certain show in a chat room. And hence iCouch app has been recently introduced on Android platform,” added Rabi.

iCouch, which was launched last week while partnering with Zee Cafe promises to be more than a chat. The app provides complete control to the TV channel partners, complete branding to TV partners, ability to engage with users via contests while watching the TV shows.

But then Twitter has also adopted a similar roadmap in India – a gradual process to become the second screen for the Indian TV viewers. Rabi is clearly aware that iDubba is up against a big giant but he has concerns with Twitter’s perusal to become the second screen in India. He believes,

Twitter has its own challenges – there is no control over discussions and the lack of analytics. Most of the TV channels today have realized this problem and they are ready to try out much more customized and tailored apps like iCouch.

iCouch, which has been rolled out with the popular Grey’s Anatomy latest season, plans to integrate with two to three shows in a day. However, Rabi was candid in sharing that convincing channel management that it is not the same app like every channel has, is the tough task!

Talking on the marketing aspect, I was happy to know that their blog has been the biggest source for driving traffic.

“Our blog today has been our biggest traffic driver and we get the maximum traffic from it even though we haven’t had great numbers of fans or followers. Additionally, we have tried engaging with people on Twitter,” shared Rabi, while discussing on how social media has helped them as a startup.

Talking about the road ahead, Rabi has some very interesting plans stacked in his mind. One of the features he has been pondering for a while is changing channels from within the app based on one’s interests. Ideas like this are being carried out in developed countries and Rabi dreams of implementing features that are provided by social TV apps like IntoNow and Shazam.

“Technically things are possible in India but before that the mentality of TV channels should change in the country and should be ready to evolve,” summed the optimistic entrepreneur.

The beta version of Zalo was released in August, 2012 and thereafter a full release was followed in the month of November. The app has since then caught on with the locals. By January 2013, the app had 500,000 users which touched a million users by the arrival of March. So, like all other messaging apps in Asia even Zalo is witnessing a hockey stick growth.

The rocketing growth has also happened because of two reasons – 1) The support from the local community, and 2) Strong push on advertising. This is where the support of VNG has been useful. Vuong Quang Khai, who manages web and mobile at VNG acknowledged the milestone and is aiming for five million users, which would capture 50% of the smartphone market in Vietnam.

On this occasion Zalo has released some interesting stats behind this growth:

1. Zalo is the first messaging app that comes preloaded on Nokia Phones. A deeper integration in future like what Nokia did with Whats App would be interesting.

2. 58% of the app users are male and 18-25 age group is the most active group on the app. However, only 8% of users below the age group of 18 are active. May be its time to get some more excitement like the plus friend feature being provided by Kakao Talk.

3. Use of Funny Icons tops the list of usage every second on the app, followed by group messages and photo sent.

4. And, finally the app is driving traffic from 18 countries like Korea, America, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, China, Australia, Russia, etc.

The app’s intention to attract more crowds in the coming months is due to its roll out of an English version. However, going global will be something the app makers would be eyeing for but engaging users beyond messaging and group chatting would be crucial for Zalo.

Image courtesy: Zaloapp

The idea was to engage fans while they watched the game and also create a buzz on Twitter. So while the game was on TV, the channel displayed the word of the day. Twitter users had to grab the word, define it in a wacky and creative way and tweet it with the Twitter handle of Star Sports India along with the hashtag #soccertag. The word of the day for the Championship League football match was #Striker. The below tweet gives you the hint.

The word of the day is out. Define it in your own quirky way and win a PS3! @starsportsindia #soccertag twitter.com/yaminie10/stat…

— Yaminie Patodia (@yaminie10) April 21, 2013

The contest that was open till noon today, has a line of goodies for the best tweets that could define the word of the day. And the feeling is that this activity is going to happen more, which is reflected in a tweet from the channel.

That was an exciting round of #soccertag! Thanks for all your entires, we will keep you tweeters posted. Till next week.

— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) May 6, 2013

The gradual move of Twitter as a second screen is no more a mystery. We recently saw a series of similar kind of initiatives driven by TV channels with Twitter. Sony PIX worked closely with Twitter to promote MIB 3 television premiere by engaging in live conversations with the viewers, thereby making it the first ever interactive movie premiere in India. The same was followed during the recently concluded “Nach Baliye 5″ finale by Star Plus. Viewers of the live show on TV were invited to take part in the Twitter contest to predict the Nach Baliye 5 winner. Colors TV too, joined the bandwagon to engage with twitterati during the Miss India contest. The below tweet provides the hint.

A first: @colorstv is engaging its audience & integrating Twitter across all events & fiction shows! #SocialTV twitter.com/twi/status/317…

— Twitter India (@twi) March 29, 2013

Twitter is setting the stage for Social TV in India and the network being used as a secondary device for engagement with the television content, highlights how effectively the medium can be used.Twitter’s ongoing integration with IPL6 has created a new benchmark in this direction. 2013 will be exciting as we will see a bigger synergy between TV, Bollywood and social media. And definitely the global town square – Twitter will play a greater role!

But, Twitter has its own challenges too. Brands have no control on the discussions that happen around such contests and a generic hashtag can twist the discussions at any time. iCouch, the app from iDubba is trying to overcome this problem and their recent tie up with ZeeCafe for Grey’s Anatomy show hints that even TV channels have witnessed the shortcomings of Twitter.

Nonetheless, an exciting time for consumers as well as brands while they get even closer.

The Ministry Of Home Affairs, who had received this communication dated March 20, 2013 from the US Department of Justice informed the Delhi Court, last Friday. The communication that was received highlighted the fact that – “Pursuant to the treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in criminal matters between the United States and India (the Treaty), we regret to inform you that we will not be able to execute this request for assistance… as the request implicates free speech principles that are protected by the US Constitution and are considered essential interests.”

Furthermore, the US authorities have also made a point that they will not be able to assist with the execution of the request without additional information being provided to them. However, the US authorities have also said that if there are other facts like information indicating a risk or threat to Indian lives, that have been pertinent to this case and have not been provided, then they are ready to help.

Rai had submitted the form in the court, as per the prescribed norms of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between USA and India. But US authorities have also rejected the norm of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty in this case. The Center had earlier told the court that it had sufficient material to proceed against the websites for the alleged offences. However, there has been no update from the court or the Center for the next course of action in this case against social networking sites like Facebook, Google, etc.

We had seen a lot of similar cases floating in the air for some time now but we are yet to see some strong action on the claims that have been made by people like Vinay Rai.

Image courtesy: sires.house.gov

Kakao had introduced Plus Friend in October 2011 with an intention to create engagement between users and their favorite brands, celebrities, etc. Once you select any of your favorite brand or celebrity like I did PSY. On selection the company or group would be added with a ‘P’ symbol to the contact list. And henceforth you would receive updates in a chat dialog format and these updates would generally be engaging content such as video snippets, offers and relevant updates. Even though the feature right now pulls up celebrities and brands from the Korean market like PSY, Super Junior, etc., but holds a great future with the apps global expansion plans.

However, right now it is unclear whether Kakao is going to provide the service for free or it would be a subscription based model for its 400 partners who are availing the Plus Friend service. With more than 26 million active users following 100 million Plus Friend accounts, it would be naïve if Kakao would be giving the feature upgrade for free to brands and celebrities.

With the new feature upgrades, brands would have more flexibility to engage with users. Adding links of various websites, blogs, etc. would be made available to brands. The idea is to provide stronger relationship between brands and the users so that it enables free interaction with the links within and outside the page. Along with this feature, Kakao also informed that in future it would be introducing intelligent bots to the Plus Friend Chat rooms as part of the update. These bots would act as the FAQ system for brands that would have a set of answers for the commonly asked questions.

With more than 90 million registered users globally on the platform, Kakao is providing an enhanced way for the brands to engage with fans. It is no more a mystery that entertainment is moving to smaller devices. In the recently declared Q1 2013 financials, Facebook made 30% of revenue via mobile. So tomorrow there could be chances that PSY releases his new video on Kakao Talk and users can not only have sneak peaks but pay and stream the music on their mobile too. Mobile Commerce, another revenue source for Kakao Talk? Could be possible.

Image courtesy: www.chinapost.com.tw

Early days at LurnQ

The Mumbai based startup, which has been backed by SeedFund, thankfully doesn’t want to become another cool social network. It is a model that has been developed on the very basis of outcome driven learning. The platform is trying to bridge the gap between knowledge seeker and provider by tying the social layer over it. A crowdsourced platform that helps users to enhance their knowledge on various subjects such as entrepreneurship, technology, advertising, social media, etc.

Tarun invested a major part of his professional career in understanding the education business and scaling it up at a time when digital learning was creating just about impressions. He spent a great deal of his professional time at Aptech and during this time he took the business across borders to neighboring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. Tarun also happened to be a consultant helping Governments of South Africa and Malaysia. In fact before starting up LurnQ, Tarun got associated with Claimat – a startup in healthcare data.

“It was during late 2010 I was meeting a lot of people while I was involved with Claimat and at this point I happened to meet my two other co-founders at LurnQ – Ramesh Nidadavolu and Devvrat Arya. This led to the formation of TechLabs in 2011,” shared Tarun while talking about the early days of LurnQ.

The initial idea was working on a learning management system but it didn’t work out. However, the team got back to the drawing board and this time then came out with 4 different apps – Search, Learn, Teach and Library.

“With these 4 different apps we started approaching investors but none were interested. However, SeedFund backed us and this engagement also highlighted the missing layer of social at LearnQ. So we assembled all the 4 apps together and introduced the notifications/feed to give the social powers,” added Tarun.

Challenges at LurnQ

LurnQ caught my eyes even before I had reviewed it. It was endearing to encounter that the startup was nowhere close to Quora. However, the startup has its own set of challenges – 1) Content monitoring and 2) User traction.

Speaking on the content moderation point, Tarun shared that right now whatever goes on the platform is thoroughly checked. However, he is well aware that this mechanism of content moderation is not scalable so going further the startup wants the community to take care. Additional features such as reporting content would be introduced and existing features like up vote and down vote are already helping, shared Tarun.

However, he believes that adoption of content consumption over Internet is happening quite rapidly and is optimistic that infrastructure problems won’t be a hindrance to the growth of LurnQ.

“There is a demographic and life style shift that is happening and the mobile adoption makes me confident that it would happen in next five years. And at LurnQ, we are developing mobile and desktop apps which would provide a seamless experience,” expressed the confident CEO.

Enhancements at LurnQ

With the existing model, the platform is looking at various interesting models such as an Enterprise Edition of Lurn Q and building a Course Marketplace.

Explaining the need of an Enterprise Edition, Tarun shared that design wise it won’t be any different but organizations using LurnQ will have a greater control on the content and the platform.

“The Enterprise model will have a highly functional control panel along with easy user management, content management and API integration with Slideshare, YouTube, etc.” added Tarun. These features that would be a part of premium section, are free for 45 days for organizations to try out. Tarun also expressed that learning at LurnQ will always be free.

The other feature that the startup is also working at is creating a Course Marketplace which is expected to be out in the market by August, 2013. The marketplace would be fundamentally different from the existing marketplaces that are being provided by existing players like Udacity.

“The marketplace at our end would have tight content partnership with credible publishers. If we are offering knowledge about a particular vertical then we would like to be aggressive and launch a comprehensive number of courses for our users,” added Tarun.

LurnQ, in a true sense, is evolving into a future-ready learning platform that is interactive, driven by community and making learning fun.

We want LurnQ to be with you to address all your learning related queries making it an enjoyable and seamless experience.

The deal which has been kept under wraps, has indicated that the Evernote service will be brought within the mobile messaging app Kakao Talk. This would then enable the users to save a nice message or an image while they are busy talking with their friends. The exact date of the roll out has also not been announced and it is being assumed that the feature will be available for the popular platforms such as iOS and Android. However, it is not confirmed that the services would be available for Kakao Talk apps for BlackBerry, Windows Phone, etc.

The deal comes at a time when already the Asian market is being crowded by social messaging apps and their continuous innovation to engage with the users. Just a day before we shared how Line is having a hockey stick growth with 150 million users out of which 50 million has been added in the last three months alone. The growth has also been subjected to Line’s expansion in markets like Spain, Latin America and Africa.

Kakao Talk, that has 90 million registered users, has also dominated the local Korean market with 95% of downloads. So it is quite a deal for Evernote, which continues its global expansion especially in Asia with presence in Taiwan, China, Korea and Japan. With 1.5 million users from Korea, Evernote will get a spike in its traction from users. Though Kakao Talk hasn’t seen a great traction apart from Korea but of late it is seeing traction from neighbouring countries in South Asia. So that would help Evernote in the future too.

The deal must have caught the attention of other growing social messaging apps such as WeChat, WhatsApp, Line, etc. So could there be a possible tie-up with others too? One wonders if Evernote has any such plans for India since the startup in the month of February had announced of having 1M users from the country and social messaging apps are proliferating too with the intrusion of WeChat, Whatsapp and Hike.