News Roundup : iVdopia Launches InWAP and PreWAP Video Ad Formats in India

Mobile Ad Network, iVdopia has launched HTML5 video and rich media ad formats for the mobile web: InWAP and PreWAPads.

Up until now, advertisers have been restricted to advertising on WAP sites using only static banners and textual links, which lack the ability to create strong user engagement and interactivity.Bringing its expertise in mobile video advertisingwith HTML5 technology, iVdopia allows advertisers to engage users on WAP sites with dynamic video and interactive rich media ads, including InWAP ad formats –ads that play within the webpage – and PreWAP ad formats –ads that auto-play when a webpage is loaded onto mobile screens.

Jivox Launches ‘BrandGage’.

Bangalore based Jivox, an interactive video advertising technology provider, has announced the launch of ‘BrandGage’ a completely new approach to measuring and optimizing interactive online video advertising. ‘BrandGage’, a new analytics and insight platform, enables brands to determine user engagement at different stages in the purchasing decision process in real-time, delivering critical insight into campaign effectiveness.

Each Jivox ad is automatically pre-instrumented with analytic tags that report back to the Jivox platform several hundred million events per campaign, relating to user interaction with the video ad. BrandGage collects this user engagement data in real-time from its interactive video ads and uses sophisticated, patent pending algorithms to determine user intent and what stages of the purchase funnel they are likely to be in awareness, consideration, engagement or intent to purchase. Connecting advertising with purchase intent in real-time eliminates the limitations of current approaches and raises the bar for online video advertising measurement and performance. [details here].

- ValueFirst has unveiled new Identity that showcases the transformation from one-product company to multi-product enterprise.

- Hungama has partnered with Sify to offer Hungama coupons to download music from Hungama site.

- Zapak will distribute Cartoon Network’s Multiplayer Online Games (Ben10 Omniverse etc) in India

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Yes, No… Maybe? The response to Malaysia’s new ’4G’ network

YTL Communications, part of the heavyweight conglomerate YTL Corporation, launched their WiMax mobile broadband service, dubbed Yes 4G, on Friday, Nov 19, with heavy expectations from a Malaysian public eager to see a new player in the broadband space.

YTL Corp, whose primary activity is infrastructure and construction, comes into this space with a bold strategy and price plan: touting itself as the country’s “fastest mobile Internet with voice”, Yes 4G offers a pay-as-you-use structure of 9 sen (about US$0.03) per 3 megabytes of use/1 minute of voice calls/1 SMS message.

On launch day, YTL Comm also rolled out several devices tied into the system, including the Huddle, a MiFi-like device for WiMax that can connect up to five devices, and the Samsung Epic 4G phone, which uses YTL Comm’s proprietary VOIP software to make calls on its WiMax network.

Unfortunately, YTL Comm didn’t have the best of rollouts. The homepage was down for long spells throughout the following weekend, with YTL Comm claiming that the site was targeted by malicious hackers and received “as many as 300,000 hits a second”.

Then there were also reports by many users on Twitter that their passwords to their pre-registered accounts were not working, and security concerns when users received their secure passwords in plain text via email.

Though YTL Comm did have a very rough patch, early hands-on reviews on the service have been positive, with the service being able to deliver what it preaches: three to five times the speed offered by 3G services here. Here are some of the reactions:

Colin Charles, bytebot.net:

The network works. The mail works. Their login to manage your Yes ID still does not work as I write this (post dated 23 Nov, 2010).

To me, this launch seemed a little rushed. There should have been some kind of soft-launch. Just look at the image about online security for example – “One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar” – shows they’ve lacked QA and things have been rushed. In fact, today there is no way to check your usage quota. There’s a lot of finesse missing, so why the rush?

Dinesh Nair,  Alphaque

… it was only 72 hours after the launch though that most of the problems they had in the website and WiMAX network (which to indications went off the air for a while from Saturday afternoon) were ironed out, and the chasm had been crossed. Indications started coming in of people enjoying good speeds, and I managed to clock a sustained 11Mbps download for 15 minutes in PJ yesterday night. However so, most indications of the packet latency and jitter on the network is weak with ping times approaching 180ms and jitter of 40ms to MyIX. While it is to be expected from mobile wireless technology, it does raise questions on the quality of YES’s voice offering, as that is inherently VoIP.

Malaysian tech community forum, Lowyat.net

There is no doubting the speed that Yes4G has to offer despite it being early days yet. The promise of 3-5x faster than 3G has been fulfilled but I can’t help wonder what it will be like when more people adopt the service. For standard usage, youtube streams perfectly fine up to 1080p in some cases and 720p most of the time. The gripe I have is at such a high speed, I can’t help feel that the prices are still on the high side as a fast connection turns you to a heavy user.

Edwin Yapp, The Malaysian Insider

Three-five times faster than 3G speeds claimed by YES, while seemingly impressive, means that users are supposed to receive between 4.5Mbps and 7.5Mbps assuming an average download speed of 1.5Mbps experienced currently by 3G users. But according to some who have tried YES, the realistic speeds hover only around 4-6 Mbps.

This is not bad for starters but bear in mind that any wireless service will always suffer from environmental variations such as building clutter, radio wave reflections and even foliage blockages, which will ultimately affect speed and reliability.

Yes 4G appears to have recovered after having such a disastrous start. However, being a new service, there are many caveats as to how long it can keep the pace, and with patchy coverage area it’s doubtful many would want to switch from their regular mobile phones to a VOIP phone that relies on WiMax as their primary communications device.

The cautious approach was shared by market analysts, which “unanimously” remained neutral on the service as it was still too early to determine its impact on the telco sector. Investment bank ECM Libra’s  head analyst, Bernard Ching, said the YTL Corporation’s entry into the telco business would not cause any immediate or irrational increase in competition.

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BootUP, Hong Kong’s new startup event, in pictures

Hong Kong’s startup community came out for BootUP, a mini Startup Weekend-type event, which happened last weekend. A group of people were gathered to build their ideas over two days. This was the first major event that was held at BootHK, Hong Kong’s new hackerspace.

BootUP had 19 attendees from diverse backgrounds who worked on seven projects coming out of the event. BootHK founder and BootUP organizer, Jon Buford, said that diksee.com, a location-based iPhone app, is one “very hopeful” project that was created over the weekend. Buford also said that one of the attendees, who worked in finance, was inspired enough by the event to quit his day job to start a company.

You can find a detailed write-up of the event at BootHK’s official blog here.

The Hong Kong startup scene has become active since StartupSaturday in August. Eighteen local startups pitched at the event, a first for the territory, and the attention it attracted also helped launch BootHK.

The next BootUP will be in three months’ time. Till then, check out the pictures from the event.

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ChinaMode Awards 2010 is For the Startups in China

As a tech blogger, I should have written about the drama between QQ and 360. Probably I am not the ‘typical’ Chinese netizen as I seldom use QQ and have never used 360, but still I found that whole thing is really crap. They are one of the biggest companies in China, and there is so much valuable experience to learn from them, but the hope for Chinese internet, I think relies on plenty of startups and young entrepreneurs which need help to be identified and grow faster.

Addition to talking about those internet giants everyday, we need (also need educate the grassroot) to look into Chinese market from another angel. As least we hope, more exciting stuff here can be explored.

It is true that there is still nowhere like Silicon Valley which sounds like heaven for startups; you may also question about the quality of Chinese startups which in most people’s opinion are lack of innovation; you many also debate that the environment for these startups here is still not mature, and good incubators, angel investors, etc are still missing. But we want to give it another try to build a platform which could be a key to a healthy ecosystem, so for the second time, together with other 24 popular bloggers, ChinaMode Awards 2010 has been announced.

This year, we set up 8 awards for the best startups/service in the area of life style, social communications, entertainment, productivity, mobile apps, online forum focus on mobile, international service and innovation. We are so glad that this year we have more supporter such as UC, Lintek, NanRenWa, KUUKIE, AskForm, ChinesePod, YanCreate etc, as media support from Sina’s Weibo, QQ Weibo, Netease etc. Even more important, big names like Orange France, Telekom, MediaBrands Venture, IDG, GSR Ventures, DaD-Asia are willing to sponsor us, which give us the possibility to hold a ceremony early next year to award ChinaMode Winners.

The nomination has started this Monday. If you are interested in reporting this awards, please kindly let us know and help us to spread the words to the global industry. If you are with a startup, no matter how small you are, get you a ChinaMode badge and get your colleague, friends to nominate now!

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Internet Trends–Streaming Video Gaining Market Share of Internet/Mobile Usage

What’s hot in the Internet space globally? Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley recently presented at Web 2.0 Summit 2010 and if you are an entrepreneur building Internet business, you should watch the entire video (and download the copy of the report).

The Report

Internet Trends Presentation

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Startup Employee Survey – Why Do They Enter The Non-Startup Mode?

I have been interviewing a lot of techies for a position at my startup. Most of them are working for a startup or want to work for one. The last question that i ask them is, why do you want to move on? The most common reply is, “i have learnt enough and now i want to move into a more stable job with higher compensation“, this is a typical case when their current startup is not doing very well.

There are few other interesting reasons that surfaced during the interview which i personally never thought would be so critical. But given the fact that these are highly skilled and experienced humans, this is worth paying attention.

1. Founder Over-ridding decisions – A couple of candidates complained of the founder communicating to other junior employees, reporting to the candidate, to get things done. Like a founder communicating to a trainee programmer to make changes on the site. The candidate believed that even the smallest of things coming under his responsibility had to go through him. Which looks pretty justified as you can’t be expecting people to take up responsibilty if you are over-riding his authority.

As a founder we love our baby so much that we just can’t let the minutest of changes taking place without being in total control. Even if we are not the best guys we always have a bias to what we think as “looks better”. At times these small changes are experiments for personal satisfaction.

In areas where the guy incharge has a better experience, it is best leave the decisions to him. Let him own that piece of the organization. Advice him, discuss with him but don’t tell him. As an organization its part of the work to let people grow, let everyone be leaders. You will not be around forever but the organization has to survive, because it is not just about you but also about the other people who believed in your story and have invested growing years of their career with it.

There is an interesting article on Skipping and Dipping which summarizes the point as, it is good to Dip into hierarchy to cross check the work but never Skip the leader in hierarchy to get the work done.

2. Doesn’t speak my language – That is what the candidate literally meant. The guy who he was reporting to had a different native language. At times he would go about saying something in his native language, which the candidate found unpleasant or insulting. Although all communication was done in a common language but those small gestures and jokes that came in a different language was very uncomfortable. He wouldn’t even know if it was sarcastic. Since the other guy was senior, he had the liberty to pass with any statement but that destroyed the environment.

I believe this wouldn’t be a problem in most startups but given the diversity of India, maybe this deserves some attention.

3. Tracks the wrong metrics – The other team members including the founder always discussed the wrong metrics. The candidate supposedly always concentrated on the end result. He believed that there is no-use of getting extra 1000 visitors through ads if your conversion rates would fall. The guy was working for a marketing/promotions company and believed that generating leads for clients with all the inefficient means where the leads wouldn’t convert doesn’t make sense. On interrogating the candidate did say, they were paid on per lead generated and not conversion ratio. Much appreciate his long term vision to maintain credibility of his service.

A guy like him is what you would want to work for you. Someone who doesn’t let long term vision be shadowed by short term goals.

4. Bother about my work and  my holidays – When your employee asks you for a leave, take time to ask for reasons. By bothering about it you are actually making him feel that his work is important.  Ask about it and don’t give sarcastic replies. When someone asks for leave make sure you grant it to him because now that he has it in mind, he wouldn’t be efficient in his work. Know the reason and grant it.

Not only with holidays, if he is asking for anything, invest time and energy to understand ‘why’.

As a founder it is okay to sometimes miss few things when you have so much in hand but you need to cope up with it just to make sure that your startup maintains that growth and dynamism not only in numbers but with the people as well.  Failing which you might either enter into the sarkari mode or become a 1 man organisation, none of which will grow.

Recommended Read: HR Mistakes to Avoid In a  Startup.

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Satish Kini – Healthcare Entrepreneur – Quest for Healthcare for All! Part 1

[Guest article by Satish Kini, Committed health-care entrepreneur, Founder Director & Chief Mentor of 21st Century Health Management Solutions, a healthcare firm that provides low cost healthcare solutions. In this 3 part series, Satish shares his journey of starting like any other IITian and dreaming to move up the corporate ladder (till the calling came)]

I realized that I was wired differently in the 4th year of my B.Tech. like most of the IITians I got my forms for GRE exams – the shortest route to the US. However, after a night of introspection, I auctioned off the forms. I realized that my heart was more in social engineering rather than in the forms of engineering taught at the IITs. I went on to complete my B Tech from IIT Bombay in 1976 and PGDBA from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies in 1981.

The tug-of-war between the mind and the heart continues to-date. My mind pushes me to do what is best for my body, soul, my health and wealth. However, the heart exhorts me to take the path less traveled. Fortunately for my soul, my heart has ruled in most strategic decisions of my life while the mind was left to handle the execution. Today at 57, I feel at peace with myself although I am far from satisfied with my achievements. Like Robert Frost, I believe I have miles to go before I can sleep!

I got the first nudge from my destiny in 1978. I was then the Design Head at a locks plant of Godrej & Boyce. It was a cushy 7-to-4 job. At an unearthly hour of 6.15 am I was rushing across the railway bridge between Dadar Western and Dadar Central. Like the multitude with me, I was running to catch a train to Vikhroli. The mad beggar who lived on the bridge was gesticulating wildly as usual. However, unlike other days, I stopped to listen. What got him so excited at 6am every day? He was shouting excitedly,

“Bhago-Bhago! Subah Is Taraf Bhago, Aur Shaam ko us taraf bhago”( Run-run! In the morning run in one direction and in the evening run in the other direction!“) .

That morning I missed my 6.25 am fast.

His words set my mind racing. Who was mad? The beggar or the millions of educated & intelligent guys running around like rats? It was a rat-race in which the smartest became the winners. Or so I thought. That did not sound right to me. I felt that life necessarily had a bigger purpose than becoming rat No 1. To make a difference, I realized I must be at the management end and not at the delivery end. So, I quit my cushy job in 1979.

It was the turning point No 1. I thank the mad beggar on Dadar Bridge!

I must remind you that the early 80s were the license raj days. There was very little an inexperienced IIT / MBA could do by himself in order to make any impact on the society at large. Many MBAs took cushy jobs with the foreign banks or the MNCs. They sold financial products, toothpaste, soaps and cigarettes. Some joined engineering companies like L&T and Telco. However, most (i.e. 80%) of my IIT batch-mates went abroad in order to make their fortunes. But, I felt compelled to stay back. My dreams were linked to India and Indians. I wanted to make a difference by staying here. However, I did not know where and how to start. Politics was not an option.

I looked for a job where being young and idealistic was not a liability. I also looked for a SME so that I could be close to the top. I needed an inside view of their Vision, Mission and Approach. I cared for an enterprise’s approach towards the business and the society. I wanted to learn how to run a company properly. I also wanted an opportunity to test out my ideas and approach. My search led me to IDM in India’s fledgling IT industry. IDM was a small but high profile IT Solutions Company founded by 170 ex IBM employees, after IBM had to hastily exit Indian shores in 1978 due to restrictions imposed on MNCs.

(To be continued)

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AWS Start-Up Challenge 2010 Asia Semi-Finalists

For the first time since it started 4 years ago, the Amazon Web Services Start-Up Challenge was brought to Asia Pacific. The competition closed November 1st and fifteen semi-finalists have been selected, of which 5 are from Asia. The judges looked at applications, business models, management teams, and use of AWS.

From the group of semi-finalists, seven finalists will be invited to Silicon Valley for the finale on December 8th where they will compete for the grand prize of USD $50,000 in cash, USD $50,000 in AWS credits, and additional goodies such as a year of AWS Premium Support at no charge and some free consulting from the AWS team.

The regional semi-finalists from Asia are Cinemacraft, Dialify, Kaggle, LabSlice, and Mediology:

Cinemacraft – Japan
Cinemacraft service enables every Mobile device to be transformed into a IPTV. Our patented compression and format (Prime Streaming Format) combined with our decoder can be used to stream live and Video on Demand to any mobile device on any network. Our service can stream over 2.5G (30 – 60 kpbs), 3G (100 – 250 kbps), 4G (300 – 500 kbps) & Wi-Fi (400 – 1000 kpbs). We currently support over 70 unique GPRS mobile devices (Asia & Emerging markets) & over 200 unique 3G mobile devices including iPhones, iPads, Androids, Windows and Blackberry devices. We provide end to end solution for telecoms & Content holders to deploy Mobile TV.

Dialify – India
Dialify develops audio games & applications for delivery over all telephony networks making our games ubiquitously available. We believe core voice networks are a powerful medium, capable of delivering complex interactions, data exchange & engaging user experiences. Our products feature – immersive sound stages, interactive gameplay, PvP/PvS & Multi-player interaction models and social engagement – over simple voice calls.

Kaggle – Australia
Kaggle provides predictive analytics solutions via global data modeling competitions. Companies, researchers and governments upload datasets and problems, the world’s best data scientists then submit solutions and compete for prizes. The result for clients is cost effective and more powerful analytics.

LabSlice – Australia
LabSlice allows you to create demos, evaluations and training environments that are stored in the cloud and can be easily shared. We extend the Amazon EC2 cloud to create a self-service and policy controlled lab, where you can share a machine simply by sending an email. Get started with a free trial.

Mediology – India
Mediology DigitalEdition is a SaaS platform that enables print publishers to digitize their content, add interactivity to it and then distribute the content via web, mobile and e-reading platforms. The system achieves its massive scale for content digitization and delivery using event centric cloud computing services.

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Automakers Hire Twitter Influencers as Brand Ambassadors

Beginning this week we are featuring a selection of writings on social media from Penn Olson, a blog that focuses on tech, business and marketing. You’ll come across two to three of these posts every week as we expand e27 to cover a broader range of subjects.

If you are an influential Twitter user, you might be approached by a major automaker to be its brand ambassador.

Ford, Lexus and BMW are some of the brands that are hiring Twitter influencers as an alternative to hiring celebrities. Like in any social groups, there are people who are more influential than the others. Social networking sites have made those influencers more visible.

Hiring Twitter stars has several advantages. They are definitely more affordable and using the same investment, brands could hire more influencers. Their combined reach could even be stronger than a celebrity’s. People trust people like themselves. Getting social media influencers to represent the brand could be more effective as celebrities are too often used as endorsers; to the point that consumers are getting skeptical.

Ford has used this new endorsement method with some success. Last year, it hired 100 social media influencers to test drive its new Ford Fiesta subcompact and post their impressions on social sites like YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. The campaign generated over seven million views on YouTube and four million mentions on Twitter. It drove 130,000 consumers to its website and 83% were previously non-Ford owners. The Wall Street Journal reported. But it wasn’t revealed how many cars were sold through this campaign.

Similar to engaging bloggers for product reviews, getting social media influencers has similar risk. You can’t control what they write about your brand and the campaign could backfire. Engaging celebrity endorsement is a safer route to gain reach but it comes with a hefty price.

– Penn-Olson.com by Willis Wee. Penn Olson is a tech, marketing and business blog based in Singapore.

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Intel AppUp Developer Home Innovation Challenge

The advent of online App stores is rapidly changing app distribution models and it’s interesting to see Intel upping the ante by partnering with big retailers like Best Buy, Dixons (UK) and Croma (India).

Intel just made another announcement with UK-based electronics and appliance retailer, Dixons to introduce the “Home Innovation Project” for the Intel AppUp developer challenge, offering developers an opportunity to “create the next best home enhancing application” and providing developers with the opportunity for reward, recognition and app exposure.

Ideas could be a game, an augmented reality app, or a 3D design tool, basically any idea for a home enhancement app, further enhancing the use of technology in our homes.

So how about it? Maybe an app to alert you whenever your mother-in-law is within 5 feet?

Grand prize of $15,000 USD up for grabs, and 15th Dec 2010 is the final date to submit your abstracts.

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