Facebook spam on the rise : Is it headed the Orkut way?

Facebook is no doubt a great platform to keep in touch with your friends but privacy on Facebook has been hotly debated. Last year there was a major overhaul in Facebook’s privacy features after it drew a lot of criticism from the internet community. Privacy fears may have been put to rest on Facebook, for now it seems, but there’s another factor that’s adding to discontent amongst the users of the world’s most popular social network, spam. Facebook spam has steadily been growing and its unsuspecting users that propagate it unknowingly. Spamsters trick users into believing that clicking on the link might show them their profile views and such.

Orkut, Google’s social network that lost it due to fake profiles, spam and lack of privacy, is a good example of what can happen when users are disgruntled. You may recall that Orkut had been hit by Bom Sobado virus last year, it collected information and posted scraps on the scrapbook of all your contacts. Social gaming and posting to walls has been one of the major contributors to the success of Facebook, but there is no way a newbie user can tell the difference between spam posts and posts from friends.

Today a new spam app that is making the rounds on Facebook has already filled my wall as well as notifications page. Whatever space was left has been taken up by friends apologizing and asking me to ignore or posting unmentionable words directed at spammers. What a turn off! If you think your account may have been hacked, please change your password immediately and check the pluggd.in page for updates on spam that we’ll be sure to report immediately.

A spam doing the rounds today will show you as tagged in a video and ask you to do a few key presses. The spam shows as its been sent from an iPhone and will post to friends too. Do not click on the spam message and mark as spam from your wall page ( Do no click on the notification if you see it in the bar at the top).

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Is Cash on Delivery THE catalyst for E-tailing in India?

[Editorial Notes: This article published under series called “Bring Your Own Insights”, where we bring selected guests (invite-only) to share their insights with Pluggd.in audience on a regular basis.

We have always believed that our readers bring a lot of insights, so why not enable a direct channel for them to share their insights/experience with the audience? These guests will come from different industries and will share their insights on a very frequent basis. Here is presenting an insightful article written by Deepak Sriniath, who is cofounder of Viedea Capital Advisors.]

I often hear people saying that e-commerce entrepreneurs in India have it easy when it comes to ideas for their startups- they simply have to look at what has worked in the US and copy that model. Group Buying sites inspired by Groupon are the favorite examples used to illustrate this. Sure, E-commerce startup’s in India are by and large inspired by successful US models – Group buying for services and products, private sales for fashion, flash sales for electronics and accessories, category specific sites such as baby products or shoes…you name the e-commerce startup in India and there is a corresponding US model.

However, it would be massively unfair to Indian E-commerce entrepreneurs not to give them credit for the clever and sometimes subtle adaptations to suit Indian markets and consumers. Perhaps the most significant and game changing of all these innovations is the ”Cash on Delivery’ (COD) payment option. In fact, I will stick my neck out and say that the e-tailing business in India owes its explosive growth to COD.

For a long time any discussion or article on E-commerce in India centered around the twin problems of low internet penetration and low debit/credit card base. Add to this the perceived ‘trust issues’ of Indian consumers for transacting online and it was believed that e-commerce in India would take years and years to scale. As recently as 18 months ago, while the online travel model was relatively well established, it was difficult to imagine how e-tailing or online purchase of physical goods would take off anytime soon.

And then the e-tailing revolution happened, and how! Flipkart and Infibeam led the charge, starting off with categories such as books, music CD’s, etc which were easier to sell online. As reports of their phenomenal growth came in, the trickle turned into a flood and at least a hundred e-tailing startup’s sprung up across the country across all possible categories. VC money started pouring into these startup’s and valuations based on annualized Gross Merchandize Value (GMV) multiples became the norm. Hygiene factors such as Internet and card base reaching critical mass had helped but the real reason why sales took off was perhaps a small innovation in the payment model called Cash on Delivery.

It allowed internet consumers to ‘order’ without paying upfront and allowed them the luxury of seeing the product (or at least the packaging box ) before they paid for it. Logistics companies such as Bluedart and Aramex supported this model and trained their employees to collect payments. COD entails an extra charge of Rs.75 to 100, but consumers don’t seem to mind. Suddenly the limitation imposed by card base or trust issues for online purchase were redundant. Moreover, India has a large parallel ‘cash economy’ which has its own dynamics and cash payments are the preferred mode for all non salaried professionals. It’s a win-win situation for e-commerce firms and consumers and the only flip side to the e-commerce firm is an increase in working capital requirement.

So what % of e-tailing happens through COD? E-tailers I’ve interacted with say that 50% to 80% of their sales come from COD and rejection rates upon delivery are lower than 10%. I’m not sure whether COD was the brainchild of a single e-commerce firm or whether it evolved naturally as a solution to the payment problem based on a facility logistics partners anyway provided. Nevertheless, this collaborative innovation in business model and it’s impact on e-commerce in India should be the subject of a business school case study.

What’s your opinion?
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» Do check out our detailed coverage of ecommerce in India.

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Nokia Kills Ovi Brand, Ovi To Be Rebranded As Nokia

Nokia’s OVI store had a disastrous launch and two years later, the company hasannounced killing the OVI brand. All the Ovi services will be rebranded as Nokia services in a transition expected to continue into 2012. Each of the services under the Ovi umbrella will simply be rebranded as Nokia, with no planned disruption to the service roadmaps.

By centralizing our services identity under one brand, not two, we will reinforce the powerful master brand of Nokia and unify our brand architecture – while continuing to deliver compellingopportunities and experiences for partners and consumers alike.

The transition from Ovi to Nokia will begin in July this year, with the intention of it being completed across all countries and all services by the end of 2012. It’s likely that anybody buying a new Nokia smartphone or mobile phone later this year will start to see the new branding on services included within. However anybody already owning a Nokia phone will see this new rebranding through future software updates.

This is solely a name-changing exercise and the service roadmaps will continue exactly as planned. The only difference consumers can expect to see is the replacement of the word Ovi with Nokia, not only on their device software but also in other places such as printed material or online media and advertisements.[source]

Given the fuzziness around Nokia’s future (Nokia’s Open Letter to Developers [What About Symbian?]), this completely comes as a shocker. The company should try to regain developer’s trust (who are now moving to Android) and name changing (which is probably done post-Microsoft deal) does more harm than good.

What’s your opinion?

Recommended Read

• 10 Things Nokia Should Do in India (and Emerging Markets)
• The App Ecosystem Story in India
• Is Stephen Elop The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Nokia?

Latest Ovi News: Nokia launches Ovi Store with RCom Partnership [Operator Billing]

OVI Statistics

• Ovi Store attracts 3.5 million downloads a day, with an average of 2.6 apps downloaded per visit.
• About 90% of Ovi Store traffic converts to downloads.
• Of Ovi Store’s signed-in users, 85% are repeat visitors.
• Each active user averages 8.5 downloads per month.
• Active users represent more than 190 countries.
• Games are No. 1 among paid downloads, and apps are No.1 among free downloads.
• 40% of the content downloaded are games and 30% are apps.
• 90% of Ovi Store users have Ovi Store in their local languages.
• 400,000 new Forum Nokia developers were added in the last 12 months.
• 92 publishers have over 1 million downloads each on Ovi Store.

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[Video] The Entrepreneurial Spirit

Every company that exists today had to have been a startup before. The Entrepreneurial Spirit documents the journey of four teams as they pitch, build and pitch (again) over a period of 54 hours as part of the global Startup Weekend (SW) movement.

“Shot at Startup Weekend Baltimore, the goal was to explore the type of drive and mind it takes to start a company and the steps it takes to get going. This documentary was sponsored by millennialmedia.com and produced by shineonstorytelling.com.”

Inspired? Singapore recently had our second run of SW. The next session will probably be held sometime in October of this year. Stay tuned as we will announce it here on SGE.

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A Redefined Meritocracy as the New Social Compact for Singapore?

As I pondered over the contents of this post over the weekend, a new chapter in Singapore’s history was being written. On Saturday, 16 May 2011, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong issued a joint statement announcing their retirement from the Cabinet. “We have studied the new political situation and [...] Related posts:

1. Singapore, in the words of Mr. Taxi Driver
2. Weighing in on Singapore Elections 2011
3. The Tin Pei Ling Incident is a Storm in a Teacup

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China’s Top Angels Share With Stanford Students: How to Cooperate with China’s Investors

[This article is contributed by our guest contributor Ying Peng, based in Silicon Valley]

On the evening of May 5th, Yongqiang Qian, the founder of New Oriental and Jp Gan, a well-known angel investor and Managing Director at Qiming Ventures, met with students in Stanford University, and discussed the topic “How to cooperate with the Chinese investors”.

30% of successful Chinese entrepreneurs are Stanford returnees

In the past ten years, overseas Chinese returnees have made great contributions to the booming development of China’s internet industry. Among the successful entrepreneurs, about 30% returnees graduated from Stanford. It’s no exaggeration to say that every few years amongst the audience someone would emerge a founder of an outstanding company.

Most top students choose prestigious professions like banking and less likely to do start-ups

As Qian had started his own enterprise before, he shared with Stanford’s masters, doctors and MBAs with his experiences. He said jokingly that Mr Gan was a successful example as he had always been able to score the most outstanding students, but he himself was on the opposite side.  The top 5 students in a class rarely chose to set up an enterprise. After graduation from elite schools, most of them ended up working in investment banks or consulting industry.

Building a start-up is not easy

However, the path to start-up was fraught with difficulties. There might only be one who would succeed in 100 starters. The successful internet start-up founders nowadays have dazzling stories, but the fact was that more start-ups are unknown and unsung before they could grab headlines.

It’s hard to set up a successful enterprise, but there are still many opportunities waiting to be taken advantage of in China, where not many companies own their brand and value. He illustrated Jumei.com as an example. At first the team focused on advertising in web-games. However after the failure of that project, they identified their current opportunity in women’s cosmetics group-buying. They already had a united team, enough technology and experience so evenutally succeeded with Jumei.com.

Three ways of how to attract VC attention

Qian also described which start-up projects can attract him. He pointed out that there were two ways in general, one was to be introduced by his friends, and the other was able to appeal to his mind within 20 minutes.

Jp Gan described three ways of attracting middle-term investor’s attention:

• Firstly, the target market of the company should be infinite just like Facebook. The starters should figure out their target audience and marketing strategy clearly in their early stage.
• Secondly, the starters should have full control over their product and be able to make their products perfect, just like what Robin Li, the founder of Baidu, had done.
• Thirdly, team is of great importance. The special skills of the team members were better if they complement each other. For the three members of Ctrip.com, they respectively were good at technology, marketing and financing capacity.

A good angel investor can help a lot by providing constructive advice. Also they could make it easier for the start-ups to get financed.

The investor and entrepreneur dynamics

Mr. Gan was asked ‘if there were more investors than entrepreneurs in China?’He answered there is in the pre-IPO stage. However, in the early stage, when the start-ups were in need of the funds from angel investors, investors’ have more power to make the decisions.

Dealing with the government

Mr. Gan said that many VC’s don’t want to cooperate with Chinese returnees considering their lack of capacity to work with the government. However, according to his own experience, he deemed that it was not hard to keep a good relationship with the government if you were humble and modest.

Dealing with the giant Tech companies

Mr. Qian does not agree that giant tech companies like Tencent will obstruct the development of start-ups. To start up an enterprise, you should always take competition into consideration. But what is more important is whether you can be the best in what you do.

Related posts:

1. Hong Kong Startups Need Investors
2. Chinese Angels Going Overseas
3. IPG’s MediaBrands Ventures, One of Facebook’s Investors, Is Now in China

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12th Start-Up@Singapore Awards Ceremony

This year, Start-Up@Singapore (S@S) saw 1000 participants from over 17 countries, making it the most successful installment thus far. The awards cermeony will showcase the finalists of the 12th Start-Up@Singapore and their ideas. Having been through months of rigorous judging processes and mentoring, the finalists will enter a final showdown on the day itself, with the winning teams from both categories walking away with attractive prizes of close to SGD$100K (USD$80K). Check out the speakers below and view the programme here.

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Speakers

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William W. H. Liu, Chairman of Stream Global Pte Ltd and W3 Infocomm Group Pte Ltd

Mr William Liu (or Bill as he is more commonly known) started his career in the I.T. industry in 1970 after graduating with a B.Sc Hons in Mechanical Engineering from University of Manchester and a M.Sc in OR & Management Studies from Imperial College.He is currently a Board member of SISTIC.com Pte Ltd, the National Library Board and Monte Jade Singapore. Mr Liu was actively involved in IDA’s 2015 “Intelligent Nation, A Global City powered by Infocomm” Master Plan, sitting on 3 sub-committees, viz. Infocomm Competency Council, Financial Services and Enterprise Development.

Yenn Wong, Founder of JIA Boutique Hotels group

Ms. Yenn Wong, 31, is the Founder of JIA Boutique Hotels group of which the first hotel, JIA Hong Kong, opened in March, 2004. The Philippe Starck-designed JIA was the first designer boutique hotel in Hong Kong and Starck’s first hotel in Asia. Since then she has added to the JIA “collection” with JIA Shanghai in August, 2007 and its Italian restaurant Issimo. Yenn herself has received several awards since founding JIA, which include: “Innovative Entrepreneur of the Year 2006″ by Hong Kong’s City Junior Chamber ‘Hospitality Entrepreneur of the Year’ in the Hospitality Asia Platinum Awards 2006 and the Martell ‘Rise Above’ Award 2007. She was also named on the list of top 26 “Asia’s Best Young Entrepreneurs” by Businessweek.

Kenny Eng, Founder of Gardenasia

Starting off with a product-based business concept, Kenny’s foresight and entrepreneur instincts quickly took flight when he saw the potential of lifestyle marketing and holistic services. Gardenasia soon expanded to manage portfolios ranging from corporate events, to Artwine and even garden weddings. Gardenasia imbues the philosophy of its parent company, Nyee Phoe, in her business model. Kenny was awarded the Emerging Young Entrepreneur by E-Global in 2004 and in the following year, he was an Honouree for the Spirit of Enterprise Award. Keeping himself ahead of our changing times, Kenny is also an active member of several organizations which include *Scape Co.Ltd, Kranji Countryside Association, SouthWest CDC and the Singapore Youth Olympics Organising Committee.

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Event Details

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When: Saturday 21st May 2011
Time: 1215PM-5PM
Where: Kent Ridge Guild House, 9 Kent Ridge Drive, Singapore, 119241

Register here

View Larger Map

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redBus Raises $6.5 million Series C Funding [Round To Last Till 2015]

redBus has raised $6.5 million in Series-C funding round, led by Helion Venture and participated in by the existing investors, Seedfund and Inventus Capital Partners. The company will use the funds for footprint expansion and increasing penetration in its current markets.

redBus recently crossed 3.5 million passenger journeys and clocked over Rs. 120 crores in gross bookings. The Bangalore based startup has raised funding till 2015 and is planning to go big bang on breadth*depth.

A few product features planned include round trip bookings, user registrations etc, but the bigger picture for redBus is the software piece they license – BOSS (Bus Operator Software Services). Two government owned operators (Delhi/Goa) are alredy using this service.

As far as  the consumer part is concerned, the company plans to expand in North/NE regions and also, increase penetration across tier-2 cities (Phani mentions that they have identified 26 new locations).
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The redBus Story

Watch redBus’ founder, Phanindra Sama sharing the redBus story at UnPluGGd, India’s finest startup event.

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Pilani Soft Labs Pvt Ltd owns 3 brands: redBus – the company’s bus ticketing brand; BOSS – the company’s SaaS product that is used by bus operators for their inventory management, and; SeatSeller – the company’s bus inventory distribution platform that is used by travel agents interested in selling bus tickets.

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IndyaRocks Closing The Loop of Local-Social-Mobile With DealYantra. Groupon Now?

IndyaRocks, the Indian social networking site has launched a group buying site DealYantra. DealYantra brings you local deals from 6 cities viz. Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai. The deals are from the usual categories such as food, lifestyle, clothing etc.
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Mobile Internet Trends for 2011–SoLoMo [Social, Local & Mobile]

4Cs of mobile marketing: currency (value), conversation, community and content [Mobile Insights]

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The interesting part about DealYantra is the fact that it is coming from a site that already has huge traffic. IndyaRocks claims to have 6.2million registered users and even if a small percentage of that is active, it is still enough to get the much needed initial push to DealYantra. Recently, Mouthshut launched DealFace, and the traffic for the latter is already on the rise. And hopefully this has come through minimal loss in ad inventory.

Now add the fact that Indyarocks’ founder recently announced the funding of Mojostreet, a location based game which we believe is going to be similar to Foursquare. So do we see an interesting loop closing here? Now if only they could revive the Indyarocks network and get the users to do more beyond sending free SMS and uploading videos for money.

Groupon recently announced Groupon Now, a location aware phone app for buying deals. If done right Mojostreet + DealYantra would be similar and even more engaging.

What do you think of this development. Can Indyarocks pull it off?

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News Roundup: Reliance Tops The MNP Loser List

As per GSM body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) data, as of April 28, RCom is the biggest MNP loser, with a combined net loss of 10,70,747 users, out of which its newly launched GSM operations took the worst hit with 7,45,877 port-outs, while its port-ins stood at a low of 1,30,16.

So far, only about 4 million out of 771 million users have dumped their operators in the first five months. [source]

Govt asks MTNL, BSNL to synergise operations, function as one entity

The government has asked the two telecom PSUs – BSNL and MTNL – to synergise their operations and function as one entity, pending their merger, offering Pan-India services. BSNL provides all telecom services – fixed-line, mobile, STD, ISD, internet etc – in 20 circles other than Delhi and Mumbai, where MTNL operates.[source]

Azim Premji Invests $15mn in Vinod Khosla’s clean-tech fund

Wipro’s chairman, Azim Premji has invested in Vinod Khosla’s cleantech fund. Khosla’s green fund investments range from cellulosic ethanol firm Range Fuels and LS9 that designs microbes to produce biofuels.
In 2009, Khosla Ventures raised nearly $1.1 billion for two funds focussed on green technology and information technology start ups.[source]

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