MyBantu–Your Online Personal Assistant You Might Wanna Take Home

Looking for information? Well, search is social, but the challenge with the current setup is that one needs a mix of curated plus social intelligence and that’s where online personal assistants come into the picture.

myBantu.com is a free online personal assistant that sources recommendations from humanized Web using its patent pending technology – ActiveRelevance.

State your need to myBantu.com – the virtual personal assistant understands your intent plus context and gives you 3 to 9 personalized and relevant recommendations from humanized Web (Web, Personal Network and Trusted Professionals).

If you like any recommendation but not sure about it, myBantu assists you in getting opinions from your friends & social networks.

myBantu uses different tools like search engines, semantic engines, Social networking sites, and other specialized sites like Yelp, Yahoo, OpenTable, RottenTomatoes, Amazon etc., for sourcing relevant recommendations to the users.

Unlike search engines i.e. the indexing & sorting method, an AI-based virtual assistant will give different answers depending on the individual preferences and personal context (place, time, history). myBantu’s competitive landscape includes Siri ( mobile based virtual personal assistant, acquired by Apple ). The other competitors include Hunch ( personalized recommendation system ) and Aardvark ( acquired by Google ).

While Siri is predominantly mobile centric artificial intelligence based assistant, myBantu leverages both artificial intelligence and social networks through friends recommendations and opinions.

myBantu is tuned for Entertainment related needs like – Dining, movies, music, online shopping -and it plans to expand to Travel, Health in Beta release planned in Q4, 2010 and other domains as well in 2011.

The product is very US focused and most of search query specific to India didn’t work so well. The Bangalore (and US based) company has secured $1.3 million funding and is planning to raise $6mn as part of the next round.

Primary revenue model is transaction based, whenever the user likes a recommendation and gets it done through myBantu, a transaction commission is realized from service provider. Currently myBantu has integrated with ~2200 such service providers in US from whom the potentially the revenue can be generated.

Do give myBantu a spin and share your feedback.

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The Startup Story – 16 Nov

Entrepreneurship has always been a difficult journey, and even more so for young people who are studying or who are at the dawn of their careers. As a continuation of The Startup Story in 2009, young entrepreneurs who are still in the midst of their business adventures will share their ups and downs of starting up and the key values for fellow aspiring young entrepreneurs to take away.

Some speakers will also relate the innovations within their businesses and discuss how the consideration and fine-tuning of processes and details are essential to a successful startup.

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Programme

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Registration (0.5 hours)
Learning Stream (1 hour)
Break (0.5 hours)
Innovation Futures Stream (1 hour)
Networking (1 hour)

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Event Details

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When: Tuesday 16th November 2010
Time: 1400-1800
Where: Microsoft Singapore, 1 Marina Boulevard, #22-01 One Marina Boulevard, Singapore 018989

This event is part of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2010.

SGE is proud to be the Official Online Media partner for GEW 2010.

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What people are saying about the Joojoo’s death

So our last Joojoo post got a little bit of traffic. Thanks, Hacker News and John Gruber!

Here are a few updates on the story.

Check out the Hacker News thread where a pretty interesting discussion is going on in the comments. Nik Cubrilovic, a former chief technology officer at TechCrunch who worked on the Joojoo while it was still called the CrunchPad, has an interesting response to questions about ownership of the device’s various components.

Of course, there are also loads of comments on our own post and elsewhere, like on Engadget.

We also got two official press releases from McGrath Power, Fusion Garage’s PR company, which is pasted below.

An interesting side note: Jonathan Bloom, McGrath Power’s chief executive, sat in on my interview with Chandra. You’ll remember that Arrington accused Bloom of being the “principle ring leader” of a conspiracy against TechCrunch. Bloom, a journalist turned PR-man, interjected maybe three times during the interview which took about half an hour. He his job well, though, because there wasn’t really anything for me to quote him on. One of Bloom’s interjections, for example, was to prod Chandra into telling me about how his company is expanding and how he raised more funding.

FUSION GARAGE ANNOUNCES NEW ROUND OF FUNDING

Singapore, November 12, 2010 – Fusion Garage, designer and developer of touch screen computing devices, has closed its second round of funding – $5M USD – from current and new private investors based in Singapore.  This brings the company’s total investment to $8M+ USD. A third round of funding is expected to close by the end of this year.

The latest round of funding is being utilized for new product development efforts as Fusion Garage works to bring a new generation of products with multiple screen sizes to market during the first half of 2011. To support these development efforts, the company also recently more than doubled its staff and opened development centers in Bangalore, India and Nanjing, China.

As part of the company’s first round of funding, Fusion Garage received strategic investment from CSL Group to finance 100 percent of the manufacturing costs of Fusion Garage’s touch screen computing devices.

“Our investors are as committed to our vision as we are and have responded with this round of additional funding to help propel us into a new phase as a company,” said Fusion Garage Founder and CEO, Chandra Rathakrishnan.  “We remain focused on building our company and innovating in the consumer electronics market.”

Fusion Garage’s 2011 product generation will utilize a new operating system based partially on Google’s Android.

For more information on Fusion Garage, please visit www.thejoojoo.com.

About Fusion Garage

Fusion Garage designs and develops innovative touch-screen-based computing devices. Founded in 2008, the company developed the industry’s first Internet tablet based on the Fusion Garage operating system. Fusion Garage is based in Singapore and is privately funded. The company also has development centers in India and China.

FUSION GARAGE EXPANDS INTO NEW CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS IN SINGAPORE,

OPENS NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT CENTERS IN INDIA AND CHINA

Company growth and investment lead to new office for touch screen device maker

Singapore, November 12, 2010 – Fusion Garage, designer and developer of touch screen computing devices, has moved into expanded corporate headquarters to accommodate its rapidly growing engineering, administrative and marketing teams. From a core team of 14 which launched its first product in March, Fusion Garage now has a staff of nearly 40 and expects to reach 60 employees by year-end.  The company also announced it has opened satellite product development centers in Bangalore, India and Nanjing, China to provide additional engineering expertise as it readies a new product generation for launch in the first half of 2011.

“Overall, we’ve had a successful year and are looking forward to bringing our new generation of products to market,” said Chandra Rathakrishnan, founder and CEO of Fusion Garage. “The new corporate headquarters is a natural next step for us. It provides us with room to grow as we expand our company and look to the future.”

In 2009 Fusion Garage launched the industry’s first Internet tablet based on its own operating system capable of a nine-second boot up time and featuring the market’s largest capacitive touch screen (12.1-inch). The company recently announced development plans for new devices of varying screen sizes utilizing a new operating system based partially on Google’s Android.

The new Fusion Garage headquarters is located at Level 3, No. 5, Harper Road in Singapore.

For more information on Fusion Garage, please visit www.thejoojoo.com.

About Fusion Garage

Fusion Garage designs and develops innovative touch-screen-based computing devices. Founded in 2008, the company developed the industry’s first Internet tablet based on the Fusion Garage operating system. Fusion Garage is based in Singapore and is privately funded. The company also has development centers in India and China.

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YTL Comms launches big new ad campaign

The newest player in Malaysia’s mobile internet scene, YTL Communications, kicked off a huge advertising campaign to promote their ’4G’ network on Nov 8. The firm’s ad agency for the campaign, BBH Asia Pacific, said it is the biggest account win by value in Southeast Asia this year. BBH won the account in May.

When asked, BBH Asia Pacific wouldn’t say how much the account was worth, saying only that YTL Communications has earmarked about US$800,000 for the entire ’4G’ rollout, including marketing and advertising.

The campaign, called ‘YES’, starts with a series of 10 television spots directed by award-winning Singaporean filmmaker Royston Tan (watch them here). The films show Malaysians from diverse backgrounds experiencing a positive moment captured in extra-slow motion of up to 1,000 frames per second.

One of YTL Communication’s marketing exercises for its ’4G’ rollout, the Myprize Global Developer Challenge, has been criticized by Malaysian developers. Several developers, like prominent developer and blogger Nazrul Kamaruddin, questioned the company’s sincerity in running the contest at a forum with company executives at the Open Web Asia event in Kuala Lumpur in August.

YTL Communications has also courted controversy for using the term ’4G’ in describing their service, when in fact Wimax may be the correct term. The company is competing with P1 Networks, which is offering a similar service.

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iWeekend Coming to Beijing at 19th Nov

iWeekend is an intensive and innovative experience that brings together talented entrepreneurs and professionals of different profiles to select 3 ideas and bring these ideas to reality by collaboratively developing a business plan and a prototype, all in one weekend.

Although I do think it would not be easy to organize an event like iWeekend because it’s so different from other startups event where people just need come to talk. Still, I really love the idea behind it. A good startup is initiated by a good idea, a successful startup is executed by a good team. However, for people who has the idea and want to do a startup, usually what stops them grow the idea is they can not find the team. As iWeekend organizers believe, there is no better way to network and meet other restless minds than by working with them side by side for two full days.

Also reads from iWeekend’s official site, the mission of iWeekend is to

1. Promote the culture of entrepreneurship in new technologies
2. Foster a practical methodology of knowledge sharing and learning-by-doing, and
3. Help talented entrepreneurs to get started in 2 days flat

So if you are or want to be entrepreneurs (Note: English is the preferred language in the event, which I hope it can change it next time.), and wish to meet professionals and freelancers who may take on the challenge and collaborate in your project, iWeekend sounds the ideal event you may consider to go. The dates are 19th Nov – 21st Nov. You can apply for it here.

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SingTel Innov8 hires ex-Softbank China partner

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Gazillion Entertainment and Temasek Holdings Announce Investment Partnership

Singapore’s Temasek Holdings has led a round of an investment round of USD 60M into US-based Gazillion Entertainment. Gazillion is a privately held developer and publisher of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games for all ages. One of its studios is behind the MMO game based on the iconic LEGO brand of toys, LEGO Universe. Next year, will also see the launch of Super Hero Squad Online, the first game to be published under the Gazillion’s ten-year exclusive worldwide license agreement with Marvel Entertainment.

Amongst its activities this year, Temasek also invested in Chinese video site Tudou and US biofuel company Amyris Biotechnologies. More details on this latest Gazillion investment below.

San Francisco, CA – November 5, 2010 – Gazillion Entertainment, a leading developer, publisher and operator of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, announced that a group of investors, led by Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, has invested $60 million into the company.

“Massively multiplayer online games have become one of the most profitable entertainment formats in many worldwide markets. At Gazillion we’ve focused our creative energy on bringing a signature style and playability to our MMOs so these experiences can be shared by all kinds of gamers,” said Rob Hutter, Founder and CEO of Gazillion. “We’re pleased to welcome Temasek as we enter a key phase of expansion for the company.”

Mike Vorhaus, President of Magid Advisors, a unit of Frank N. Magid Associates, commented, “We believe Temasek’s investment in Gazillion, which has developed one of the best portfolios of online games for all ages, underscores Gazillion’s emergence as a major MMO player globally.”

Last month, Gazillion’s NetDevil studio celebrated the release of LEGO Universe, the paramount MMO game based on the iconic LEGO brand of toys. LEGO Universe is published by the LEGO Group and has just been released in North America and Europe throughout LEGO channels and mass market retailers. LEGO Universe has received significant videogame industry and audience recognition, including “Best MMO Game” of E3 from 1UP and E3’s “Best New MMO” from Massively, in addition to garnering important awards in Europe.

In the first quarter of 2011, Gazillion launches Super Hero Squad Online, the first game to be published under the company’s ten-year exclusive worldwide license agreement with Marvel Entertainment. Super Hero Squad Online, which is in private trials, draws upon the 8,000-plus heroes and villains in the Marvel Universe. For the first time in an MMO experience, players take on the role of iconic Super Heroes in a living online world. Super Hero Squad Online is being developed by Gazillion’s Amazing Society studio.

With its investment, Temasek Holdings joins Gazillion’s major backers Oak Investments, Hearst Corporation, Revolution Ventures, Pelion Ventures, and the Abu Dhabi Media Company.

About Gazillion

Gazillion Entertainment is a privately held developer and publisher of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games for all ages. Gazillion’s MMOs feature revered brands and original properties, superior production quality and unmatched gameplay. Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Gazillion has development studios in California, Colorado, and Washington.

About Temasek

Incorporated in 1974, Temasek Holdings is an Asian investment company headquartered in Singapore. Supported by 12 affiliates and offices in Asia and Latin America, Temasek owns a diversified US$132 billion portfolio as at 31 March 2010, concentrated principally in Singapore, Asia and the emerging economies.

Temasek’s investment themes centre on Transforming Economies, Growing Middle Income Populations, Deepening Comparative Advantages and Emerging Champions. Its portfolio covers a broad spectrum of industries: financial services; telecommunications, media & technology; transportation & industrials; life sciences, consumer & real estate; energy & resources.

Total shareholder return for Temasek since its inception in 1974 has been a healthy 17% compounded annually. It has a corporate credit rating of AAA/Aaa by rating agencies Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s respectively.

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Nico Nico Douga Turns In The Black In Full-year Result And To Open New Office In Harajuku

Dwango[J], the parent of the company running Japan’s largest video sharing site Nico Nico Douga[J], announced its full-year consolidated financial statements (Oct. 2009 thru Sep. 2010) last week, which showed us Nico Nico Douga had turned in the black for the first time in their full-year result.   (In their monthly earnings, it already turned in the black  last March.)

They unveiled the following financial results and their user attributes.

Financial results:

Net sales: JPY1.846B (=USD23.1M)

• Premium membership: JPY1.457B (=USD18.2M)
• Ad sales: JPY257M (=USD3.2M)
• Affiliate sales: JPY48M (=USD0.6M)
• Reward points sales and others: JPY84M (=USD1.1M)

Operating income: JPY115M (=USD1.4M)

User attributes:

<Membership>

• Free membership: 18.6M users
• Premium membership(charged): 0.98M users
• Mobile membership: 5.58M users

(The number of premium membership users reached 1M on October 13th, this year.)

<Gender>

• Male: 68%
• Female 32%

<Generation>

• 10s: 21.7%
• 20s: 45.0%
• 30s: 21.0%
• 40s: 8.0%
• 50s: 2.2%

Those in their 20s who have signed up with Nico Nico Douga shares 60% of the entire population of Japanese in their 20s.

<Access stats>

• Average daily page view: 80.56M
• Average daily visitors: 2.82M
• Average time spent per visit: 38.5mins

Meanwhile, Nico Nico Douga announced they would open their new office next month in Takeshita Dori, which is a pedestrian-only street lined with fashion boutiques in Harajuku.  The office has a studio, a coffee shop and souvenir shops selling merchandise designed by artists who have been aired and spotlighted on NicoNico Douga.

大きな地図で見る

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Foodiebay Rebrands to Zomato

Foodiebay recently raised Rs. 4.7 Crores from InfoEdge and the NCR based startup has rebranded itself to Zomato.com.

The rebranding decision comes in the wake of company moving beyond the ‘food’ category.

“We plan to expand not only to more cities in India but to countries as well. Starting next year we plan to go international in our offerings and it’s not just that, we want to offer you more than just restaurant directory listings. As a product, we want to evolve into a recommendation engine that suggests you the best places to order home delivery from or to dine-out at. We are also planning to launch a nightlife section very soon. Overall, the question we want to answer for you in the longer term is – “Where should I go today”?

We saw that if we wanted to touch broader horizons then the name “Foodiebay” wasn’t going to be the best option since it might restrict our perception as just a food website. And right now was the time to reflect deeply and think about what we should be christened as especially since we are going to invest heavily in marketing the brand. Another thought that was at the back of our minds was to prevent any overstepping of ebay when we start accepting online payments.  Given these goals, we put our heads to the grindstone and thought a lot about it the last 2 weeks. “ – blog

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Kadokawa To Launch E-Book Distribution Platform; Some Novelists Can’t Wait And Launch Their Own

Kadokawa Shoten Publishing[J] and its subsidiaries, which are known for having published many comic titles and magazines, announced on Friday that they would launch an e-book distribution platform called Book Walker next month.

Approximately 100 titles will be available for the iPhone and the iPad users at the launch of the platform, and 20 titles will be added every week thereafter.   They expect some 1,000 titles are ready not only for the iPhone and the iPad users but also for the Android and PC users by next July and revenue of USD125M in the year of 2014.

15 companies belonging to the group are expected to participate the platform, and provide e-book, videos/films, character merchandise and social game apps on it.   Third-party publishers can also join it to sell their content.   “We aim at establishing a business model that allows paper-printed books and e-books to co-exist.”, Kadogawa Contents Gate[J] director Yoichi Yasumoto says.  For example, they will provide extra content on the platform only to those who have purchased a book at a bookstore.   The company emphasizes the platform will never break the existing business relationship between publishers and bookstores.

Book Walker is intended to be integrated with social media to strengthen marketing efforts, and Kadokawa tied up with Japan’s largest video sharing site Nico Nico Douga[J] as the first attempt of their social media integration.   Nico Nico Douga is expected to introduce a viewer app that enables to not only read e-books on the platform but also check up reader reviews which are overlapped on the e-book viewing screen just like viewer reviews on Nico Nico Douga.

The company is expecting to enhancing the platform that enables to distribute e-books in English and Chinese languages for reaching out Japanese literature and comic fans outside the country.

Meanwhile, Japanese popular novelist Ryu Murakami who is known for having won the Akutagawa prize with his first work Almost Transparent Blue, launched his own e-book publisher called G2010 in early this month.   The company deals with many titles authored by several well-known novelists including Mr. Murakami, exclusively online.  “Publishing companies have professionals on creating paper-printed books, but neither on e-books.   For having good partnerships with many publishers, we’ve decided not to tie up with a specific publisher.”, he says.

See Also:

• Reasons Why I Founded G2010 and Its Circumstances (By Ryu Murakami) [J]

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Nokia OVI Chat now Powered by Yahoo

May of 2010, Nokia and Yahoo announced partnership deal that made Yahoo the default search and email provider on Nokia’s phones (and in turn, Nokia’s Ovi will power Yahoo’s mobile and desktop apps).

Nokia OVI chat application will now be completely powered by Yahoo and the alliance will bring newer functionality to Ovi Chat, including the ability to add Yahoo! Messenger friends to your Ovi Chat friend list and access Ovi Chat from a browser.

Excerpts from the email sent by Nokia

To prepare for these changes, you need to begin using the Chat application on your Nokia phone. Access the Chat application from the Chat icon on your Nokia phone or by downloading it from the Ovi Store (see links below). Then, launch Chat on your phone, select Register/Create Account, and follow the instructions to log in with your existing Ovi account credentials.
If you are viewing this email on a computer, click here:>> http://ct.nokia.com?106525350&121-EISKI to send the Chat application to your mobile.If you are viewing this email on your mobile, click here:>> http://ct.nokia.com?106525350&121-EISKL to download the Chat application.
The Ovi Contacts application will continue to be supported by Nokia, but you can only take advantage of the new Ovi Chat capabilities or chat with other Ovi Chat users if you are using the Chat application. The Chat application also gives you access to other popular IM services so you can chat with your friends across multiple portals/communities from the same place on your phone.
We look forward to seeing you on the new and improved Ovi Chat Powered by Yahoo! service.Sincerely,Ovi by Nokia

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Enterprise Mobility .. It’s Awesomely Cool

[Pluggd.in is looking for UnCool employees and in the post we mentioned enterprise software as boring. Lalit, founder of Mobisy replies back with some cool stuff on enterprise software. An interesting read.]

I was surprised  when Ashish called Enterprise Software “boring” in this post.
I don’t know much about other enterprise sectors but Enterprise Mobility is anything but “boring”.

Following are some basic fundamentals:

• If you are in India and you want to start something on your own you simply cannot ignore Mobile. It’s the only connected computational device in the hands of hundreds of millions of people.
• If you are in Mobile business and if you are doing something which is just recreational/casual, then “don’t do it” here’s why.

So as an entrepreneur the only opportunity you have is to do something which affects hundreds of millions of people at the core.

Is being connected on social networking “core” to one’s existence?

Is downloading and playing around with a “social” game absolutely important?

Is IP call groundbreaking?

Is finding nearest restaurant going to solve a problem for hundreds of millions?

Is accessing email on mobile going to affect something basic in my life?

The answer is absolutely NO.

Is getting job updates on Mobile solving something fundamental?

Is mobile payment/money transfer going to change my life?

The answer is “May be …”

But consider this.

Is getting an healthcare advise from a qualified doctors in medical emergency going to save lives?

Is delivering education on mobile going to play important part in India’s growth?

Is finding fake drugs using a mobile bar-code scanner going to empower users?

Is empowering NGO’s to improve effectiveness of their workforce going to have far reaching impact on rural India?

Is delivering correct weather forecast to 60% of India’s farmer population  going to improve their life?

The answer is HELL YA.

Mobile Enterprise application companies such as ours work exactly in those areas.

And if saving/improving lives  and life standards of people is not cool, I don’t know what is.

Image courtesy: Yourlivebranch, Republished from Lalit’s blog.

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